Our Team

Alyssa Gallagher is an education author, leader and speaker. She has extensive experience leading schools and districts to revolutionize learning for students. Under Alyssa’s guidance Los Altos School District became a nationally recognized leader in education innovation with her work featured in Forbes, Wired, The Economist magazine and on CNN and CBS’ 60 Minutes. After two decades working within k12 education, Alyssa led the global leadership practice for The Wiseman Group, co-designing executive development strategies to enable leaders to become better ‘multipliers’ of their people’s talent. Alyssa has worked with a wide spectrum of leaders, ranging from early career professionals in her local school district to seasoned executives in Fortune 500 Companies. Alyssa enjoys working with leaders to design strategies that leverage the capability, creativity and intelligence of everyone on their team.

Sean is an education leader, speaker and author, with nearly three decades of experience in education, both in the US and globally. With a strong background in education reform and wellbeing, he has driven policy change, implemented initiatives, and developed educational leaders, to enhance the social impact of education. As Senior Director of Global Outreach at ASCD, Sean launched and grew the ASCD Whole Child Network to 1,800 members, 350 school districts and 56 countries. He is a Social & Emotional Learning expert for NBC Today, advisory member for OECD’s Future of Education & Skills 2030, a founding member of the UNESCO Chair on Global Health & Education. He has written for the Washington Post, Huffington Post, EdWeek, and is a frequent keynote speaker.

Max Cooke is K-12 systems change advocate who empowers education professionals to excel in their school and school district leadership roles. As the Head of BTS Spark in Canada, Max is working to ensure that more Canadian school and district leaders are aware of the benefits and impact that world-class professional leadership coaching can provide to them and their teams. Prior to his role at BTS Spark, Max served as the President and CEO of the EdCan Network, where he led strategic initiatives aimed at enhancing the capacity of education professionals to cultivate healthier workplace environments.

Denise has 25 years’ experience of designing and delivering a range of services and programmes for schools at local, regional and national levels. Before her current role for BTS Spark, Denise worked for ten years as Head of Education for two national grant-making foundations, leading a number of innovative education initiatives and grants programmes, and supporting a network of sponsored academies and associated schools and colleges. Previously Denise held leadership roles for a national youth development charity and an Education Action Zone, and founded Inspire, an education-business partnership working with schools and colleges in the London borough of Hackney. Denise has an MSc in Change Agent Skills and Strategies.

Josh specialises in building leadership and learning capability at scale, ensuring organisations can navigate complexity and change with confidence. With a career spanning teaching, leadership development, learning design and digital learning, Josh has driven learning strategies that transform workforce capability, leadership pipelines, and digital education ecosystems. Josh holds two master’s degrees (Education Policy & Applied Linguistics) and has led projects across school systems, government, universities, and industry to develop evidence-based, high-impact learning programs. Josh’s expertise includes:

• Leadership development – Equipping leaders to thrive in complex environments
• Learning design & digital transformation – Creating scalable, accessible, and effective learning solutions
• Organisational learning strategy – Embedding workforce development and lifelong learning into organisational objectives.

With degrees in psychology and social sciences, Cathy offers over twenty years’ experience working in the fields of leadership development, psychometric assessment, organisation development, facilitation and counselling. Her professional background and well developed organisational skills enable her to program manage complex projects with ease.

Cathy is highly committed to ensuring that our many programs are delivered efficiently and effectively, and all participants receive a personalised service. Her professional approach makes her highly sought after by our clients. Cathy also brings a deep understanding of psychometric tools, with her own accreditations in Hogan, MBTI, Genos Ei and Ravens. She can advise schools on relevant programs and match them with suitable coaches.

Ross’s 40 years of service to Queensland schools gave him experience in both urban and rural schools across the state. His caring leadership style was appreciated by many, as he rose from assistant and deputy principal roles to principalship of a large state high school. His 25 years in educational leadership roles culminated with his work as assistant regional director for the North Coast region. Ross has a passion for supporting the next generation of school leaders to build their people leadership skills, and is committed to ensuring that everyone can access the right support, however remote or isolated their school is.

Gail has forged a lifelong career supporting Northern Territory schools. She pioneered Department of Education programs for schools to integrate technology and to improve literacy. Her most recent principalship saw her leading a school that was architecturally designed for co-teaching where she also introduced a hub for inclusive practices which became a model of best practice; the school’s enrolments doubled during her principalship. Gail’s leadership practice has been strongly influenced by her training in cognitive coaching.

Tara O’Brien is a founding partner and facilitator for BTS Spark. She joined BTS Spark in 2019 when it expanded its presence into North America after spending 17 years in education as a teacher and principal. Having worked in a variety of schools across the United States, she understands both the complexity of individual organizations as well as the universal demands of educators. She’s also a mom of two teenage kids, so she’s passionate about supporting the adults who are impacting and influencing our children. Tara has presented at numerous conferences and webinars as well as co-written articles on wellbeing and educational leadership. While Tara lives in the US, she has deep ties to Canada as her extended family has lived there for generations. 

James has several years of experience working within global talent development & coaching organizations in various roles ranging from marketing through to account management & customer success.

Having managed global programs that involve multiple cohorts across various geographies, James has an acute understanding of what it takes to ensure successful onboarding, adoption, and delivery of multilayered & complex coaching engagements.

In this capacity, he works with key stakeholders to better understand their talent and L&D objectives and provide guidance on what initiatives will be key to their success.

Melissa studied Production for Live Events and Television, which lead to a career spanning over a decade at several large cultural institutions, including a long tenure in the Education department at Shakespeare’s Globe. Melissa is an experienced programme manager, coordinating and delivering a wide range of outreach projects, fostering strong collaborations with educators and leaders at national and international level. Previous to BTS Spark, Melissa also worked as a Project Manager in social research. She is committed to driving positive outcomes and creating meaningful impact in her work.

Kerry is an experienced school leader and former Headteacher and is currently working towards her accredited status as an Executive Coach. Kerry’s belief in developing and supporting teachers at all stages of their career has been a cornerstone of her work and a vital aspect of every role she has undertaken. Throughout her long career she has facilitated and organised many conferences and delivered high-quality whole school and bespoke CPD. Her work is informed by an understanding of the complexities of evolving teams, optimising personal interactions, and achieving sustainable improvement. Kerry is particularly interested in building leadership potential and enabling culture shifts within schools. As well as being our Spark Partner for the North of England, she is currently a Chair of Governors and a facilitator for two NPQ providers.

Sarah brings 14 years of marketing experience across the training, arts, e-commerce, and hospitality sectors, specialising in digital marketing, brand strategy, and content marketing. Born in Germany and raised in Indonesia, Sarah later trained as a dancer in Singapore before settling in Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Communications from the University of Sydney. With a background as a performing arts teacher, she brings a lifelong passion for learning and development. Drawing on her global experience and creative roots, Sarah brings a thoughtful, purpose-driven lens to her work in raising awareness amongst education leaders of BTS Spark’s not-for-profit professional learning services.

Linz started her career in the newspaper industry moving on through roles in magazine design, advertising and varied design work before joining BTS. At BTS, Linz creates self-paced digital learning content on many platforms including Canvas, Momenta, Changr, BTS Coach and Sounding Board. She has been involved in the design of several hundred leadership programs for education clients and school systems, ensuring that online learning, coaching and workshop sessions are integrated into a seamless blended learning experience for participants. Adaptable, highly organised and capable of working under pressure to tight deadlines, Linz has a practical approach to problem solving. She enjoys the challenge of maximizing the user experience and seeing projects from concept right through to completion.

Sunita has worked within human resource management and people development for over 20 years and has coached in English and Hindi for BTS for over a decade. She enjoys empowering leaders and has coached executives, senior and middle leaders in a range of organisations including the public sector, healthcare and UNICEF. She is extensively involved in coaching women leaders, women entrepreneurs and not-for- profit leaders through The Coach Initiative, Search for Common Ground and Vital Voices. A highly respected figure in the Indian coaching community, Sunita is a faculty member of an Accredited Coach Training Program, Mentor Coach, Coach Supervisor, Coach Trainer and Credentialing Assessor of an international coaching body. She holds the distinguished credential of Master Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation and is a founder member of the Association of Mumbai Coaches India.

Michelle has been a member of BTS’ coaching team in China for nearly a decade. Her passion for coaching stems from her belief that people can break through bottlenecks by raising their self-awareness. She assists coachees to identify their key barriers, embrace new mindsets and achieve their goals. Prior to coaching, Michelle worked both as a human resources partner (focusing on talent assessment and individual/ team development) and as a senior manager in the British Council China (working with schools and universities). She enjoys supporting school leaders and is currently focusing on middle leader development. Michelle is a certified master coach with the Behaviour Coaching Institute and holds an Executive MBA. She coaches in Mandarin and English.

Marina earnt a Master’s Degree in Coaching and Organizational Change and, since 2012, has been working as a coach, facilitator and consultant in training solutions, performance improvement and organisational change processes. She has coached education executives within the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, focusing mainly on relational leadership skills, time management, and emotional intelligence. She has also enjoyed supporting school principals and teachers to implement change projects. At different points in her professional journey, she has worked as a professor in various universities. She is currently a Team Coach at the IAE Business School and Thesis Advisor at Universidad del Salvador, Argentina. She also collaborates with the Human Coaching Network), supporting leaders within humanitarian and development organisations.

Jenny is an experienced leader, workforce planner, executive coach and strategist. She combines her experience in education with her studies in coaching and leadership to help others reach their potential. Jenny brings 30 years’ experience in educational leadership roles, including successful principalship and systems leadership roles. Jenny is accredited with the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership Performance Profile, holds a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and is an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation. Jenny brings expertise in strengths based coaching, organisational psychology, narrative coaching, integral system and goal theory, crucial conversations, brain theory and immunity to change.

Teng Teng brings over 17 years of experience in culture development, learning development and human resource management to her coaching and facilitation work. She has facilitated numerous workshops and coaching programs for education leaders and teachers – most recently for aspiring principals, special education leaders and early childhood leaders through Singapore’s National Institute of Education. Coaching in both Mandarin and English, she has worked with BTS for over a decade. Her coaching expertise includes personal resourcefulness, trust and connection, visioning and leadership impact. Teng Teng is a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, and holds numerous accreditations including MBTI, LSI and LPI. She has a Master of Human Development and Education degree.

Isabelle has over a decade of experience in leadership development, executive coaching, career development and team optimization. She is passionate about her clients reaching new levels of awareness, authenticity, and impact. She is credentialled as a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation and is accredited to debrief a range of psychometric assessments including Leadership Circle and Genos Emotional Intelligence Inventory. She has coached numerous education leaders, Fortune 100 leaders and not-for profit leaders (from the UN World Food Program, UN Development Program and Young President’s Organization). She coaches in French and English.

Prior to coaching, Isabelle served as a Grade 8 math teacher in Quebec before moving into education publishing where she worked as Director of Marketing for a global education publisher.

Chris has been coaching in the field of education for 6 years and has supported over 50 education leaders. Chris started his Education career teaching at secondary schools across all age ranges and abilities. He then moved onto Management Consultancy and was a Partner at Capgemini where he grew their Children’s Services, Education and Skills practice three fold. Chris holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Executive Coaching and has previously been the UK President of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. As an active member of the community, Chris is the Treasurer of a major conservation society in Brighton.

Nidhi has worked with BTS since 2014, supporting leaders of all levels (from first- time leaders to CEOs) in 1-1 coaching, group coaching and large group workshops. Her focus is on assisting individuals to develop the self-awareness and self-assurance required to make transformational changes in attitude and behaviour. She also facilitates leadership programs at the renowned Indian School of Business and was an inaugural coach at FLAME Management School. Prior to coaching Nidhi worked for 20 years in the Human Resources field with reputed organisations, holding managerial roles including Regional Manager–Personnel and Vice President– Human Resources. She then started her own HR consultancy organization. Her success saw Nidhi featured in a book titled “An Enterprise of her Own”, that showcased stories of successful women entrepreneurs.

Stefanie is an experienced coach, facilitator and trainer in mindfulness. She uses systemic and co-active coaching techniques to enable leaders to achieve balance and fulfil their leadership potential. A credentialled Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, Stefanie has been trained in NLP, transactional analysis and ORSC. Stefanie was active in supporting teachers to cope with the additional stresses caused by the global pandemic and is currently supporting a Ukrainian NGO. Stefanie is founder and Chief Executive of Plan B Coaching and Mindfulness – an organisation dedicated to helping female leaders to find their spark and become successful entrepreneurs. Stefanie coaches in German and English.

Cindy Rogan resides in Bellevue Washington where she develops and facilitates cutting- edge workshops and effective coaching for teams, leaders, and individuals. Cindy has been a leader in education, team training and coaching for over 30 years. During her extensive career in public service, Cindy has brought her unique combination of insight, humor, and reflection to a variety of teams and leaders including executives and senior leaders, public and private school leaders, school leadership teams, central office leaders, police officers and labor union leaders. In her private practice with clients, Cindy focuses her efforts on the client’s identified needs as they pursue their personal goals and desired outcomes.

In her previous roles as Executive Director of Schools in the Bellevue School District, and as a school principal, Cindy worked closely with leaders, boards, teachers, parents, and teams to meet the shared goals and initiatives of the organization. Utilizing a deep understanding of change management, resource utilization and performance benchmarks, Cindy brings her understanding of strategic management to her work with clients. With her expertise as a leader in multiple settings, Cindy understands the unique challenges leaders face, daily. From unique and dynamic human resource issues to challenging contexts related to contract negotiations, she is positioned to bring her empathy, compassion and understanding to best meet the leader’s needs.

Alison has always had a passion for people, starting her career as a doctor and co- founding the first Sino-Foreign Medical Center in partnership with the Shanghai Government. She also worked in multi- national management consultancies before devoting herself to coaching. She encourages her coachees to become more self-aware, achieve a healthy work-life balance and tackle difficult conversations where needed. Alison’s varied coaching assignments have included supporting professors in Singapore Management University, faculty in the National University of Singapore and Country Leaders of the AsiaPacific Special Olympics. She is a certified Integral Coach and ORSC Coach and is accredited to debrief various psychometric assessment tools including MBTI, FIRO-B, Leadership Circle and DISC. She was featured on TedX Shanghai. Alison coaches in Mandarin and English.

Harley is an experienced and high level, goal-oriented executive coach and facilitator. He has an international business and marketing leadership background, with previous responsibility for budgets of up to $250m. Harley has been coaching with us since 2007 and also runs his own coaching and counselling practice. He holds professional qualifications in both coaching and counselling, as well as a Masters in Adult Education. In addition to his coaching work, he is an experienced facilitator who consistently delivers powerful workshops on a range of topics including Mentoring, Difficult Conversations and Coaching Skills. Harley’s work has spanned education departments in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and WA.

She is an award-winning leader with over 30 successful years in broadcast media sales. During her corporate career, she worked her way up from sales assistant to general sales manager positions including Direct of Market Development. She has held board positions with non-profit organizations, including Vice President of the Alliance for Women in Media-Chicago, the Black Women’s Expo Advisor Panel and Mentoring programs with the Morgan Park Boys and Girls Club and SBCOC’s Women of Influence/Sister 2 Sister Ministry. 

Carla has worked with leaders and organisations throughout Mexico and Latin America, as an executive coach, trainer, facilitator and consultant. Over a decade ago, she founded her own successful coaching company and she first started collaborating with BTS in 2016. Her results-oriented and development-focused approach has made her a popular choice, both as a 1-1 coach and as a facilitator of large workshops. Credentialled as a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, Carla also holds a Masters in Gestalt Psychotherapy and is trained in Systemic Coaching. She coaches in Spanish and English. Prior to coaching, Carla held a variety of professional roles, including Head of the Cultural Area, Head of Student Affairs and Director of Continuing Education – all in the higher education sector.

Katarina has worked internationally as a leadership coach since 2017, building on 30 years’ experience as a leader in public healthcare/ recruitment and a business owner of a healthcare company. She is credentialled with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) as a Professional Certified Coach and recently stepped down from serving as Board Member and then Vice President of ICF Sweden. When coaching, Katarina sees her role as acting as a catalyst, challenging her coachees’ assumptions and limiting beliefs, helping them to clarify their values, prioritise and become more effective as communicators and leaders. Her coaching work in the education sector includes serving as a Leadership Coach for Teach First and providing mentoring and coaching services at Brighton University. She coaches in Swedish and English.

Nelly is a highly experienced coach, facilitator and mindfulness trainer, who has worked with BTS for over a decade, coaching in both English and Indonesian. She has worked with leaders from diverse cultural backgrounds, in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, China, South Africa and Vietnam. Nelly has partnered with Singapore’s National Institute of Education at Nanyang Technological University to train aspiring principals and special education leaders in coaching and leadership skills. She has pioneered a coaching capability program through Global School Leaders that is now being rolled out across Indonesia by the Inspirasi Foundation. A strong advocate of mindful education, Nelly co-founded a social enterprise that focuses on cultivating self- awareness, creativity and resilience in youth in Singapore. Nelly holds Professional Certified Coach credentials with the International Coaching Federation, an MBA, and a Master of Counselling.

Fluent in both English and French, Shobha has coached for BTS for over a decade – supporting middle, senior and director level leaders across India, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. Shobha’s global experience stems from various roles that she previously held both in government and as Chief Communications Officer for an international non-governmental organisation where she served as the interface between local Indian government schools and French sponsors. Shobha is credentialled as a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation. Using varied approaches from Neuro Linguistic Programming, accelerated learning, 360 debriefing, cultural navigator and other coaching tools, she supports leaders to achieve leadership shifts and grow their situational adaptability, through change and innovative thinking.

Louise has twenty years’ experience in the education sector with over a decade in senior leadership roles, including two successful headships. Her professional coaching experience includes 10 years developing coaching for performance improvement in the education sector, including introducing and implementing programmes of coaching across teams, conducting research into the use of coaching to improve professional learning and performance, and transforming organisational leadership and performance management structures. Her work is informed by an understanding of the complexities of developing teams, of optimising personal resourcefulness and of achieving sustainable organisational improvement.

As a lifelong learner and personal growth enthusiast, the core principles underpinning Louise’s coaching are the belief in each individual’s capacity for growth and transformation, a deep respect for the individual experience of pressure and challenge, and an empathetic compassion for each individual.  Her coaching accreditations include certificates in problem focused counselling, coaching and training, in positive psychology coaching and in stress management. Her education qualifications include a PGCE, NPQH and MSc in Learning and Teaching.

Daisy is an experienced Leadership coach. She helps leaders to create a high performing team culture by supporting leaders to bring their best self to work and lead their teams with greater effectiveness. She is also an Intercultural coach helping organizations to advance their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Daisy started her career in the Retail Banking Services, where she learned the importance of customer-centricity that drives a positive customer experience. Since becoming a coach, Daisy has coached across all industries and especially enjoys coaching education leaders with BTS Spark.

Camilla holds the highest level of coach accreditation – credentialled as a Master Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation – in recognition of over 1,800 hours of coaching experience. This includes executive coaching, small group coaching and team coaching of leaders and executives in various industries. She believes in empowering her coachees to see and trust their abilities, enabling them to be more effective leaders able to inspire, drive and fully engage their teams. She has supported a range of schools, from preschools to high schools and collaborated in projects focused on experiential learning. Camilla coaches in Italian, Spanish, French and English. She has two Masters degrees, a Diploma in Mentoring and Supervision, Certificates in Team Coaching and Group Coaching, and is accredited in multiple psychometric instruments including Hogan, DISC and MBTI.