How we started
In 2016, our founder Rachel Osei left a deputy director role at a housing association in south-east London. She had spent three years watching expensive leadership programmes fail to change anything. Managers would attend a two-day course, return to their desks and revert to old habits within a fortnight.
Rachel believed the problem was not the content but the format. Classroom training without follow-up coaching, accountability or feedback loops does not stick. She started Leadership Catalyst Consult from a shared office in Shanahan Heath with one client and one idea: connect every learning moment to a real decision the leader faces that week.
Nine years on, we are a team of five consultants. We have worked with local authorities, NHS trusts, housing providers, tech firms and professional services partnerships. The principle has not changed. Every session is anchored to something the leader will do, or stop doing, before the next session.
What we believe
These are not aspirational slogans. They are the rules we use to decide which work to take on and how to deliver it.
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Specificity over inspiration
We do not run sessions about "being a better leader." We run sessions about how to give a difficult performance review on Thursday, or how to restructure a team that has grown from four to eleven people without clear roles. If we cannot point to a concrete outcome, we redesign the session until we can.
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Honest feedback, delivered kindly
We tell leaders what their teams actually think, based on structured interviews and 360-degree data. We do not soften findings to the point of uselessness, and we do not deliver them with unnecessary harshness. Candour and care are not opposites.
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The team is the unit, not the individual
Even in one-to-one coaching, we focus on how the leader's behaviour shapes their team's behaviour. A leader who improves in isolation has not really improved. We always gather input from the people around them.
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Written deliverables, not just conversations
Every engagement produces a written output: a coaching summary, a team operating agreement, a capability audit report. Leaders can refer back to these documents months later and share them with stakeholders who were not in the room.
The team
We keep the team small so that the person who scopes your engagement is the same person who delivers it. No bait-and-switch with junior associates.
Rachel Osei
Founder and lead consultant
Former deputy director at a London housing association. Chartered member of the CIPD. Specialises in senior leadership transitions and board effectiveness.
Tom Hargreaves
Senior consultant
Twenty years in operations management, including VP of operations at a national logistics company. Works primarily with leadership teams going through restructuring or rapid growth.
Priya Kaur
Consultant
Background in organisational psychology (MSc, University of Manchester). Designs our 360-degree feedback instruments and leads capability audits for public sector clients.