Ian Dinwiddy

Professional Coach, United Kingdom

Ian specialises in coaching and mentoring new fathers, helping them to navigate the pressures and complexity of modern fatherhood, as they seek to solve the important challenge:
“How to be a great dad without sacrificing a great career?”

Background
After graduating from UCL, Ian started his career with WHSmith Group and later had 10 years management consultancy experience, specialising in operational change, working with major retailers such as Tesco, Sainsburys and B&Q, and food manufacturers including Uniq, United Biscuits and Samworth Brothers.

Ian’s wife, Lisa is a partner in a law firm, and after their daughter was born in 2010, he spent seven years combining freelance work with being a primary carer to his children (who are now 11 and 8) including two stints as a “full-time” stay at home dad. Outside of work he has umpired at the highest levels of hockey in England and is level 2 hockey umpire coach.

Experience and qualifications
Ian has a distinction in Personal Performance Coaching from The Coaching Academy and helps stressed dads balance work and fatherhood, building meaningful connections with their partners and children, and focusing their energy to create calmness and purpose in their lives.

Ian is a thought leader in field of championing dads at work, specialising in exploring how a focus on supporting dads can drive wider business and societal benefits, especially in the field of gender equality. He is a regular contributor to the Workingdads.co.uk and DaddiLife platforms and the co-host on 40+ episodes of the Lockdown Dads Podcast.

Approach to coaching
Ian builds relationships easily at all levels, with engaging, relaxed and un-pressured conversations that create the space and time for clients to explore their circumstances.

Through coaching he guides his clients through their thought processes, and through mentoring he blends his own extensive personal experience with insights from coaching working dads.

“For the busy working dad, Ian’s coaching is the perfect fit. We wear many masks in life; the Professional, the Dad, the Husband, the Brother, the Friend, the decent guy on the street, but so often we are so busy trying to be the right person in the moment that we neglect real self. Ian helped me to examine who actually lay under my various masks and to explore what I needed to set straight in my life to ensure that the balance was right. I can’t recommend him enough, he totally gets where you are coming from, and walks the talk in his own life. I really appreciated his empathetic and considered approach in challenging me in our coaching sessions. I have now reset my goals for the next five years and feel both empowered and excited in achieving them. Thanks Ian”
Coachee