The Team
Sally Marshall Group is a small practice. That is intentional. The work is delivered by senior practitioners, not by a large consultancy structure where client engagements are managed at the top and delivered by more junior staff further down. This page describes who does the work and the professional background behind it.
The lead practitioner
Sally Marshall founded the practice in 2018 after fifteen years working inside FTSE-listed and partner-led organisations. Her roles in that period were senior and operational — she was not in an advisory or HR function, but doing the work of a senior leader herself. That matters for the coaching. It means the practice operates from experience of what senior leadership actually involves on a day-to-day basis, not from a theoretical model of it.
The move into independent coaching and consultancy was deliberate. In her corporate roles she worked with a small number of executive coaches and found the quality of that work significantly more useful than the development programmes organisations more commonly invest in. She trained formally, built the accreditations, and established the practice with a clear focus: senior-leader work only, deep rather than wide, and genuinely independent.
Her coaching work is accredited at EMCC Senior Practitioner level and ICF MCC level. Both represent significant investment of training hours, supervised practice, and assessed competence. The EMCC Senior Practitioner designation in particular requires demonstrated ability with complex, senior-level work — not just foundational coaching skills. She holds an MSc in Coaching and Behavioural Change from Henley Business School.
She is in regular quarterly supervision with two external supervisors — one with a systemic organisational background, one with a psychodynamic background. Supervision is how coaches keep their own blind spots visible and their practice honest. It is not optional for serious practitioners.
Associate practitioners
For larger consultancy projects and multi-facilitator training programmes, the practice works with a small number of associate practitioners. These are all senior coaches or facilitators in their own right, working independently, who share the practice's approach to the work. They are brought in when the scope of a project is larger than a single practitioner can hold well, not as a general capacity model.
Associates are introduced to clients at the start of any engagement where they will be involved, and clients always know who is doing what. There is no situation where an engagement is sold by one person and delivered by someone the client has never met.
Professional background and experience
The practice works primarily with:
- CEOs and MDs of private companies, typically £5m–£200m turnover
- Managing partners and senior partners in professional-services firms
- SLTs and partner groups across financial services, professional services, technology, and media
- Senior leaders in the public and third sectors, including NHS trusts and national charities
- Founders of scale-up businesses navigating the transition from founder-led to professionally managed
The sector coverage is deliberately broad. The challenges senior leaders face — building functional teams, making decisions under uncertainty, managing upwards and downwards simultaneously, sustaining their own performance over years — appear across sectors with more similarity than difference. Bringing experience from multiple sectors into a coaching conversation is usually an advantage rather than a limitation.
How the practice operates
The practice is independent. There is no parent organisation, no venture funding, no obligation to meet revenue targets that would create pressure to take on work that is not the right fit. Engagements are taken on when the brief is right and the fit is genuine. When it is not the right fit, the practice will say so.
Confidentiality is absolute. Nothing discussed in a coaching or consultancy engagement is shared with anyone outside the engagement without explicit permission. The practice does not publish case studies that could identify clients, does not use client names in marketing, and does not share client information with any third party for any purpose.
The work is based in the UK. Most engagements involve some travel — to the client's site, to off-site venues — but the logistics are always agreed in advance and the practice is not set up to deliver intensive global travel programmes.
Accreditations and professional memberships
- EMCC Senior Practitioner accreditation
- ICF MCC (Master Certified Coach)
- MSc Coaching and Behavioural Change, Henley Business School
- Member, European Mentoring and Coaching Council
- Member, International Coaching Federation
- Regular external supervision (quarterly)
Get in touch
For a fuller picture of the practice's work, see the About page, the Services overview, or read what clients have said. To start a conversation, email [email protected].