Claire Mackinnon believes you don’t need to choose between a successful career and inner peace, and helps her clients build a bridge between those two.

She supports leaders mid-way through their career, who feel like being successful at work is costing them too much. She helps them to thrive, whilst living creatively, joyfully and wholeheartedly.

Claire guides them to lead courageously and authentically so that they can be a force for good in their organisations and create meaningful change to how business is done. Her work is dedicated to making corporate organisations kinder, more compassionate and a powerful vehicle for positive change in the world.

Beyond her organisational leadership development work, Claire is passionate about helping people create careers that bring them joy and fulfillment. Whether that be within their current corporate setting, or as they transition out and begin their own journey as a solopreneur. She has supported hundreds of clients as a professionally certified coach and her mission is inspired by her own journey. You can read more about that below…

Claire lives in a tiny village in Berkshire, UK with her Husband and two children. She co-parents her kids with their Dad and his wife, who live nearby.

She loves to dance, and a year after starting to learn Salsa, discovered Ceroc (a cool blend of salsa and jive). She joins thousands of other Ceroc fanatics a couple of times a year at mass-gathering ‘weekenders’ on the Kent coast, and is proud of her student-like ability to dance until 4am (even if it is only twice a year!). She also dances most days in her kitchen, and in recent years has taken to the stage as a solo performer. She was recently interviewed about her dancing adventures on the Untaming Femininity Podcast.

As a side project, Claire created an innovative workshop that uses ‘silent disco’ technology and movement as a vehicle for women to develop greater confidence in themselves, and has run versions of her dance-based workshops in corporates and pro-bono in local schools.

Claire writes weekly on Substack. Glitter and Biscuits. shares fieldnotes, personal essays, prompts and assorted inspiration from her journey of creative reclamation.

Her official bio is here, including the details of her professional coaching credentials.

Read on to get to know her a little better…

Welcome to my ‘about me’ page

I thought I’d answer some questions I often get asked to help you get to know me a bit better:

What were you like when you were a kid?

I was a classic people pleaser, and saw that keeping my head down and not making a fuss was the best way to get on. I was a straight ‘A’ student. The only thing I failed was my driving test and I never got a detention at school.

Around the age of 12 or 13, I started to write to a children’s newspaper pretty regularly about the things I felt strongly about. My Mum still has the clippings :)

My views were naive and my points very simple, but I was trying to make the world a kinder place, and this was one way I could think to do it. Some of the topics I remember writing about:

• Celebrities should use their power and influence to do good

• Dishwashers should be banned and we should all wash up by hand to save energy (completely inaccurate, I know!)

• Why don’t we all recycle if it’s good for the planet?

• Racism is wrong: A plea to treat people equally

• Bullying must stop: let’s be kind to one another

I remember one time at school getting very distressed, and almost hysterical, because I’d read something in the (adult) newspaper that morning. I remember a teacher I adored telling me that I shouldn’t think about things that made me upset when there was nothing I could do about it. I started to believe that perhaps people didn’t want to hear what I had to say. I didn’t stop thinking about what troubled me, but I talked about it less.

My schedule was packed throughout my teenage years – learning the piano, violin and flute, dancing, singing in choirs and during the school holidays I’d be on tour with my county’s Youth Orchestra. I lived for those trips – I loved performing on the stage and the parties afterwards.

I decided to study music at University. I loved the freedom of living away from home and made up for lost time with my social life. It was like being on tour every day – immersed in a subject I loved and partying with people who got me.

I learned from some of the greatest living composers whilst at Uni, and discovered a talent for writing music. The notes seemed to fall out of me and I loved creating something from nothing. As I honed my skill, I dreamt of becoming a film composer, but as I reached my final year, I decided against it, convinced I’d become a struggling artist. I followed the advice of well meaning friends and decided to join a Banking Graduate scheme instead, to experience the ‘ real world.’. From the minute I walked into the assessment centre I wasn’t sure it was for me, but I went with it, ‘performed’ and got the job.

6 months after I graduated I returned to Birmingham, where I’d been at Uni, to attend the premiere of a piece of music I’d written in my final year. I had won the university composition prize, which was to have my work played by a professional orchestra in a public concert alongside the works of established composers.

As the conductor invited me to the stage to take a bow it felt as though I was saying a final goodbye to the creative life I had dreamed of. After that it felt pointless to play and write music, so I stopped.

What did you do for work before your coaching?

I worked in various leadership roles, and my final ‘in-house’ role was at Director level.

I made rapid progress in my career, partly because I was really good at listening to my bosses and putting into practice everything they taught me (regardless of whether it felt right for me). So I did that. Again and again. And it worked. I got promotion after promotion, prestigious awards at black tie dinners and great performance ratings. By the time I was 24 I was leading my own geographical area at Barclays, and a team of 100 people.

A few promotions later I decided to specialise in Human Resources as a way to have my work feel more meaningful. I spent three years studying for my professional HR qualification and the job move helped a little, but because I hadn’t yet done any inner work on myself, it meant that I just brought the ingrained ways of working and thinking that were slowly draining me into my new roles. And even though Human Resources felt like a better fit for me than leading sales teams, what dominated was a nagging thought:

“Why are we doing this? What is the ACTUAL point?”

It felt like we were all on this giant treadmill, and I couldn’t see what difference it was making in real terms, beyond shareholders getting richer and customers having their money taken care of. Neither of these things made me excited. But I kept going and resigned myself to the fact that this was just how work in the real world felt. It was paying the bills and then some, and I told myself I should feel grateful for that.

What changed for you? Why did you leave that work?

It was a gradual process…looking back I can see I was slowly reaching my breaking point.

I’d met my boyfriend, Ross, a fellow graduate, when I’d started at Barclays and by the age of 26 we were married. By 29 I’d given birth to our daughter, Holly, and two years later our son, James. On paper I had everything I thought I wanted, but there was a growing feeling of unease that I didn’t understand or want to understand. So I carried on regardless.

I tried not working at all for 18 months after I had James. I thought maybe I was just not cut out for corporate life and that I should be a stay at home mum. I ended up feeling depressed, and simultaneously in overdrive. I studied for another professional qualification, this time in conflict-resolution, to try and forge a path to greater meaning. It helped a little, but the depression didn’t lift.

And then I had a wake up call: One Tuesday in 2011 my body started to bleed. I was rushed to hospital and after various tests found out I had several early-stage tumours in my bowel that needed surgery. The two months that followed were a blur, as I prepared for my operation and contemplated the possibility of ongoing cancer treatment.

After an agonising wait post-surgery I was given the news that all was well. I didn’t need any more treatment, just close ongoing monitoring for the rest of my life. The people in my life celebrated. But I felt numb and sad. The news meant that I had to get back on the treadmill and carry on living a life that felt joyless despite having everything I thought I wanted. And I was so ashamed of how I felt - I didn’t tell anyone. I put on a brave face, went back to work after my maternity leave ended, and carried on.

A year or so later, determined to try and change how I felt, I tried moving organisations (from the bank to a non-profit). On paper it had all the ingredients for a completely different way of life and work. A shorter commute, more meaning, the same money. But the pleasing, proving part of me continued to run the show and I managed to make it feel even more stressful than working at Barclays.

What happened after that?

The next year was the worst of my life. Ross and I decided to separate and we worked with a counsellor to try and save our relationship. On top of that, the non-profit I worked for had started merger discussions with another organisation. I was leading a huge part of the merger-related work and felt like I was on a year-long interview. The stakes were high, and I had to prove myself to keep my job when the restructures came. Ross and I tried to make our marriage work and he moved back in a couple of times. I always quickly returned to feeling numb and uneasy but convinced myself it would get better.

When we were living separately, I found being apart from the children on the couple of nights Ross had them each week very hard. I would watch mindless TV, cry and drink a bottle of wine until I fell asleep. One day I saw a post on Facebook about a Salsa class I had always thought of trying, and something told me to get off the sofa and go. Afterwards, when I got home, I was buzzing. I couldn’t sleep for hours. It was like it had woken something up inside me. Some part of me that I had forgotten was there. Through that incredibly difficult year, I kept dancing a couple of times a month. When things felt dark, I knew I had this magical thing in my life that topped me up and it kept me going.

One morning, when Ross had moved back in, he was in the shower and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I got out of bed. I was about a stone underweight and looked so sad and desperate. I didn’t recognise myself. And then, out of nowhere, I had a moment of complete clarity. I knew exactly what I needed to do. The fear I had been carrying fell away, and I was finally honest with myself. When Ross walked back in the room, I told him that I knew deep down our marriage was over and that I couldn’t carry on this way. I felt a sense of calm I had never felt before. We both felt sad, but we were also relieved. This was the right decision for the whole family.

That sounds like a powerful moment. Did it change much in your life?

Yes.

What I know now is that until that moment, most decisions in my life, big and small, had been driven by a fear of something: being rejected, being disapproved of, being alone, failing. In that moment of clarity, my fear took a back seat. It was still there, but it quietened, and I listened to a different part of myself.

That part told me my kids being happy and secure did not require me to be a martyr. It told me that everything was going to work out and that I had people around me who loved me. This was the start of me demoting my fear from running the show, and as I continued to do so, everything started to change.

At work, I started to have conversations I had previously shied away from. Instead of running around trying to prove myself, I took a step back and focused on what was most important. By doing less, and being more courageous, the impact I was able to have gradually expanded.

I realised that keeping my job didn’t depend on working 12-hour days

I started to see my own worth and when the restructure came I breezed through the interviews.

At home I often felt waves of grief and felt lonely. But I also felt so much calmer and present with Holly and James. They were only little, 3 and 6, and I started to enjoy my time with them in a way I hadn’t before. I realised that feeling sad about my marriage ending didn’t mean it was the wrong decision. I learnt not to feel afraid of my feelings and as I allowed myself to feel sad, the difficult emotions slowly evaporated, and I felt more and more content.

By now I was going to Salsa every week and one day decided to try a new dance class. There, in the beginner’s section, I met a wonderful man, Mark, who would later become my husband and Stepdad to Holly and James. We met up each week to go dancing, and I soon realised this was the person I would share my life with.

Was this when you started your own business?

Yes.

As my confidence continued to grow, I decided to follow my heart and start my own thing.

I had no grand plan, but I knew I had a lot to offer and wanted more flexibility, variety and meaning. I set up my own Human Resources Consultancy, resigned from my job and walked into a schedule of rewarding projects with people and organisations I loved working with from day one of my new venture.

I had no strategy, in the lead up to leaving my job, I simply connected with people I had enjoyed working with in my past career and opportunities kept presenting themselves. I hadn’t planned on it, but the chance to deliver some coaching and training came up, and I started to realise that this was the work I was meant to do.

As I immersed myself in my professional coach training, I never looked back. A couple of years after starting my business, I stopped taking on HR projects and moved 100% to coaching and developing leaders in organisations. It felt scary to leave behind the career I had built over 17 years, but it also felt 100% right.

What is it that got you into coaching?

Coaching was the ultimate meaningful work to me: Helping people grow and achieve their goals, by helping them to look within.

It is what I had needed more than anything my whole career, but hadn’t realised it. It felt so refreshing to empower people in this way, having spent my whole career in environments where the answers always seemed to come from the outside. Where most leaders I had encountered expected people to fall in line and go with their way of thinking.

Whilst I had been working inside organisations as a leader, I don’t think I had ever had anyone invite me to trust my intuition. And now trusting my intuition was foundational to my work as a coach and came very naturally to me.

I started to see how over the years I had lost trust in myself, and saw that this work was about rebuilding that and helping others do the same. I saw the power of looking beyond our logical minds for the answer and finally, the weird and wonderful mix of my life experiences made sense:

My creativity, heart, mind and body all had a part to play in my vocation as a coach, and I could use them to serve other people and make the difference I had been longing to. I discovered my talent for helping people tap into themselves in a deeper way, using my own creativity, and how transformational this was. And my knowledge and experience of leadership in the corporate world could help me do that in a way that was grounded in reality.

I had found something where being uniquely me and bringing all of that to my work was exactly what was needed. It was liberating.

Coaching helped your clients but did it help you at all?

It did. More than anything, my work has taught me to accept myself as I am right now, and to stop trying to please other people at the expense of what I feel. I have learned to listen to myself more deeply and make changes that feel life-affirming even when they scare me. I have discovered the power of my intuition, putting my joy first and trusting that the next step will always be revealed.

My experience of life and work has transformed from one of struggle, pushing and striving to a growing sense of joy and ease. I still have a lot going on in my life - all the practical challenges of balancing my working life with personal relationships and being a Mum. Plus, I am the main income earner in my household. But I am able to move through it all so much more gracefully.

A big change is that I have gone from being afraid to be myself, for fear of rejection and judgement, to realising that bringing more of myself is what is allowing me the success I am now enjoying. I am so much more open about how I see the world and what I believe, and so much more able to express it. I have more of a voice and I’m more and more willing to speak up.

It has lost me opportunities, where others’ way of seeing things is different to mine, and it has brought me wonderful clients and partnerships.

One specific relationship that has changed as a result of all of this, is my relationship with my ex-husband Ross. It has always been civil between us, but as we have hit various parenting challenges in recent years, I have been more honest with him. Previously I would hold back on how I really felt as a way to avoid conflict and I didn’t properly listen to him.

Now I am more able to listen to his point of view, and put myself in his shoes, as well as express my own opinions. Our relationship has blossomed - the more honest I have been, the closer we have become. I had to pinch myself when he and his wife asked my husband and I to be Godparents to his new baby son a couple of years ago.

Do you regret not following your creative dream of becoming a composer?

I sometimes daydream that I’m at the Oscars as a nominee for best original score. Maybe partly because I’d love to meet Leonardo Dicaprio :) But any sadness I feel about this lost dream is fleeting...

I used to feel ashamed that I chose to follow the corporate path instead of pursuing a career in music. I regretted not having the courage to risk being a struggling artist. That I chose to do something that fundamentally didn’t feel like me, because it paid better.

A few of things have shifted as I think about this today. As I have reclaimed my time and energy, I have discovered the joy to be had in following my creative curiosity. This is what led me to dancing and writing. I see that we don’t have to earn a living from our art, to be artists. Humans by their very nature are creative. I am enjoying the journey of reclaiming my own creativity, and seeing where it takes me.

I’m also glad I made the choice I did because it led me to this point. My work deeply fulfills me and I know that all the experiences I have had throughout my career, which began with that choice, enrich my work and enable me to serve the people who come to me for support. I met my first husband at Barclays. We had good times, we have our children, and he and I have both grown as people from what happened next.

And I can also have compassion for why I made the decision I did. I see that the forces of other people’s opinions are strong. The pull to seen as successful was seductive to my young ego. I can have compassion for who I was then and how I made a decision that I thought was the right one at the time. That is all we can ever do.

What are the dominant or primary questions about people, society or the world that have been with you from early in your life that have driven you?

From as early as I can remember, the following questions have been present for me.

• Why do we live in ways that cause so much harm - to our planet and to one another?

• What kind of pain must people be in to harm others?

• Why isn’t the world a kinder place?

• What causes it not to be?

• What are the things I can do to make it a kinder place?

So, that’s a bit about me and my story. If you’d like to explore working with me, you might want to check out My Philosophy and My Services.

You can also check out my coaching credentials in my official biography.

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