Aspire - Leadership for the future

Women’s leadership speaker and advocate, social activist and author.

Dr Samantha Collins is the founder and CEO of ASPIRE, an internationally-recognized and award-winning leader in leadership development, diversity and social responsibility for women leaders.

Samantha is an inspirational speaker and addresses women's conferences, corporate and entrepreneurial events and workshops. She has worked with over 10,000 women business leaders over the past 13 years and has contributed to The Financial Times, CNN, The Times and the BBC Global Business Report.

Samantha was named one of the Top 200 Women in the UK to Impact Business & Industry by HM The Queen of England. She is also the winner of an Ogunte Women's Social Leadership Award in the category of Leader in the Workplace and was shortlisted for the Women in Marketing Award. Her PhD thesis examined the future world of work for women as leaders and she is the author of a soon-to-be published book, 'Go MAD – Women Leaders Making a Difference'.

Samantha is passionate about making a difference for women both in and outside of the boardroom which is why she started The Aspire Foundation. This not-for-profit foundation offers pro-bono mentoring, fundraising and campaigning for women in charities, social enterprises and community projects that are making a difference to women and girls across the world.

Originally from the UK, Samantha followed her dream and now lives in California, near the ocean, with her husband, Robert, and 2 sons, Jake and Charlie.

Rebecca (Beks) Hourston is a highly experienced programme leader and executive coach with marketing/communications expertise.

She is the programme designer and leader for all ASPIRE Women's Leadership Programmes (courses include ‘Profile and Impact’, ‘Strategic You’, ‘Time and Life Management’ and ‘Powerful Communication). In addition, Rebecca designs and facilitates corporate gender diversity programs for KPMG and BDO Stoy Hayward. She has also been instrumental in the conception and analysis of much of ASPIRE’s annual research.

Rebecca's background includes experience with L’Oreal UK as Head of Consumer Affairs, marketing management of high-profile brands including Lancôme and Maybelline New York, being a small business owner and (definitely the most challenging!) raising her two little boys. Her own childhood was spent in Kenya and she remains passionate about Africa.

Rebecca is open, inspiring and stretching, as well as warm, grounded and practical. When working with clients, her desire is to ‘make it real’, practical yet informal. Rebecca’s coaching specialities are leadership, work-life balance, maternity coaching and career transition. Her recent clients include KPMG, Bird & Bird LLP, The Walt Disney Company, Random House, Added Value and The Commission for Racial Equality.

Beks is a graduate of Cambridge University with an MA (Cantab) in French & Italian and is also a Certified Professional Co-Active™ Coach (CPCC) from the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), a graduate of CTI's 10-month international Co-Active™ Leadership Programme and a Licensed Career Coach (Firework). She is a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF).

Carolyn is Aspire's Director of Open Programmes and Executive Director of The Aspire Foundation. She holds key leadership of the public women’s leadership series of workshops and webinars, as well as the executive leadership and strategic direction of our nonprofit, The Aspire Foundation.

Carolyn’s areas of specialism include inspirational leadership, emotional intelligence, developing confidence, life-balance, managing change and personal impact and effectiveness for women who want to create change in their life, workplaces and the world at large. Her clients describe her as warm, empathetic, deep, supportive yet challenging and say that she gets to the core of things to enable change that is heartfelt, sustainable and meaningful yet very business driven. She relishes helping women leaders demonstrate their potential, recognize their brilliance and believe that anything is possible.

She is an executive coach, trainer and workshop leader who has trained hundreds of women leaders and managers in coaching skills. Examples of Carolyn’s recent assignments include helping design and lead 'The Talented Women Program' (focusing on presence, impact, networking, influence and career management) at KPMG LLP and BDO LLP, delivering training in leadership coaching to hundreds of leaders and managers in Network Rail as a Senior Course Leader and coaching Directors and Executives to become more creative and inspiring decision makers and leaders. Her clients include The Open University, The Co-Operative Group, Neal's Yard Remedies and The Woodland Trust.

Prior to joining Aspire, Carolyn worked for over 20 years at British Telecom where she led teams and change initiatives and developed and managed customer satisfaction and coaching programs.

She holds a CPCC professional coaching qualification from The Coaches Training Institute (CTI), one of a select group of coach training schools in the UK that is accredited with the International Coach Federation (ICF), the leading standards and accreditation body for coaches worldwide and is an ICF credentialed coach (Associate Certified Coach), a licensed career coach and has earned her accreditation in Emotional Intelligence. Carolyn is a graduate of CTI’s 10-month San Francisco-based Co-Active™ Leadership Programme.

Passionate about women developing the power of their leadership femininity aligned with authenticity and balance, Carolyn is a powerful force for women who aspire to do and be more in their life, work and world. 

Janet Jenkins is in charge of all aspects of ASPIRE program operations, customer service and logistics.

Janet qualified in medicine from the University of London in 1985 and worked as a pathologist before reading Law at City University and being called to the Bar at Middle Temple, UK in 1994. She then took a career break to look after her family and returned to work with ASPIRE.

She holds an MB, BS, a DipL and is a Barrister-at-law.  She is a member of the Professional Negligence Bar Association and a member of Mensa.

Cathy is the global CFO of Added Value, a brand development and marketing insight consultancy with offices in 22 cities in 14 countries. Cathy was first introduced to Aspire through executive coaching and has attended many of our open programs.

“To me, Aspire’s programs and services offer a unique approach to personal and professional development. Surrounded by highly diverse, intelligent and successful individuals, every interaction is an opportunity to learn, grow and challenge oneself to think differently”.

Until 2008 Jane was Global COO of Christie's, the Art Auction business, operating primarily in UK, US, Hong Kong, mainland China, France, Switzerland, Middle East and Russia.  She had Board responsibility for Strategy, Finance, Operations, IT, HR and the non-auction businesses.  Prior to joining Christie's in 2000, Jane was a Partner in PwC where she provided strategic business advice to international companies in connection with their finance raising, merger, acquisition and disposal activities.  Jane now works as an independent adviser to international companies.

“I am very keen to use my own experiences to help Samantha and the Aspire team to expand their business and Foundation activities.  I would love to see as many women as possible being given the opportunity to join the Aspire network and to benefit from excellent leadership and personal development coaching skills.  This will help ensure they are best equipped and have the tools they need to succeed in their chosen career, leadership positions and life paths”.

Robert is the Founder and CEO of Silverstone Consulting, a leading executive coaching company with offices in the US and UK.

“More women leaders, along with their vital feminine strengths and attributes, are a much needed to help bring greater balance to our global business society and culture.  Being part of this groundbreaking organization is not only a privilege, it inspires men to initiate the changes in their own organizations that will provide the best conditions and opportunities for their female executives and employees.”

Jane Swift is BT’s Programme Director of Retail 21CN & Portfolio Management and a pioneer in the creation of The BT Executive Women’s Network. Jane, who is a mother of 3, wife and social advocate, is deeply passionate about seeing women advance and fulfil their potential.

A long time fan of Aspire, Jane joined the Aspire Advisory board to be able to give back, contribute to the not-for-profit charitable organization, The Aspire Foundation, and be part of a group of people who aim to change the world, one person at a time.

Rebecca (Beks) Hourston is a highly experienced programme leader and executive coach with marketing/communications expertise.

She is the programme designer and leader for all ASPIRE Women's Leadership Programmes (courses include ‘Profile and Impact’, ‘Strategic You’, ‘Time and Life Management’ and ‘Powerful Communication). In addition, Rebecca designs and facilitates corporate gender diversity programs for KPMG and BDO Stoy Hayward. She has also been instrumental in the conception and analysis of much of ASPIRE’s annual research.

Rebecca's background includes experience with L’Oreal UK as Head of Consumer Affairs, marketing management of high-profile brands including Lancôme and Maybelline New York, being a small business owner and (definitely the most challenging!) raising her two little boys. Her own childhood was spent in Kenya and she remains passionate about Africa.

Rebecca is open, inspiring and stretching, as well as warm, grounded and practical. When working with clients, her desire is to ‘make it real’, practical yet informal. Rebecca’s coaching specialities are leadership, work-life balance, maternity coaching and career transition. Her recent clients include KPMG, Bird & Bird LLP, The Walt Disney Company, Random House, Added Value and The Commission for Racial Equality.

Beks is a graduate of Cambridge University with an MA (Cantab) in French & Italian and is also a Certified Professional Co-Active™ Coach (CPCC) from the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), a graduate of CTI's 10-month international Co-Active™ Leadership Programme and a Licensed Career Coach (Firework). She is a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF).

Carolyn is Aspire's Director of Open Programmes and Executive Director of The Aspire Foundation. She holds key leadership of the public women’s leadership series of workshops and webinars, as well as the executive leadership and strategic direction of our nonprofit, The Aspire Foundation.

Carolyn’s areas of specialism include inspirational leadership, emotional intelligence, developing confidence, life-balance, managing change and personal impact and effectiveness for women who want to create change in their life, workplaces and the world at large. Her clients describe her as warm, empathetic, deep, supportive yet challenging and say that she gets to the core of things to enable change that is heartfelt, sustainable and meaningful yet very business driven. She relishes helping women leaders demonstrate their potential, recognize their brilliance and believe that anything is possible.

She is an executive coach, trainer and workshop leader who has trained hundreds of women leaders and managers in coaching skills. Examples of Carolyn’s recent assignments include helping design and lead 'The Talented Women Program' (focusing on presence, impact, networking, influence and career management) at KPMG LLP and BDO LLP, delivering training in leadership coaching to hundreds of leaders and managers in Network Rail as a Senior Course Leader and coaching Directors and Executives to become more creative and inspiring decision makers and leaders. Her clients include The Open University, The Co-Operative Group, Neal's Yard Remedies and The Woodland Trust.

Prior to joining Aspire, Carolyn worked for over 20 years at British Telecom where she led teams and change initiatives and developed and managed customer satisfaction and coaching programs.

She holds a CPCC professional coaching qualification from The Coaches Training Institute (CTI), one of a select group of coach training schools in the UK that is accredited with the International Coach Federation (ICF), the leading standards and accreditation body for coaches worldwide and is an ICF credentialed coach (Associate Certified Coach), a licensed career coach and has earned her accreditation in Emotional Intelligence. Carolyn is a graduate of CTI’s 10-month San Francisco-based Co-Active™ Leadership Programme.

Passionate about women developing the power of their leadership femininity aligned with authenticity and balance, Carolyn is a powerful force for women who aspire to do and be more in their life, work and world. 

Pam is a highly experienced workshop leader and executive coach who works with clients internationally. Clients describe her style as intelligent, warm, direct and humorous. They say they appreciate her ability to help them hold their shortcomings lightly and build massively on their strengths.

Her particular specialism is in helping leaders to improve their ability to vision and to think strategically, to develop a wider, more effective range of leadership styles, to increase their network, profile and influence, and to optimise their impact culturally. At the same time, she supports her clients in optimising their energy in a sustainable way, leading to a more successful work-life balance.

She is passionate about working with creative, ambitious and brilliant individuals who want to develop their own unique leadership style whilst aligning with their organisation to achieve high levels of success. By creating a powerful alliance and connection with her clients, together they enhance the process of learning, effectiveness and fulfillment in their work and lives.

Since 2003 Pam has been a regular contributor on the BBC and is an expert in the broadcasting and music industries.

Example of Pam’s recent assignments include acting as facilitator and coach for Vodafone’s ‘Get Connected’ programme for senior male and female leaders and leading Aspire’s open programmes for women leaders in the areas of networking, profile, leadership and change management. She has also been involved in the design and lead of a networking skills programme for women and men at Orange FT, coached the CFD at Elmwood Design Agency Ltd through growth and transition, coached a Senior Executive HR VP in the technology industry and is coaching a Senior Executive Director in the telecommunications industry. Pam’s recent clients include Orange FT, John Laing Plc, Vodafone, Severn Trent, Yahoo, Westfield, Elmwood and more.

Pam holds an advanced professional coaching qualification awarded by The Coaches Training Institute (CTI), one of a select group of coach training schools in the UK that is accredited by the International Coach Federation, the leading standards and accreditation body for coaching worldwide. She has a BA (Hons) Communications with further studies in Psychology, Ithaca College, New York, USA. She is also a member of the International Coach Federation.

Yasmin is an experienced and highly skilled executive coach and facilitator. Her work facilitates clarity and focus whilst opening up choice and possibility for the individual and the business.

Her areas of specialism include working with women who want to tap into their true potential and uncover new territory for themselves and their organisations, leadership, career transition and work life balance. Her clients describe her signature style is intuitive and intelligent, gentle yet challenging, direct and humorous.

Yasmin is a leader of Aspire Public Programmes for Women and has led the Retaining Talented Women Programme at KPMG, focusing on presence, impact, networking, influence and career management.

She is a Certified Professional Co-Active™ Coach (CPCC) from Coaches Training Institute (CTI) and has also completed Relationship Systems Fundamentals (Centre of Right Relationship) and Transactional Analysis 101.

Yasmin has a consultancy background, spanning teambuilding, idea generation and development, strategic visioning, cultural change programmes, qualitative and quantitative diagnostics as well as work-life balance programmes. She has worked across a wide selection of industries, including British Airways, Tesco, Heinz, Shell, Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal Sun Alliance, NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and Arts) and many more.

She is a member of the International Coach Federation and has a Degree in Translation, the main subject of which was Economics, Germany. Yasmin is also fluent in German.

Anna is known for her challenging, inspiring and straightforward coaching approach.

Anna has over 16 years of B2B sales, management and training experience and her professional development expertise extends to both the e-learning, experiential and traditional classroom environments. Anna has delivered numerous leadership and management development workshops in Europe and North America. She works with organisations, teams and individuals with widely differing business and cultural contexts, working at all levels to improve the quality of leadership, business performance and communication.

She is a highly experienced executive coach and facilitator with over 7 years experience of working with board level executives, business development professionals and middle managers. Prior to moving into coaching, Anna's career spanned business-to-business Sales and Media, working in a variety of management and director level roles. This included being headhunted to set up the London office of a joint venture between Lycos and Bertelsmann AG, and directing its UK Sales and Marketing division, the success of which resulted in Anna's promotion to European Sales and Marketing Director for Lycos.

Her speciality is in increasing performance of self and others, leadership styles and situational leadership, clarity about the future by creating a vision/mission and finding your values, emotional intelligence by increasing self-awareness, developing confidence, work/life balance, and managing change.

Clients include Yahoo, Microsoft and KPMG. Anna has delivered change programs for BP refining, developed a community among Microsoft managers and has done team building events in the hotel and food industry in Italy.

Anna trained as a Professional Co-Active™Coach and programme leader with the Coaches Training Institute CTI and is a Master-Practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and a Lominger International - Voices 360 Trained Feedback Facilitator. She holds a BA (Hons) Business Studies from the European Business School.

Anna is a native-German speaker and fluent in English, Italian and speaks basic French. She is also an international speaker at conferences and a member of the Public Speaking Association.

Tina is a passionate and highly experienced international coach and trainer. She focuses on working with international professionals who view their development and leadership essential to success. She also leads coach-training programmes globally for The Coaches Training Institute.

Prior to becoming a coach, Tina was Public Relations Manager at law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, where she was responsible for establishing a dedicated PR function for the firm’s Corporate Practice. Previously, she was a Financial Communication Manager with Citigate Dewe Rogerson, where she was primarily advising major European organisations during capital market transactions in various political environments, managing international projects involving share-offer marketing, Mergers & Acquisitions and Investor Relations. Her blue-chip international clients included Statkraft, Erste Bank AG, UniCredito Italiano SpA, Orange plc, Deutsche Börse AG, Deutsche Post AG, Deutsche Telekom AG, Lycos Europe N.V. and Deutsche Bank AG.

Tina’s clients describe her as focused, transparent, natural, warm and intuitive. She brings strong skills in working with complex teams and understanding of cultural differences, communication channels and company dynamics.

Tina is a Certified Professional Co-Active™ Coach (CPCC) from the Coaches Training Institute and holds a PCC coaching accreditation (Professional Credentialed Coach) from the International Coach Federation. She is an Organisation and Relationships Systems Coach, a graduate of 10-month Co-Active™ Leadership Programme, a Licensed Coach and holds a BA (Hons) in European Business Administration.Examples of her recent assignments include leading KPMG’s REACH programme, acting as Team Coach for Turisme de Catalunya and leading coach training programmes all over the world for the Coaches Training Institute.

Tina grew up in Germany, has lived in London, Paris and Milan, and is now based in Brussels. She is a native German speaker and is also fluent in English and French and speaks basic Italian.

Pollyanna Lenkic is a highly experienced facilitator, certified coach, and researcher with a passion and dedication to advancing the careers of women.

She has worked at all levels across a range of industry sectors providing keynote talks, facilitating workshops, and providing individual and team coaching. She has designed and delivered programmes that include: The Women and Success Series, Leading through Change, Teaming, Career Planning, Personal Leadership for Professional Specialists, Communicating and Influencing Skills, Strategic Thinking, and Team Building.

In 2006, she launched research, "Women, Work & Success," identifying the need for up-to-date information about how Australian women perceive success. It was one of the first of its kind to be conducted in Australia, with responses from a statistically representative sample of women across a broad range of industries working in professional and management positions.

Pollyanna partners with organisations such as National Australia Bank, Medibank Private, IBM, Sensis, Maurice Blackburn, Royal Women's Hospital, Royal Children's Hospital, Forensic Health, Horwath, and Kraft to support them to meet their objectives and outcomes.

Pollyanna brings extensive business experience to her work. She co-founded a specialist IT Recruitment Consultancy in London in 1990. In November 2000, Pollyanna sold her 50% share holding having taken the company from a sole-employee entity to staff of 18, with an annual turnover in excess of £11m ($AUS27 million).

Pollyanna is also committed to community projects and networking groups that help women move forward both personally and professionally. She regularly volunteers as a mentor and has mentored in the Marketing Women's Mentoring Programme in Melbourne as well two mentoring projects in London: the Du Paul Trust, a UK based charity that works with people who are homeless; and Women in Banking and Finance. She has been a member of the leadership team of the ICFV (International Coach Federation Victorian Chapter) since 2006 and is the current Immediate Past Co-President of the ICF Victorian Chapter.

Pollyanna has the ability to engage the audience with warmth, humor, and personal stories that people relate to and is described by clients as "a great role model and example for women who strive to be savvy business women with heart." She trained with the Coaches Training Institute in London, an organisation accredited by the International Coach Federation. To obtain her coaching certification Pollyanna completed a rigorous and challenging program with CTI that surpasses the minimum requirements of the ICF for coaching competency and training. She has also completed the I.O.D. (Institute of Directors - London) Director Development programme and the Co-Active Space (USA) Leadership programme.

Tony is a highly experienced and sought after international coach and trainer with Aspire. Tony has been instrumental in designing and delivering Aspire’s leadership programmes that have involved both women and men. Tony is passionate about the integration of ‘masculine and feminine’ leadership models so that all people, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, level or anything else can become the best possible leaders. Clients have included Vodafone, BDO and Siemens where he is one of just 14 external coaches worldwide to work for the Siemens Leadership Excellence programme training management in leadership skills.

Tony is also a front of room leader for the prestigious Coaches Training Institute; an organisation that sets a very high bar for their trainers who train coaches all over the world. As well as being a qualified coach, one of only 74 coaches in the UK qualified by the International Coach Federation to PCC level (Professional Credentialed Coach), he is also a qualified Team Coach (Team Diagnostics) and an authorized Myers Briggs (MBTI) assessor.

More important than all those qualifications however is the fact that Tony is an excellent facilitator of groups from junior to senior management. His 20 years corporate experience, many of them at board level, means that he speaks their language and establishes an easy rapport with all management levels. The feedback he receives is that he is someone who people can trust, someone who is grounded, practical and creates safety for participants to experiment and go beyond their comfort zones and someone who has a great sense of humour which creates a fun learning environment at all levels.

Before becoming a coach, he had a successful 20 year career in marketing, having reached board positions in both client and agency businesses. His proudest achievement was building The Marketing Store from a small promotional marketing agency in 1990 to a top UK 10 marcoms agency in 1996 and a worldwide agency by 1998. He left the agency in 2001 to pursue a new career in coaching, something for which he has a natural affinity and gift.

Tony is a family man, married with 3 quite grown up children and a not at all grown up Labradoodle dog. He lives in Birmingham in the UK.