David Birch is an executive coach, facilitator, and supervisor who brings over 30 years’ international business experience to helping individuals, groups and organisations make a difference to the world. He began his business career with the Industrial Society in 1986 (now the Work Foundation) and during the 1990s held a variety of internal organisation consulting roles at PwC, becoming a director in 1998. He joined Ashridge business school in 2000, where he is now associate faculty on the internationally renowned Ashridge Masters in Executive Coaching programme. He is also an associate at the King’s Fund.
David’s practice is founded on the understanding that change occurs within and through relationships. He combines expert coaching skills, psychological insight and creative embodied methods to enable a collaborative exploration of the most pressing issues, however tricky and awkward they may be. His business background and training as a psychotherapist means that he is sensitive to the political and psychological dimensions of the work, helping his clients gain insight into their assumptions, motivations, and impact on others. Over time, this builds the self-awareness and resilience needed to make positive choices in what are often highly charged, complex and ambiguous scenarios. He is comfortable working in a wide range of settings, including start-ups, media, luxury goods, retail, technology, financial and professional services, public sector and not-for-profit organisations.
David has extensive experience in designing and facilitating narrative style 360˚ feedback processes for individuals and teams. He will sometimes accompany his clients in their workplace or interview colleagues and other stakeholders to gather rich qualitative feedback.
Examples of recent coaching assignments include:
• The CEO and founder of a technology business
• The founding partner at a private equity firm
• The COO of a challenger bank
• The CFO of an international retailer
• The Dean at a UK university
• The CEO of an NHS Trust
He has provided coaching in numerous organisations including Arup, BBC, BBH, 17 Capital, Diabetes UK, G-Research, Havas, HM Government, Health Foundation, Hobbs, ICAP, Lonely Planet, LVMH, numerous NHS trusts, National Institute for Health Research, Plan International, PwC, RIBA, Starling Bank, several UK universities, Ted Baker, Workable and World Health Organisation.
David holds postgraduate degrees in organisation consulting, integrative psychotherapy and coaching supervision and is accredited as a mediator by the Law Society. He is a trainer, supervisor and accreditor of executive coaches to Masters level at Ashridge and a regular author and conference speaker on the subject of coaching and coaching supervision. He holds British Psychological Society Level A and B certificates of competence in psychometric testing.
He lives in London, is an enthusiastic consumer of the arts and a keen open water swimmer.
