Helen Philip

I’ve been lucky enough to be around horses all my life, from a wobbly toddler balanced on a Shetland pony in Kenya where I grew up, to training and competing in professional Dressage stables across Europe and winning the UK National Dressage Championships title in 2013, something I still dine out on today!

Alongside my passion for horses, I have worked in the corporate world for over 20 years in a variety of senior consultative sales roles for start-ups, agencies and major blue-chip organisations. My remit was often to secure new business from an entirely cold approach and lead teams to do the same. Over the years, I learnt that to be successful it was crucial to have empathy, confidence, conviction and purpose; to really listen, to be my authentic self and have authority without arrogance. I realised these are qualities that horses demand of us and teach us every day!

I’d always been fascinated by the use of horses in coaching and personal development, so in 2017 I embarked on my journey to become an Equine Facilitated Coach. My first experience was at a LEAP workshop and to say the experience completely floored me is an understatement. I felt all at once completely seen and heard. I felt safety to release and express emotions I’d been unconsciously holding in for years. I felt held in a space of zero judgement. Through their behaviour, the horses gave me more insight about myself and my self-limiting beliefs in that one day than I’d had in a lifetime. I vowed as I drove home that day that, somehow, someday I had to bring the magic of this work to others.

I went on to train with The Herd Institute in the USA accredited with the National Board for Certified Counsellors and Learning to Listen in the UK, accredited by the Association for Coaching. My coaching practice draws upon the principles of transformational coaching, Neuro Linguistic Programming, transactional analysis and the True Northe Clearer model.