Our Coaches & Experts
Kirsty Bathgate
Kirsty Bathgate is the Founder and CEO of Gearing for Growth and an accredited professional executive coach. She is passionate about making the journey for Founders, CEOs and leaders less rocky, stressful and daunting. She works with Founders, CEOs and Leaders of high growth businesses to support them on the journey to develop strong leadership skills; values led cultures, high performance teams and effective boards. Having taken that journey herself, she has over 25 years’ experience in leading, growing businesses and coaching leaders and teams. Kirsty believes that by enabling senior leaders to lead intentionally, purposefully and well; the impact on the business, its people, results and the wider community is huge. She has been privileged to work with more than 200 leaders across a broad range of sectors. Kirsty also mentors and Chairs the Board of Cyrenians.
Mary Jane Brouwers
Mary Jane is a Non-Executive Director of GU Holdings and Cyan Forensics, where she chairs the Remuneration Committee, a trustee of Museums Galleries Scotland, where she chairs the Audit and Risk Committee, and is the ONE Enterprise Fund Manager. She has been working in early-stage equity investments for 25 years, with a range of investors including SIS Ventures, Archangel Investors, Bank of Scotland Growth Equity and the Scottish Investment Bank. Mary Jane was previously an Independent Director of LINC Scotland, the national association for business angels in Scotland, for four years and served as Regional Secretary on the board of CIMA Scotland from 2009-2011.
Suzanne Braid
Suzanne has worked as a Learning and Development specialist for 15 years, also working as an Accredited Coach in a range of sectors from finance, construction, IT to the public sector. She works with individuals, leaders and teams at all levels and have extensive experience in facilitating and coaching to improve performance, enhance leadership capability, explore team dynamics, and develop future talent. As a trainer and facilitator, she works with leaders and teams to deliver a range of tailored organisational development initiatives such as cultural change, strategic focus, team building and talent development.
Our Support Team
Helen Brownlee
Helen was Ticketing Director for the Ambassador Theatre Group having been part of the company growth from a fledgling theatre company to global leader and was responsible for leading change and embracing and developing digital technology solutions for ticketing, revenue management and dynamic pricing.
Holly Smith
Holly is a graduate of Law and has spent her career working in the public sector as a Probation Officer and a Police Officer. She volunteers on the Board of Trustees for Maxholme Pre School as Chair, providing strategic leadership and overall governance and direction for the organisation. Holly manages the day-to-day administration at Gearing for Growth and is the first point of contact for individual coaching and Programme enquiries.