Founder | Executive & Leadership Coach

Experience matters. So does understanding people.

I'm Kim, founder of Storm McQueen and an ICF Professional Certified Executive & Leadership Coach.

I've spent nearly 30 years working across different industries and environments, including more than a decade in finance and business operations. For the past nine years, I've worked with leaders across organisations of different sizes and sectors.

My route here hasn't been particularly conventional. I started working at 14 and, rather than going straight to university, completed my psychology degree over five years while working full-time and attending lectures three evenings a week.

It wasn't the easiest way to do it, but psychology was something I wanted to understand properly.

That academic background continues to inform my coaching. It gives me a deeper understanding of human behaviour, organisational dynamics, motivation, decision-making and the ways people respond to pressure and change.

It doesn't mean I'm going to psychoanalyse you. It means I bring a psychological understanding to the questions we explore, alongside years of practical experience in organisations and professional coaching training. And that combination matters.

Why work with me?

Because leadership challenges are rarely as straightforward as they first appear.

Someone may be struggling to influence senior colleagues, finding themselves constantly drawn back into operational detail or wondering why an approach that has worked for years is suddenly creating friction.

It's easy to focus on what they need to do differently. But unless we understand what's driving their current approach, the changes may not last.

I look beyond the immediate problem. I pay attention to patterns, assumptions, relationships and the behaviours that emerge under pressure. I consider how someone sees themselves alongside how others experience them.

And I don't rely solely on what happens in the coaching room.

Where appropriate, I bring in stakeholder perspectives and assessments to help us understand what is happening, what needs to change and how we'll recognise progress.

This isn't about fitting someone into a prescribed model of leadership. It's about understanding what their responsibilities now demand and helping them develop an approach that works for them and the people they lead.

I'm not usually one for name-dropping, but occasionally it has its uses. I've coached leaders working within organisations including Ingram Micro, Network Rail, Camden Council, Eko Schools Trust and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, alongside smaller businesses and private clients who choose to invest in their own development.

Big organisation, small organisation or working with someone entirely independently of their employer. I'm much more interested in the human being doing the job.

What you can expect from me

I'm not there to pretend I know your area of expertise better than you do, or to tell you how you should lead.

What I bring is the ability to examine how you're thinking, behaving and responding, including things that can be difficult to recognise when you're right in the middle of them.

I'll ask questions, sometimes uncomfortable ones. I'll challenge your version of events when I think it needs challenging, explore what you might be overlooking and help you consider perspectives beyond your own.

I'm direct, but I'm also compassionate. I understand that leadership can be difficult, particularly when expectations are changing and there isn't an obvious right answer.

We might examine why you feel compelled to step in when your team could manage without you, why a particular colleague's behaviour gets under your skin, or why you find yourself holding back when you have something valuable to contribute.

Then we bring that understanding back to the situations you're actually facing. The difficult conversation you've been putting off. The senior meeting where your contribution needs to extend beyond your own function. The decision that has wider consequences than those you've previously been responsible for.

The aim isn't simply to leave a session with something useful to think about. It's to develop changes you can put into practice and recognise in the way you lead.

Storm McQueen is deliberately founder-led

If you work with Storm McQueen, you work with me.

I conduct the stakeholder interviews, bring the different sources of information together and lead the one-to-one development work throughout.

I deliberately work with a limited number of clients at any one time. Leadership challenges don't always arrive conveniently between scheduled coaching sessions. There might be a difficult presentation coming up, a particularly challenging meeting or a conversation you need to prepare for.

Keeping my client numbers manageable means I have the capacity to be available when something important comes up, rather than our work being confined to the scheduled meetings we've booked.

I take the work seriously, but I don't believe leadership development or executive coaching needs to be overly polished, performative or arduous.

You can think out loud, disagree with me, laugh, swear, change your mind and admit when you haven't got a clue.

There's room for humour, difficult questions and conversations that don't always follow the direction either of us expected.

And before you wonder, Storm McQueen isn't a gladiator or racing driver. They're actually my middle names.

• Qualifications and professional credentials

  • ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC)

  • BSc (Hons) Psychology

  • ICF Mentor Coach and Credentialing Assessor

  • Mentor Coaching Specialisations for ACC and PCC

  • Lumina Spark Practitioner

My professional development includes ILM business mentoring, trauma-informed coaching skills, neurodiversity in coaching, corporate mental health, and supporting leaders through crisis situations.