expertsLaura Ashley-Timms

Introducing Laura Ashley-Timms

Thought Leader, Author, and co-creator of the multi-award-winning Certified STAR® Manager programme

Laura is the COO at Notion. She is an expert and thought leader on how to leverage Operational Coaching® behaviours across organizations to drive commercial results and improve productivity and engagement levels.

Laura learned about the power of coaching from her early childhood career in international sports and began coaching others by the time she entered Oriel College, Oxford (as one of the first females to that college). She gained not only an MA (Oxon) but also an Extraordinary Full Blue.

With over thirty years of international business experience, living and working in the USA, Europe and Asia, Laura has a strong focus on pragmatism and results. She is the architect of many of Notion’s client programmes and is responsible for the outstanding quality of engagements. She has been recognised as one of the UK’s top executive coaches and as one of 40 Outstanding Global Women.

Operational Coaching® is the future of effective and rehumanised management

The STAR® model is a simple 4-step management framework that helps leaders to adopt coaching-related behaviours to stop firefighting and start asking more powerful questions.

The UK government commissioned a large-scale study to assess the impact of STAR® and the subsequent research trial was designed and independently evaluated by London School of Economics. The study measured the impact of leaders and managers from 62 organisations across 14 sectors learning to apply the STAR® model in their day-to-day interactions over a period of 6 months.

The outcomes were remarkable, with those who followed the programme spending 70% more time using an enquiry-led, Operational Coaching® style of management leading to higher levels of organisational recruitment, improved staff retention and increased skill levels across 9 management competencies including communication skills and handling challenging conversations.

Laura is the co-author of best-selling book The Answer Is A Question: The Missing Superpower that Changes Everything and Will Transform Your Impact as a Manager and Leader, which was shortlisted for the Business Book Award 2023.