Denise Matthews · Chilterns
"For founders whose business has outgrown the way they're leading it."
I'm Denise Matthews, and I've spent over 30 years learning what actually makes businesses and the people leading them, work: as a retail leader, in recruitment and executive search, and now as a coach and mentor to founders and senior leaders. I hold an ILM Level 7 in Leadership, Mentoring & Executive Coaching, I'm a TTI Success Insights DISC Practitioner, and I'm a member of the Association of Business Mentors. I've also attempted retirement four times — it never quite took, because I still love this work. What you get from me is straight talk, delivered with care: no jargon, no dodging the hard stuff, just honest input from someone who's actually been in the room and had the same up and down roller coaster experiences!.
I work with SME founders, owner-managers, CEOs and MDs who've hit the point where working harder stops being the answer - the team isn't performing the way it should, hiring keeps going wrong, or growth has stalled and it's not obvious why. I help you find the real problem underneath the one you called me about, then work alongside you to fix it: through 1:1 executive coaching, DISC-based diagnostics, and hands-on business mentoring covering people, structure and leadership. It starts with a free discovery call, moves into a half-day Straight Talk Session to get clarity fast, and for many clients continues as an ongoing monthly retainer — because the issues that got you here rarely resolve in one sitting especially when business is in growth or development.
"The presenting problem is never the real problem" — how to diagnose what's actually holding your business back, using your own core insight as the through-line. |"Why working harder is the wrong answer" — on the leadership shift founders need to make at the next stage of growth. |"Still the bottleneck: getting yourself out of the business without losing control of it." |"Hiring is a leadership problem, not a recruitment problem" | 5. "What your team's DISC profile is telling you that you're not hearing" 6. "Building a team that works — even when the personalities shouldn't."
