Before coaching …
I spent fourteen years in banking — trade finance, mining & metals project finance, shipping finance and then sustainable finance.
I worked in three different European investment banks in Paris, Munich and London. I started as an intern and from there I went through all the ranks. By the end, I set up and ran my own team.
For many years, I felt fulfilled. The thrill of closing multi-million-dollar deals. Pitching and winning a mandate. Managing client relationships.
I loved the team work, the sustained efforts through lengthy credit processes, the negotiation of legal documents. I didn’t even mind the late nights and ordering diner at my desk.
In 2021, I pivoted towards sustainable finance and took on the challenge of setting up a new team and developing a new banking offer. After years building my technical skills, I wanted to take my career towards more impactful work.
This role stretched me in many ways. It taught me about leadership, management, strategy. But it also started to make me think about what I really wanted from my career. On paper, it all looked good and I was on track for being made managing director. I consistently delivered on all my objectives, yet as time went by, I realised that my wins felt hollow… A painful realisation.
Coming to terms with the idea that what I used to want was no longer what I wanted wasn’t an easy process and it took a long time to get there. There was a sense of grief and at the same time, liberation.
I left banking in 2024 because I had achieved every I wanted in that chapter of my career. My definition of success had changed. My values had evolved. It took me some time to admit it, but once I did, I knew I had to pivot my career towards something that carried more meaning for me: impact, learning and growth, human connection.
How I came to coaching
It’s actually coaching that came to me !
I started coaching in 2019, as part of a bank programme whereby the bank partnered with charities and paired one banker with a charity manager for coaching.
I read about this programme by chance, in the weekly bank newsletter that I generally never read… and I knew intuitively that I had to be involved.
I was paired with a first-time manager and I started coaching her. And I simply loved it. More specifically, I loved being able to help her see her problems from a different points of view, build confidence in her own strengths and help her find ways to leverage them.
I coached her for 6 months. By the end, she was a more confident manager.
The bank coaching programme ran every year … and I kept coming back to it, every year, driven by a need to contribute something to someone’s professional development and success.
Funnily enough, the last leader I coached as part of the bank/charity programme became one of my first paying clients when I launched my coaching business in 2025.
My approach to coaching
I’m profoundly interested in the topic of who we are becoming as we move through different chapters of our lives. How our identity, our mindset, our way of thinking about things change over time depending on life and career events. A very big promotion. Becoming a parent. Moving countries. Leaving corporate to go freelance.
I work best with finance professionals who sense they are on the threshold of their own development. You might be in a career transition or you might be moving into the first big leadership role of your life. You might not know exactly what your next steps are, but you sense that you are changing.
My style of coaching is open and warm. I coach in a non-directive way, letting you, the coachee, bring your entire self to the session. My coaching technique draws from conventional coaching tools and psychodynamics.
Sometimes, to get you “out of your head”, I might use metaphors, images or even somatic techniques. I listen to what you say, what you do not say, how you say it, the emotions behind your words and the patterns that underpin your thinking.
My aim as a coach is quite simple … it’s to move your thinking forward, your awareness of yourself, your understanding of your beliefs, needs, values and what is important to you, so you can move yourself forward in turn.
Kind words from my clients
Here are a few of the things that clients have told me during or at the end of their coaching session with me, which I have captured on the fly. It's an incredible privilege for me to work with each and every one of them.
Now I realise how rigid my thinking was about how work should be
Merci pour ce coaching de qualité !
I don't think I would have progressed that fast with another coach, thank you for this session Laurence