Our senior client’s values no longer matched those of her employer; her confidence, happiness and personal success were being adversely affected. She desired a new challenge elsewhere.
Working together with Oxana she created a strong vision of what she wanted to achieve, gained clarity on her core skills, regained her confidence and enhanced her personal brand and visibility.
Shortly afterwards she was appointed to a very exciting senior position in a global consultancy. She describes the process as follows: “Don’t search for jobs, search within yourself”.

A well-respected, expert senior mining industry executive was going through a major transition from full-time executive to Non-Executive Director, also seeking to establish herself as an independent consultant. She was not comfortable in promoting herself and she recognised the need for help in order to advance her career. Oxana worked with her to establish her core competencies and her key career achievements. With Oxana’s help she created a Board CV, a jobsearch strategy, and also established a LinkedIn profile aligned with her career objectives and which communicated her unique experience, skills, and background. She received an invitation to interview for a NED role which led to an offer and her first appointment as an NED. Oxana helped her to develop a winning strategy on how to find another NED role and also to create more visibility in the market for her consulting services. It was a great outcome for her and she was very grateful “for the guidance and positive energy” which she received from her coach.

Our client had been seeking a more senior corporate communications role for years, without success. Ideally she wanted a Director position in a medium-sized company. We established that although she knew what she wanted, she lacked confidence in finding such a job. Oxana worked with her to address her lack of self-belief, strengthen her awareness of her core skills and experience, and help her clearly communicate her unique offerings to potential employers. Oxana then helped with job-search strategy and making business introductions. The transformation and newly-found confidence was very noticeable to her and to ourselves. Within just 2 months she secured her ideal job. Her career has subsequently progressed, encompassing new opportunities and possibilities. A great success story.

Our client, who was seeking a CEO role in the small cap sector, humorously introduced himself to Oxana as “unemployable”. After this rather unusual start, she established that he had spent 15 years in senior corporate finance roles and then entrepreneurial roles establishing new companies, working in executive and NED roles. When Oxana reviewed his CV and LinkedIn profiles and conducted an initial interview with him, it became clear that his mindset and how he presented himself to the market was misaligned with what he would ideally love to do. He agreed with Oxana and decided to invest in coaching. Oxana helped him identify limiting beliefs which were unhelpful to the pursuit of his ideal career. He then achieved clarity about his strengths, skills, experience and values which in turn helped him to define very specifically and precisely what he wanted to contribute in a CEO role. As a result, he gained the confidence to take up a challenging role in his target CEO area which would also enhance his experience and knowledge. He created a very clear, concise and powerful CV and LinkedIn profiles which he is very confident and proud to present to decision-makers. He has not yet landed his dream job but is confident that it will happen within the next 12 months. In the meantime he is enjoying his current challenge and feels very happy with the direction of his career.

A fast-track FTSE100 manager decided upon a change of industry but he was uncertain as to what would be the best choice. We found that he had joined that particular industry purely by chance after working there initially part-time whilst at university. Oxana worked with him to establish his strengths and what would suit him. He had initial doubts regarding our quite radical suggestion but after deciding to try it, he settled in and it became clear that the right choice had been made. Following continued coaching with Oxana, during which obstacles were identified and addressed, promotion followed and his career progressed from strength to strength. He then relocated to another company within the same sector, achieving promotions and becoming one of the most successful managers within that company.

Our client, who had relocated to the UK from Asia, was part-way through completing a self-funded MBA at the London Business School but he was unclear on his subsequent path. Oxana established that the key issues involved his perceived lack of knowledge of the UK and international markets and his perception of himself and what he could offer to potential employers or clients. He was also unaware of how the executive job-search process in the UK operates and how senior people find executive roles in a business culture with which he was totally unfamiliar. We addressed these issues and helped him to get clarity on what was important to him, what he was really good at, where he wanted to grow and what he wanted to learn next. We then created an effective CV tailored towards his target audience, as well as an effective LinkedIn profile. Oxana also helped him with scripts for making direct contacts with decision makers and those who could introduce him to interesting projects where he could add significant value. The coaching was conducted in the Russian language. The outcome was a clear path, strategy and action plan for an effective post-MBA job-search, introductions to some important industry contacts and greatly increased self-confidence - as well as market knowledge about compensation and how senior hiring works in the UK and in other Western countries.

Our client wanted to change her career path and move to a different industry. She had a very strong vision about her long-term goal but she did not know where to start or how to set herself on the right track to achieve her vision. Oxana worked with her to identify her transferable skills and experience, helped her to get clarity on her strengths, develop a career plan containing both shortterm and medium-term objectives, and helped her to align her mindset with what she needed to do first. After 6 months of intensive work she secured her first job in the new industry. She has subsequently built upon that experience and is now working on various entrepreneurial projects including at government level.

Our client had reached a crisis point with his current employer, though they were unaware of this. He approached us to help find new opportunities in the Far East, where he had enjoyed his previous job and the lifestyle. Oxana sensed that he needed help to establish a career path and how to make it real. He explained that he didn’t like the culture of his current company, the way that its management operated, and how they managed their teams. He also complained that HR did not not understand his academic background, in contrast to his previous employer where promotion opportunities were also better. Oxana focused on exploring the causes of these negative beliefs, exploring which were factual and which were essentially subjective. Having achieved that clarity, he was able to change his thinking about HR and about how to approach people in that key function to help get them on his side. Oxana also explored his relationship with his bosses and his other colleagues, identifying his values and how he could better communicate them. A plan for him to become more effective and proactive, how he talks about his job, how to explain his career aspirations with his bosses, HR managers and external recruiters was established. He quickly became empowered, aware that it is his choice how he approaches his career, that he is not a mere cog in the system, and that he has choices. Shortly afterwards he informed Oxana that he had received a very exciting job offer within his company, which he had accepted, and that he was moving to a more rural area which would ideally suit his growing family.

Our highly-experienced client had been struggling for over two years, unable to find the NED and consulting projects which he sought. As a consequence he had no income. Unsurprisingly his professional and personal lives had suffered greatly. He felt he had no hope of getting “back in the game”. He had tried various solutions before meeting us, which had included talking with recruiters, applying for advertised positions, hiring a professional resume writer and seeking psychological and psychiatric help. In his words: “None of these initiatives have made any real difference to my self-confidence and it is this lack of confidence that is holding me back". After reading about her results, he made a leap of faith and engaged Oxana Bristowe as his coach. She initially focused upon helping him to gain confidence by objectively looking at his past achievements, helping him to stop comparing himself with other people, and getting clarity on his values and goals. Changes within him occurred quickly and dramatically, with his confidence and optimism restored. This was very apparent when he attended one of our networking events. Oxana
worked with him to establish a job-search strategy. Within 2 months he found a long-term contract which when completed may be followed by a permanent position.

The sister of an experienced business development manager contacted us, asking if Oxana could help with her brother’s CV as he was finding it hard to get noticed, receive invitations for interviews or to find the right job. He was struggling to find a job and was getting nowhere. Oxana spoke with him and they agreed to a short coaching programme, The coaching allowed him to see his career, experience and skills in a completely new way. That gave him confidence and also clarity on what he wanted to achieve in his career and where he saw himself in 10-20 years time. It was a real pleasure to see this client becoming more aware of some limiting beliefs which he had, and to help him change them into positive and empowering beliefs. We were able to create a very good CV and LinkedIn profile for him. Oxana also persuaded him to change his profile photo so as to project an image which was in line with the type of jobs he was seeking. Three months later Oxana received great news from him - he had passed his probationary period in a senior business development role in a leading international company. We love this quote from him: “The key benefit of my time spent with [Oxana] is not even the position in the international company [X], which I subsequently received, but instead achieving an understanding: it is my exclusive right to choose my future”.

Our client was seeking career development advice and initially invested in a one-month
programme with us, which he then extended to three-months. Very highly-qualified with a first degree, Masters degree and self-funded MBA he had felt stuck in his career for three years. He could not see how to progress, was spending a lot of time and energy thinking about what to do next, and was going round in circles. Oxana established that he had developed the habit of thinking negatively including that he was not what the market required. She helped him to see this, change how he was thinking about himself and create empowering beliefs supported by evidence. He had lacked confidence and he became aware of how he was sabotaging himself with his negative self-talk. This was a turning point for him and a long-term career goal, broken down into smaller goals and supported by a strategy, was developed. Oxana also helped him to identify people with whom he needed to connect, and to expand his network outside of work and into broader professional circles. His confidence began to increase dramatically and he also found more personal energy, projecting a new confident image. He then called to say that, totally unexpectedly, he had been offered and was accepting a more senior role within his organisation. It was a great outcome for him - but most importantly he had a roadmap and the confidence to take action towards achieving his goals. In his own words: “Taking a more holistic perspective; I am clearer on what my priorities are; Higher self-esteem and more confident when approaching others; Broadening my options”.

Our client was struggling with establishing a direction for his career. He had spent his entire working life within a leading multinational Oil & Gas company but was not comfortable with his current role, was unhappy with his remuneration and felt that his future was elsewhere. He initially sought help from our company in finding a new position with another company. His current employer was going to lose him. We agreed with him to first probe the situation more deeply. Within three months his talents and potential were apparent and his career goals, strengths and weaknesses were established. His confidence increased greatly, and Oxana assisted him in more effective networking and in achieving greater internal and external visibility. While his employer knew nothing about his use of coaching, they certainly noticed the positive changes which occurred in him - and he was soon rewarded with a new leadership position together with a substantial increase in remuneration. In his own words: “As a result of our work (with Oxana) I have more confidence and clarity about how to develop my career further and I am now in an exciting new role”.