Mark Solomons – Coaching for Performance Mark Solomons is an experienced facilitator and coach, with a track record of coaching board directors and senior leaders within organisations. During an impressive corporate career he realised that the best way to get the results needed was through his people. Undertaking his own corporate coaching training as a senior leader he used this throughout the last ten years of his business career to deliver outstanding results for his team and organisation. When given the opportunity to move to use these skills full time he realised that this is where his passion lay and that he had a talent for supporting others to achieve their potential and the results they wanted. Initially joining with David Hemery CBE, Olympic Gold medalist and current vice-chair of the British Olympic Association and his business partner Les Duggan he helped them found a new charity 21st Century Legacy. Taking leadership and coaching into schools to develop these skills in 11 – 14 year old students was both inspirational and continued his learning. David was initially a partner of Sir John Whitmore, who created the GROW coaching model and established the idea of coaching for performance within business. Mark has therefore had the privilege of training and working with pioneers in this important leadership field. Mark undertook the training of teachers in coaching and facilitation skills, running workshops of up to 90 staff and has subsequently been involved in coach training within business in his current role, as one of the two managing partners in Developing Potential, a high performance development company. He has worked with Olympians and Olympic teams and is currently working with Darren Campbell MBE, sharing 10 steps for organisational Gold medal winning performance. He believes in managing his own personal development and completed an MBA at the highly acclaimed Cranfield business school in 2002. His first-hand experience of performing under pressure and in developing and leading high-performing national teams to achieve their objectives in a FTSE 100 organisation gives him a real insight into business leadership. As Retail Director for Sainsbury’s Bank, he had accountability for the Bank’s financial and sales performance across all 800 stores and this, together with his understanding of what underpins high performance means he knows many of the challenges business leaders face everyday and the tools, techniques and strategies that can be applied for success. Yet despite his extensive knowledge, his skill as a coach comes from his questions and his ability to listen and pull the answers from his clients and develop their ability to think through things for themselves, find their own solutions and become their own greatest coach. His focus is to support an individual in raising their self-awareness while encouraging them to take personal responsibility for their mindset, behaviour, actions and development. These are the underpinning principles of his coaching and facilitation success. He is quick to build rapport and gain the trust of his clients and his pragmatic approach is to focus on solutions and gain commitment for action. While he is patient and approachable, he is also driven by his clients’ agenda and need to get results. We share below what a few of his clients have said about his coaching and finally a view from his immediate line manager from his last corporate role, the then CEO of Sainsbury’s Bank.