Igniting the spark – from pro-tour to prototype

Richard is a coach and facilitator. He’s a specialist in creativity and innovation and has a passion for helping people to ignite their entrepreneurial spark to bring new things to life.

He came into organisational work as a second career. His first was in elite sports. Richard left school early to play golf as a pro: having had a stellar amateur career, playing representative golf at club and county level. He got his PGA card as a teenager, and worked, and played, at some of the UK’s most famous courses. “I loved playing championships”, he recalls, “but much of the time of a golf-pro is very unglamorous and it’s a hard way to make a living except for the elite few!”

He went back to education, studying business and entrepreneurship, and later moved into sports innovation and brand marketing with Helly Hansen. During his time at Newcastle he became entrepreneur of the year, steering his team to win both the UK and European university entrepreneurship awards. “I always want to shift the way the game is played”, Richard says, “to seize the possibility of a situation and release its fullest potential”.

That’s why he joined GameShift and trained as a coach, completing the excellent Wise Goose training with Helen Sieroda.  “I love the work” he says. “It’s a real privilege to be a part of helping someone to address an issue that matters to them”. It matters to Richard that the work makes a real difference: “I like to work on issues that bear on solving a real problem or addressing something someone is stuck with – and it’s great when you hear about something going well, a new way of working starting to have an effect”.

Richard is deeply innovative in what he does, always exploring the interplay of facilitation and new product creation, particularly the online systems simulations through the fusion of technologies. Clients find his simulations powerful, because of the way they harness film, social media and live coaching to give visceral learning from brief interventions. “I love bringing worlds together to deliver a totally new result” Richard says. “Using film and technology to create new online simulation experiences – that’s exciting”.

Richard’s roots give some hint to why he is comfortable with change and creativity. He’s lived in the UK, Australia and the USA. “The constant change of schools, countries and continents didn’t make learning easy for someone with dyslexia!” Richard remembers. “But it taught me how to make sense of a new situation, how to connect to people quickly and to learn as I go”. Being part of GameShift has been “learning on steroids” he says “and I’m excited that in this work the horizon is endless provided you are ready to keep exploring and learning”

“I am optimistic I can really help to make a difference that matters – we work with some very big client companies, and the work we do with leaders there genuinely helps to change the world – that was something I could never do on a golf course, or in my time in sports marketing”.

“Always be curious” Richard says, “never stop looking for more possibility”. If you’re reaching for more creativity into your practice and looking to get innovation into action, Richard may be exactly the Thinking Partner you need to meet.