Meet the people who can help your organisation navigate change, enhance performance, and create positive influence
Key capabilities:
Culture diagnostics
Leadership & talent
Transformation & implementation
Strategic resourcing
Juliet Szabo-Merridew
Founding Partner
Juliet is the Founding Partner of Strive Higher, which she launched in 2012. She is an experienced project director who provides consulting services within the HE sector specifically with a proven track record of leading significant university wide transformation projects.
Key capabilities:
Project planning & management
Strategic resourcing
Communications & client engagement
Talent management
Laura Wetherall
Assistant Director Operations
Laura leads our operations across Strive Higher. She partners across the team and with our clients to ensure that we have all the necessary structures and plans in place for us to work together effectively based on a shared understanding of our mutual commitments.
Key capabilities:
Strategy development and alignment
Organisational culture change
Stakeholder engagement
Team building and collaboration
Nicola Parkes
Senior Consultant
Nicky is a skilled relationship builder who can quickly create a sense of shared purpose and trust. She works effectively with clients identifying their strengths and surfacing issues in pursuit of delivering culture change. Nicky is experienced in designing strategies to maximise inclusion, collaboration and organisational performance.
Key capabilities:
Relationship management and engagement
Analytical problem-solving
Project coordination
Process development and improvement
Kinga Was
Senior Project & Engagement Co-ordinator
Kinga brings significant experience from within the HE sector, supporting academic and professional services teams across a range of initiatives. Her work focuses on effective project coordination, strengthening collaboration, and supporting the delivery of high-quality outcomes that create positive, lasting impact for clients and stakeholders.
Key capabilities:
Data analysis and visualisation
System design and optimisation
Data governance and compliance
Data insights for decision making
Sandro Marques
Associate: Consultant
Sandro is a data specialist with extensive experience analysing and managing complex information within Higher Education environments. With a background in data science and hands on expertise across core university systems, he excels at uncovering insights, improving data quality, and translating technical analysis into clear, actionable recommendations.
Key capabilities:
HE Regulations & Policy
Ed Tech implementation
University administration structures & design
Students’ Union relationships & partnerships
Ben Rogers
Associate: Principal Consultant
Ben brings extensive experience in sector best practice and enhancement. A skilled relationship builder, Ben quickly identifies process improvements. He is a student-centred leader who translates strategy into action, drawing on personal experiences of university life and his previous role as Chair of the Academic Registrars’ Council (ARC).
Key capabilities:
Work design and innovation for inclusion and wellbeing
Training and facilitation
Strategic partnership building
Knowledge mobilisation for social impact
Sarah Dauncey
Associate: Principal Consultant
Sarah is an expert in workplace innovation and experienced in partnership development and stakeholder engagement. Drawing on her research background, she supports organisations to create evidence-based responses to workforce challenges and is adept at bringing people on board and co-designing solutions.
Key capabilities:
Culture Change
Leadership Assessment and Development
Behaviour Change
Executive Coaching
Keri Link
Associate: Principal Consultant & Executive Coach
Keri is an experienced consultant and executive coach specializing in culture change, leadership development and coaching. She brings expertise from her MSc in Educational Psychology, diploma in Executive Coaching and over 10 years’ experience consulting with both public and private sector organisations.
Key capabilities:
Leadership development
Staff engagement
Organisational change
Executive coaching
Anna Sanders
Associate: Senior Consultant & Executive Coach
Anna is a skilled and experienced leadership coach and organisational development consultant. She combines a background in public sector management with experience supporting transformation & people development programmes in HE settings. Anna brings exceptional listening & analytical skills along with a laser focus on outcomes.
Key capabilities:
Executive coaching
Group facilitation
Leadership/people development
Staff engagement
Sarah Acton
Associate: Senior Consultant & Executive Coach
Sarah is a leadership coach, facilitator and organisational development consultant. Her background spans the public, private and not-for-profit sectors including working in HE in OD and research roles. She is particularly skilled in helping leaders navigate change and ambiguity authentically.
Key capabilities:
Leadership coach
Scaling up strategies
Stakeholder management
OKR framework implementation
Maria Quevedo
Associate: Senior Consultant & Executive Coach
María is a values-driven coach and accomplished consultant with over 20 years' experience as a senior leader. She has supported founders, executives and new leaders to lead with authenticity and perform at their best. As a consultant, she has delivered projects focussed on strategic alignment and systems improvement.
Key capabilities:
Learning design
Facilitation
Psychometric assessment
Digital Learning
Lee McDonald
Associate: Senior Facilitator
Lee has extensive experience across Higher Education, non-profit, and commercial sectors. She specialises in leadership and management development, team collaboration, and consultancy/business partnering skills. Her key areas of expertise include Business Psychology, Emotional Intelligence, and Workplace Behaviour.
Key capabilities:
Leadership Coaching
Employee Engagement
Project Management
Operational Design and Experience
Emma Bolger
Associate: Executive Coach
Emma has built a successful career in HR and leading operations team in high-growth technology businesses. As a qualified coach, Emma uses her intuition and energy to encourage a new perspective and insight, working with leaders and managers to take meaningful action that is practical and applicable within the workplace.
Key capabilities:
Innovation & transformation
Executive leadership and executive coaching
Cultural agility and inclusion & diversity
Career transition and high potential talents
Soo Yee Leong
Associate: Executive Coach
Soo Yee is a former international Executive Director in Financial Services. She has deep insights on business development and strategy. She has shaped, overseen and implemented multi-year international transformation programmes, including digital transformation. She brings a unique blend of transformative coaching, agile and design thinking principles to support leaders lead change with authenticity and impact.
Key capabilities:
Leadership development
Organisational culture change
Leading change in complex environments
Team building and collaboration
Jenny Jenkin
Associate: Executive Coach
Jenny is an experienced accredited coach who brings many years of senior leadership experience in Higher Education to her practice. She creates a confidential, judgment-free space for her clients, helping them gain fresh perspectives on complex issues and unlock their full potential.
Key capabilities:
HE policy & practice
Strategy alignment
Organisational performance
Transformation & implementation
Daniel Snowden
CEO
Daniel is CEO of Strive Higher, which he joined in December 2021. A proven senior HE leader, having held executive level roles directing strategy and people transformation programmes.
Key capabilities:
Technology architecture, design and systems
Transformation and implementation
Complex problem solving
Cultural change
Emma Bayne
Principal Consultant
Emma is a digital leader who works collaboratively to deliver positive change. She brings strong experience in transformation across Higher Education and Government. She has extensive experience in digital strategy, transformation and delivery, always keeping user-centred design at the heart.
Key capabilities:
Client engagement
Continuous improvement
Process mapping
System implementation
Liisa O'Brien
Senior Project & Engagement Coordinator
Liisa uses her exceptional project support skills to ensure projects run to time and quality and stakeholders are engaged well throughout. She brings extensive HE experience and draws from her background in developing people and organisations.
Key capabilities:
Client experience
Continuous improvement
Role architecture
Research and analysis
Alice Wrigley
Associate: Consultant & Senior Project & Engagement Coordinator
Alice is a Consultant and Senior Projects Coordinator for Strive Higher. She brings two decades of experience to the role, combining the ability to quickly and intuitively understand the needs of clients with clearly and effectively managing and communicating solutions.
Key capabilities:
Intelligent automation design & delivery
Process review & optimisation
User-centred software implementation
Technology-enabled service improvement
Melody Askari
Associate: Principal Consultant
Melody is a digital specialist with extensive experience in Higher Education. She focuses on delivering streamlined, user-led solutions through smart use of technology. Her work blends practical innovation with hands-on implementation to improve services and outcomes.
Key capabilities:
Mentoring staff especially those new to role or keen for promotion
Curating and facilitating meetings and events
Evaluating & designing coherent policies to meet internal and external drivers
Supporting people to solve complex challenges
Ailsa Crum
Associate: Principal Consultant
Ailsa brings over 30 years’ experience in the higher education sector spanning all UK jurisdictions with extensive international links. She helps institutions positively impact what they value most, navigate regulatory requirements, and create imaginative approaches to engaging students and staff.
Key capabilities:
Reputation governance and crisis communications
Change and internal communications and engagement
Media relations and external engagement
Brand and research storytelling
Emma Smith
Associate: Principal Consultant
Emma has led communications and engagement at 3 UK universities. She specialises in change, crisis and research communications, reputation management, stakeholder engagement strategy, and helping universities tell compelling stories that demonstrate their public value and build trust.
Key capabilities:
Behaviour framework development
Workshop/focus group facilitation
Change readiness assessment
Training & people development
Andy Brett
Associate: Principal Consultant & Executive Coach
Andy is an Organisational Behaviour Specialist with vast expertise in culture transformation projects within the education sector. Andy has accrued over 20 years' experience developing organisations, individuals, and teams from the inside helping them transform their culture in line with their strategic ambitions.
Key capabilities:
Research career development
Culturally sensitive & impactful coaching
Boosting confidence & work/life balance
Enhancing research integrity & culture
Iveta Simera
Associate: Senior Consultant & Executive Coach
Iveta is an experienced professional development coach. She brings extensive knowledge of the academic research environment and a deep understanding of the challenges researchers and other professionals in Higher Education face.
Key capabilities:
Management of large-scale research programmes
Organisational change
Strategy development and delivery
Leadership, design and delivery of services
Clive Hayter
Associate: Senior Consultant
Clive has a detailed understanding of the innovation, research and training landscape in the UK. Throughout his work in both public and private sector, he has established a successful track record of strategic change, research funding and change management projects.
Key capabilities:
Service Design
Executive coach
Project and Programme Management
Change management
Michelle Cotter
Associate: Senior Consultant & Executive Coach
Michelle has over 30 years' experience of leading teams in the commercial sector where she held senior leadership positions. During her career, Michelle successfully worked with leaders to define, implement and embed global and sustainable change programmes that delivered ambitious strategic targets.
Key capabilities:
Executive Coaching
Organisational learning development
Talent development
Leadership & team development
Learning design & facilitation
Juliet Lambe
Associate: Senior Facilitator & Executive Coach
Juliet is a dynamic people development specialist and leadership coach with 20 years of experience spanning higher education, public, and private sectors in the UK and abroad. Leveraging cutting-edge coaching and development techniques, Juliet helps clients achieve their leadership goals and make lasting, positive changes.
Key capabilities:
Leadership development
Talent Management
Organisational development
Organisational design
Frances Hall
Associate: Executive Coach
Frances is a seasoned Human Resources Director with extensive experience in the education sector. As a coach, she is highly inquisitive and supportive.
Key capabilities:
Person-centred coaching
Thinking partnership
Personal and professional development
Group facilitation
Clare Wakeham
Associate: Executive Coach
Clare is a leadership coach with long experience in Higher Education, mostly in academic leadership. Her particular skills are in helping people do their best thinking, whether solving complex problems, making difficult decisions, understanding ambiguous situations or considering their personal development.
Key capabilities:
Executive Coaching
Leadership Development
Organisational Development and Strategy Development
Improving confidence and dealing with Overwhelm
Sarah Teagle
Associate: Executive Coach
Sarah has more than 25 years' experience working for academic and corporate organisations in Organisation/People and Strategy Development. As an Executive Coach, she has experience of working with leaders in Higher Education including new Heads of School, Deans and Vice Presidents who appreciate her supportive and focused approach.
Key capabilities:
Partnership development & engagement
Strategic planning & implementation
Portfolio development
Project management
John Melton
Strategic Partnerships Portfolio Lead
John leads on the delivery of Strive Higher’s strategic partnerships strategy as we establish new partnerships, products and services that will help build capacity across the sector. He has extensive experience of developing and implementing strategic projects, supporting change programmes and project management.
Key capabilities:
Data strategy & governance improvements
Academic portfolio size & shape
Delivering change and transformation
Complex problem solving in HE
Laura Jackson
Principal Consultant
Laura brings a wealth of skills and experience leading university data strategy and governance improvement initiatives. Pragmatic, pace setting and solutions- focussed, Laura can navigate the most complex and pressing data strategy and governance challenges with confidence and clarity.
Key capabilities:
Project coordination and delivery
Stakeholder engagement and relationship management
Process optimisation and problem-solving
Coordination and support expertise
Allie Chen
Senior Project & Engagement Coordinator
Allie leverages over a decade of administrative expertise to ensure seamless project delivery and client engagement. With a solution-focused mindset, exceptional organisational skills, and a commitment to excellence, she supports high-quality outcomes across Strive Higher projects.
Key capabilities:
Stakeholder engagement and communications
Complex problem solving
Delivering change and transformation
Process improvement
Claire Montogomery
Associate: Consultant
Claire brings a collaborative, people focussed approach to this role, with a wealth of experience in complex problem solving and streamlining processes, across various student facing services.
Key capabilities:
People change management
Organisation design
Communications and engagement
Transformation and implementation
Joelle Burford
Associate: Principal Consultant
Joelle is a highly experienced, personable and versatile Change and Transformation practitioner with an excellent track record of delivering programmes across a wide variety of environments in the Higher Education sector.
Key capabilities:
Marketing, student recruitment and admissions strategy
End to end student journey
Rankings, metrics and league tables
UK and international team structures
James Seymour
Associate: Principal Consultant
James is a student recruitment, marketing and admissions specialist with 30+ years in HE, including 15 at Director level. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM), he advises The Complete University Guide and is a specialist in campaigns, admissions, brand, rankings and recruitment strategy.
Key capabilities:
Institutional strategy
Developing sustainable enterprise income streams
Public and civic engagement
Coaching senior leaders
Sam Henney
Associate: Principal Consultant & Executive Coach
Sam is a values-led interim leader and coach with extensive experience in Higher Education, and a background in arts and heritage sectors. She supports organisations to develop institutional strategy, grow sustainable income streams, and build resilient inclusive cultures.
Key capabilities:
Institutional and academic strategy
Change management
Academic processes and policy review and enhancement
Team and leadership assessment and development
Sara Spear
Associate: Principal Consultant & Executive Coach
Sara is an experienced academic and senior higher education leader. She has led structural and cultural change programmes, working with both academic and professional teams. Sara has a particular interest in leadership development, and has collaborated with professional bodies as a trainer, facilitator and mentor.
Key capabilities:
Transformation and implementation
Student and staff engagement
Empathetic facilitation
Innovative teaching methods
Kat Low
Associate: Senior Consultant & Executive Coach
Kat is an academic with extensive experience of working in HE, gained through international research and creative arts projects. She specialises in facilitating creative arts encounters for diverse stakeholders to develop shared values and cultures and embed strategic change.
Key capabilities:
Budgeting, financial reporting & forecasting
Data analysis & financial visualisation
Governance, policy & compliance oversight
Strategic project delivery & transformation
Monica Wolff
Associate: Senior Consultant
Monica brings extensive experience in financial management, project delivery, and operational support across complex, multi-stakeholder environments. She delivers practical, insight-driven solutions that support organisational efficiency, governance, and strategic decision-making.
Key capabilities:
Leadership and Team Coach
Adaptive Leadership
Presence and Impact Development
Learning design and facilitation
Helen van Ameyde
Associate: Senior Facilitator and Executive Coach
With more than 25 years international experience in facilitation and coaching; education, learning and organizational development are at the core of Helen’s career. She partners on the design and delivery of leadership and coaching programs to drive transformational change.
Key capabilities:
Digital strategy and implementation
Digital design and systems
Complex problem solving
Capability development
Rhiannon Davies
Associate: Consultant
Rhiannon brings extensive experience in digital transformation and implementation in Higher Education. Rhiannon is collaborative and results-oriented, with a proven ability to drive positive change through delivering practical solutions and fostering sustainable capability building within organisations.
Key capabilities:
Leadership development
Executive coaching
Personal and professional development
Employee engagement
Michelle Lawton
Associate: Executive Coach
Michelle is a Performance and Leadership Coach with over 20 years’ experience. She has held senior leadership positions with a proven track record in driving performance whilst simultaneously improving employee engagement. Michelle coaches individuals and teams to fulfil their potential.
Key capabilities:
Inclusive leadership
Executive coaching
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Psychometric assessments
Nita Sharma
Associate: Executive Coach
Nita’s career has spanned the BBC, local government and housing in Diversity and Inclusion, HR and Corporate management. As a coach she brings curiosity, deep listening and a safe space for those she works with. She employs a number of assessments, including the Intercultural Development Inventory.
