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Shaun Sheldrake

Kia ora,
Ko Shaun Sheldrake ahau

If you’re reading this, then I’m assuming that you’re thinking about having someone work with you as a coach – thanks for considering me. I look forward to meeting you and discovering if we have the right ‘fit’ to see how we might work together.

I get real pleasure from helping people find their way through challenging times; resolving things that have been holding them back, or having the discoveries that allow for meaningful steps forward in their lives.

I’ve been coaching informally for more years than I care to remember, but started coaching professionally in 2017. Initially I worked with a range of technical experts and early-stage leaders, while now also working with senior leaders through to Chief Executives.
In parallel to my work with individuals, I also coach teams, working with a similarly broad range, from operational to executive teams.

The work with teams provides a valuable perspective that supports my coaching of individuals – giving me a live and ongoing view into the at-work dynamics my counterparts are often dealing with.

My formal training has been done through the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership (IECL), both their Team Coach & Executive Coach accreditations. While both of those were great learning experiences, I’m also lucky to work in a business where I’m surrounded by passionate coaches, creating a rich environment that fosters continued development and testing of ideas.

When I pause to reflect on why I enjoy the work I do – the two concepts that always bubble to the top are performance and bridge building.

The performance piece for me is founded in helping to maximise what already exists. To use a motorsport analogy, finding a way to get a faster lap time from the current car and driver combination.

What bridge building means to me is helping my counterpart to get clear about where they want to be, to be able to look objectively at where they are now and create the bridge between those two. Ready to take that next step across the bridge.

I bring a varied professional background to any coaching relationship, spanning sports coaching, learning and development, business management creation and ownership.

Along with two other passionate developers of people, we created Updraft to help people be better at work; a challenge we embrace through a mix of team and leader development and coaching. My role gives me a rich and mixed blend of coaching or teams and their leaders, as well as individuals, plus programme design and delivery. While I am Wellington based, I coach individuals and teams across the country.

My Whakapapa

I grew up in Napier, spending many of my formative years at the Sailing Club, chasing friends around the racecourse and tinkering with our little yachts. Those years laid the foundations for the sport I’m still passionate about today, although motorsport is now a very close second.

I’m reliably informed that I completed my first yacht race when I was two-months old; as the story goes, the rougher the weather, the better I slept. That theme was continued with sailing holidays up & down the coasts of NZ. So, I’m clearly a product of active and adventurous parents – something that I like to think is being instilled in my own children.

Outside of my working life, I enjoy what feels like a typically busy family existence with my wife Victoria and our three teenage
boys, plus an ever-growing collection of animals.

Designing and creating keeps me active, from the sketching of an idea through to the building or fabrication of the finished product. Most of this energy is currently directed towards our rural slice of heaven on the Kapiti Coast.

I look forward to meeting you!