Staff Profile

I am a Senior Lecturer and Degree Programme Director for the MSc Coaching and Mentoring.  Prior to joining Newcastle University Business School in June 2018, I was a senior lecturer in Corporate and Executive Education at Northumbria University where I specialised in innovative, experiential design and delivery of leadership and coaching education for work-based learners. 

My qualifications include BA(Hons) English from Oxford University, professional training and MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy since 2003, and a Doctorate in Professional Studies since 2015. I am particularly interested in collaborating with organisations to embrace the changing social fabric of the workforce, brought about by rapid digital transformation, and the benefits of greater inclusion and equity, as well as meeting the aspirations of the millennial generation and an older workforce.

Prior to moving into academia in 2016, I worked as an internal and external consultant in organisational learning strategy, leadership and management development and creating coaching cultures for senior teams and organisations in both UK and international business contexts for clients such as IBM, Kraft Foods plc, Working Links, as well as many organisational facets of the NHS.  This has involved diagnosing, designing, planning and delivering learning activities and programmes for individuals and teams in organisations for over 20 years, drawing on in-depth knowledge of adult learning and psychology, at individual, group and organisational levels.

I have been involved in executive coaching since 1999, at the time it emerged as a professional discipline in the UK, and have provided board-level individual and team coaching, as well as consultancy to design and develop coaching cultures for organisations, latterly whilst working for eight years as an Organisation Development Lead at South Tees Hospitals NHS FT.  My early career was spent as a Fast Stream Civil Servant in Whitehall and Brussels, responsible for a range of government policy advice and implementation.  Having also lived and worked in Paris, I speak French as a second language.

Throughout my career, I have sought to improve the methods, models and ethics of leadership and management development learning activities through practice-based research.  My MSc dissertation (University of Wales, 2003) explored the application of psychotherapeutic principles to management development practice.  I developed a code of ethics for development practitioners and a model of the developmental alliance.

Current research projects:

• exploring how leader identity develops through mentoring with the NELEP Growth Through Mentoring Scheme;
• identifying factors that facilitate successful career movement between public and private sectors funded by a JUC Public Administration Committee Small Research Grant, jointly with colleagues at Northumbria University.

• Stabler A. Building Healthy Teams: Digital Storytelling in NHS Organisations. In: Hardy, P; Sumner, T, ed. Cultivating Compassion: How Digital Storytelling is Transforming Healthcare. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp.229-239.