Althea Efunshile CBE
Executive & Business Coach
I have a 45 year executive and non-executive career with extensive experience of leading complex organisations spanning education, government, housing, health, broadcasting and the arts. Through Althea Efunshile Executive Coaching I provide executive coaching and mentoring for senior professionals, working on a 1-2-1 basis with a diverse range of leaders, from C-Suite executives to mid-career professionals, helping them navigate complexity, lead through uncertainty, and manage career transitions with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose.
Coaching Services
I work with the full range of C-suite executives, high potential leaders, and mid-career professionals but I bring a particular depth of understanding grounded in my own lived experience when working with Black professionals and people of colour.
I establish rapid rapport and trust, creating a safe environment that combines deep empathy and insightful challenge. I'm told that I have an authentic, warm and empowering presence in which clients feel able to lean into discomfort, and flourish and develop both personally and professionally.
I'm a professional coach trained on the ICF accredited Barefoot Coaching Programme. I take on only a limited number of clients at any time, working primarily on-line.
Get in touch for an initial conversation to discuss possibilities.
One to one coaching sessions are typically between 60 - 90 mins duration
Typically clients book a package of between six to twelve on-line sessions spread over a period of months
Together we create a confidential learning environment. You bring the content. I evoke new insights and thinking by listening actively, asking questions, offering challenge, and feeding back my observations. You develop your own solutions. We celebrate your learning together.
Get in touch for an initial conversation to see what's possible.
About Me
I coach senior leaders who carry significant responsibility — and who want to lead with greater clarity, confidence and impact.
I bring decades of experience at the highest levels of complex organisations. I have held Executive Director and Deputy Chief Executive roles across local and central government and national organisations including Arts Council England, with responsibility for strategy, investment, operations and outcomes affecting millions of people.
I have led in environments where the stakes are high, the issues are complex and there is rarely a simple answer. My experience encompasses public accountability, governance, risk, substantial budgets, boards, politics, competing interests and difficult strategic choices.
Since 2016, I have had a portfolio of Chair and Non-Executive roles across housing, the NHS, arts, media and higher education. Sitting on both sides of the boardroom table has given me a deep understanding of the realities of leadership — the decisions that have to be made, the relationships that have to be navigated and the pressure that comes with being ultimately accountable.
I know the territory because I have lived it.
As a coach, I work with the full range of leaders — from C-suite executives and board-level leaders to high-potential emerging talent and experienced mid-career professionals. I provide a confidential space in which to stop, think and be challenged: away from organisational politics and day-to-day pressures, where you can examine what is really happening, test your thinking and consider what you want to do differently.
As a Black leader who has operated at senior levels across public life and the boardroom, I also bring a particular depth of understanding to coaching Black professionals and people of colour. I understand, from personal experience, the additional complexities that can accompany leadership and career progression — including questions of visibility, belonging, identity, representation and navigating environments in which you feel you have to work twice as hard.
That perspective is an important part of what I bring, but it does not define the boundaries of my practice. I coach the individual in front of me, wherever they are in their leadership journey.
I don't coach by prescribing answers. I work with you to uncover the thinking, choices and behaviours that will enable you to lead more effectively — whether you are navigating a new role, significant change, difficult relationships, competing priorities or the next stage of your career.
My own career has included recognition in the Powerlist of Britain’s most influential Black people between 2007 and 2013, and appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours.
I am a professionally trained coach, having completed the ICF-accredited Barefoot Coaching Programme.
For leaders operating in complex environments, I offer experience, challenge, perspective and — above all — a place to think.
Get in Touch
Contact me to ask any questions or to schedule an exploratory conversation.
Email me:
althea@altheaefunshile.com
Or fill in the contact form below