Welcome,
I’m Cressida. I have 26 years’ experience working in large financial services organisations at senior levels and I am a trained, experienced coach.
I have learned first-hand how important self-confidence and personal branding are if you want to have a successful career.
Self-confidence allows you to live life for yourself; to operate on your terms. It helps you build resilience and manage fear and anxiety. It is also an attractive quality to others. Those who are self-assured are consistently deemed to be more competent in the workplace.
Having a credible personal brand differentiates you. You know who you are and what you stand for and you have a greater ability to promote yourself in the workplace when you have that clarity.
It has taken me a long time to build my self-confidence and even longer to discover my brand and then advocate for myself but I now know how to do it.
I have the knowledge and the experience to help you do the same.
I have had a highly successful career in financial services and have risen through the ranks of several companies through talent, grit and determination.
In 2019 I was appointed as the Group’s Chief Administration Officer for a large and well-known financial services firm working for the Group Chief Operating Officer. It was one of many highlights of my career and an incredibly enriching experience to operate at such a senior level.
I have also had my fair share of setbacks. In 2017, I was given a senior role in a function that I had sweated blood and tears for. I was thrilled. It was a high-profile role and felt like recognition for the effort I had put in. A few months into my tenure I was, to all intents and purposes, demoted. I was put under someone else who, despite having less experience than me was deemed better suited because they had more ‘gravitas’ and was better at self-promotion than I was. I was disappointed and I was angry. Angry at the organisation and angry at myself that I found myself in this position.
I realised that all of the talent, grit and determination in the world didn’t matter if I lacked confidence as well as clarity in what I stood for.
I had made a classic mistake. I had spent so much of my time and energy serving others and working out how to please them but no time working out who I was, what I stood for and what was important to me both personally and professionally.
I had little sustainable self-esteem, no clear identity and no discernible brand.
I picked myself up, dusted myself off and dedicated myself to learning from these experiences. I wanted to be better. I reflected, sought counsel from those wiser than me. I read as much relevant literature as I could find, went on training courses and then I reflected some more. I also got a coach to help me through my journey.
It took me time to piece it all together and now I am different to the person I was several years ago. I have more clarity in who I am, I am true to what I believe in and I am happier and more confident as a result.
Now I live life on my terms and I call my own shots.
The decision to create Chryse Coaching came in 2020 when I found myself questioning what I was doing in financial services and more broadly in life. I wanted more. I wanted something different.
I realised I could combine my life lessons with my years of experience in banking and my skills as a coach to help others become the best that they could be and in doing so, realise my own vocation. I have never looked back.
Chryse coaching was built with the amazing women I have had the privilege to work with in mind during my 26 years. Talented, hardworking, incredible women who are really good at what they do but who lack the confidence or the ‘know how’ to be as brilliant as they can be and should be.
I am in a position to give women the support and the helping hand that I wished I had during my career so if that woman is you, get in touch via the contact me page. I would love to hear from you.
