Brynmor James London, England

Listen to Noomii's interview with Brynmor James

About Me

I spent two decades working for the UK Government in a variety of diplomatic and managerial roles and am now an Executive Coach. I have a degree from Oxford University in French and Modern Greek and a Certificate from Cambridge University in Executive Coaching. I am particularly keen to work with people who are sceptical about coaching and personal change - I used to be one of them. I am also very interested in the role of language in managing difficult situations in the workplace. If we have the right phrases ready - often they are questions - we can perhaps cope with any difficult situation. As someone who speaks Chinese, Greek, French and German (and who has worked in the first three languages) I firmly believe in the transformative power of language in behavioural change, especially when relationships break down between team members or between managers and their direct reports. Coaching sessions with me are intellectually stimulating. I’m not interested in unsubstantiated trends being put forward as solutions - I’m interested in solutions which research has shown to be effective. I set a lot of store by well-evidenced academic work and share these studies with my clients. I also dislike excessive use of corporate jargon - while we all use a bit of jargon, lazy language means lazy thoughts, which hold people back. For those potential clients who are interested in my former career in government, I led teams working with Chinese officials on climate change issues; I was the UK policy lead on Conflict Minerals, overseeing the Government Diamond Office and negotiating the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation for the UK; As Deputy Team Leader of the Counter-Terrorism Team at the British Embassy in Tunis, I helped lead efforts to work with the Tunisian government to reduce the threat from terrorism in Tunisia. I also chaired an international working group to coordinate donor countries’ efforts to increase Tunisian counter-terrorist capacity.