Matt is a founder and director of the Sandton Coaching Centre in Johannesburg South Africa, a centre that supports individuals and organisations in ongoing personal and professional development in the fields of coaching and leadership. He is an executive coach and coach supervisor, with a passion for the power and potential that coaching has to benefit individuals, organisations and society.
Coaching Approach
Matt has a practical and supportive approach to working with his clients that is underpinned by his ability to get to know and understand the coachee’s work environment and organisational strategy. He works with executives to deepen and ignite their motivation and passion for their role, and to recognise and tackle the apparent and more subtle hurdles to reaching personal and organisational goals. Matt enjoys working with executives and leaders in a variety of contexts who face complex and challenging business environments involving multiple stakeholders. He is most interested in partnering with individuals and organisations who have an insatiable drive to transform and influence society.
Professional History
Matt has always been interested in how best to make a difference in society. At first he was attracted to civil engineering as a profession for the infrastructure benefits it provides. This was matched by an interest in the powerful contribution business and entrepreneurship can make to people’s lives, which led Matt to do an MBA at Cranfield and management research at Bath University. This was followed by 15 years of establishing and running his own businesses. Matt ran building and property development companies in London and Johannesburg, employing up to 45 people. In 2010 he set up the Sandton Coaching Centre with Joanne Searle.
Throughout his career Matt has increasingly recognised the complexity and challenges involved in making a real contribution, and the subtle illusions at play in any claim of progress or development. His main interest is in how to develop, for himself and others, the breadth and depth of personal and social awareness and action that can have a more meaningful impact. This ultimately led Matt to choose coaching as his current career and has included, over a period of 19 years, six different coaching, supervision, psychotherapy and leadership trainings in London and Johannesburg, as well as community and management participation research at the University of Bath. Matt has held committee posts in a variety of professional bodies including Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility in the UK, the Coach Educators and Trainers Association of South Africa and, with the Coaches and Mentors of South Africa, Matt has been National Vice President, Chair of the National Ethics Portfolio Committee and contributor to the Membership Criteria and Standards Committee.
The breadth of this experience informs an in-depth understanding of the considerable challenges facing anyone wishing to make a contribution to society, from individuals to executives and political leaders, from businesses to government and the professions.