The Beginning

It all started in 2005. At the time I was teaching the English language to young children and business English to top managers in huge corporations. The issue of Harper’s Bazaar Business fell into my hands and an article in there was all about coaching and had contact details of the International Coach Federation.

Fake?

Fast forward. I trained in coaching around three or four times, started teaching it and … Something was not right. Too many gaps in the theory and far too many pitfalls in the practice of coaching.

Was coaching a fake and faulty “personal development” gig?

Research, Detecting Lies & Harvard

Fast forward again and I went into research that led me to a number of presentations and speeches, the highlight of which was the presentation of my research paper at the 2018 Institute of Coaching / Harvard Medical School Conference in Boston. The title of my research paper: “Detecting lies in coaching sessions and modifying coach language to reach positive outcomes”.

Following this, I went into more scientific research and co-authored two papers that are published in prestigious journals. The first one is "Emotional stimulation during motor exercise: An integration to the holistic rehabilitation framework" and it is published by IEEE (2019), the world's largest technical professional organisation for the advancement of technology. For the second one, I am the principal author. It is titled “Participant modeling: The use of a guided master in the modern world of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy targeting Fear of Heights” and it is published in Springer Nature.

Coaching Evolution International Ltd

 I set up my first coaching business in 2009. Back then it was called “Career & Life Coaching Centre”. The website was “Coaching Evolution”. A few years later, I rebranded the centre and it became Coaching Evolution International and in 2016 it HQd in London as an Ltd company.

Academy

In the meantime, I set up the Academy of the company - that was in 2011. Being a teacher for almost 20 years, it was a no-brainer that I would branch out into training others to become coaches and not just coach individual clients.

In 2013, I single-handedly authored and got the EMCC European Quality Award for a coach training course at Practitioner Level.

Did I mention that I had set up my first business, a private language school at the age of 22, back in 1997?

Dutch Embassy: The Orange Grove

 In 2013, I was the first coach to collaborate with the Orange Grove, an initiative that originated in the dream of the Dutch Ambassador at the time in Greece, Jan Versteeg. I coached for a number of years so many start-ups, that I practically became the “Who is Who” index for entrepreneurship, and young entrepreneurs in Greece, and not only there.

Corporate Training in Casablanca & New York & elsewhere

Pretty soon, around 2013, I went into corporate training and coaching. This meant two things: lots of travelling and lots of new knowledge for me. I went to Morocco (Casablanca), Algeria, Tunisia, Ireland, Amsterdam, Singapore, Istanbul, London, Paris, Venice, Turin, New York… I learnt and taught and created content for training in negotiations, teamwork, diversity and inclusion, workplace harassment, among others.

What Does the FBI Have to Do with Coaching?

So, the FBI story was an idea that I had that materialised with the help of former FBI agents. Their interviewing and interrogating techniques can “extract” information from the other person. In coaching, the core technique is questions - asking so as to “extract” the knowledge and awareness of the client. I wanted the best training in the questioning and profiling - to the extent possible - techniques they used. Which means I was trained in such techniques thus raising my game to unexpectedly high levels.

United Nations Projects

Thanks to my CV and the trust I was shown by a UK -based company, I somehow ended up in Italy, Torino, in 2019, training UN staff members in negotiations at the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC). Following this, I have collaborated with the Dutch company eCoachPro on various projects related to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the UN Volunteers, and more recently on a project for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.