The story behind The Opal Lens
About a year ago, I hit a crossroads. After almost 20 years of keeping my head down, working hard and just moving onto the next thing without really questioning it, I finally stopped. It was the first time in two decades I actually gave myself the space to look back and think about what I’d achieved, what I actually wanted and what got me out of bed every morning.
The common thread was always people.
It was the campaigns driven by real human insights that actually shifted consumer behaviour, setting my team up for success with the right support and trying to build a workplace culture where people felt heard and invested in.
Over the years, I noticed a massive gap in how companies support their teams. There is endless training and accountability for hard skills, but almost nothing for the human element of development – the soft skills. Agencies seem to think the job is done when they hire for the attributes they’re looking for, but once people are through the door, the development advice usually boils down to generic direction: “be more confident,” “grow a thicker skin,” “speak up more,” or “ask questions.” Perhaps because there isn’t an easy how-to guide for those things – everyone is different.
This reflection is what started my journey into professional coaching, with a very specific mission in mind - to bring the coaching philosophy to all levels of an agency and transform how agencies and employees work together to understand who they are and how to develop these skills.
We’ve all been there, a line manager tells us “you need to be more confident” or “just stop micromanaging,” and we’re at a loss because it’s not a switch we can turn on or off or a mantra we can repeat to ourselves in the moment. The advice itself might be completely fair, but it gets lost when we have no idea how to get there. That is not empowering or motivating. It’s the opposite.
Closing that gap, between knowing what to change and knowing how, is where the biggest gains get made, for the individual and the business.
That’s why I named this business The Opal Lens. People are multi-faceted, complex and unique. The lens through which we see ourselves and the world around us impacts how we behave. We all have our own unique frames of reference, values, processing speeds, fears, and ambitions. No two people see or approach a problem the exact same way.
I wanted to build something that supports the whole agency ecosystem - whether that's an Account Exec building confidence, an Account Director navigating new responsibilities or a Founder managing the isolation of running a business. From entry-level professionals to senior execs, if one person isn't operating at their best, the team as a whole isn't operating at its best. But help everyone realise their potential, and the agency as a whole realises its potential. It's that simple.