Ignite Potential
The team at abamentis
We are a small team and thrive on our network of relationships. We take a systemic approach and bring a blend of commercial and psychological underpinning to the work we do.
The success of your business thrives on the quality of relationships you hold.
About Suzanne Lines
Leadership Coaching: a calling. A profession about people, potential, purpose and impact
I am Suzanne Lines. I lead the abamentis business. I started as a linguist with a career in companies trading round the world. I worked for some great brands and was about building relationships, understanding needs and creating solutions across the divide of language and culture so that groups could comprehend each other and strike a sustainable deal.
My epiphany was the myriad of examples showing that what got in the way was more than just “lost in translation.” It is a more universal issue. Even when we are all speaking the same language, possibilities and potential get lost by way of culture and style. I discovered that what I bring to the party is an ability to help leaders hear their messages as others hear them and fine tune for greater impact.
So I refocussed my career, and the air miles, for my vocation of coaching through the joint ownership and direction of the abamentis business. abamentis has thrived for 30 years working with leaders of commercial companies, public sector institutions and charities: a diversity which gives me a breadth of insight into the issues of leadership.
My commercial experience includes
Working internationally is a key element of my work. I’ve lived and worked abroad, led commercial negotiations in English, Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese and worked through interpreters in Russia, and Latin America. This intercultural and organisational sensitivity is a cornerstone of my work.
Part of my giving back includes 10% of my time pro bono which includes working with Windsor Leadership since 2009. I have over 11,000 hours of coaching and support the next generation of coaches including work at Henley Business School since 2019.
As a business, we work with senior leaders and their teams from FTSE 50 to entrepreneurial businesses across sector and geography.
How others have experienced my work matters more than my words. One of my favourite client quotes:
If you really want to get underneath the “human” issues that are holding back performance then you need Suzanne.
This won’t be about workshops trying to decide on a series of actions; it will be about helping you and your team to work out what each of you can do to be the most effective leaders of your people expect to come out of it with a much deeper understanding of what’s holding you back and how you can break through those barriers.
Organisational & Commercial Experience
Suzanne’s 25 years of experience includes:
Leaders & Teams
Organisations
Continued Professional Development hours
Languages negotiated in
Preferred supplier relationships
Coaching Hours
Sectors
Organisational types
Years of global business development
Suzanne’s Professional Development includes:
Accreditation and Professional Education
- Master Certified Coach MCC (since 2012) International Coach Federation,
- 7 years+ training in Transactional Analysis (Organisational field), certified transactional analyst in training
- Accredited Coach Supervisor, (CSA).
- Coach Accreditation (2008) Oxford Brooks,
- Accredited Mediator, (Regents College School of Psychotherapy & Counselling Psychology)
- Path to Mastery Training in Systemic Coaching and Facilitation, Coaching Constellations.
- Accredited: Level A & B British Psychological Society
- Master Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
- Business Leadership, Business Strategy (Ernst & Young),
- Management Training (BBC)
- BA Hons French & Italian.
Accredited to use the following psychometrics
- Insights Discovery
- Hogan Development Survey, HDS
- Hogan Personality Inventory HPI
- Hogan Motivation, Values and Preferences Inventory MVPI
- FIRO Element B
- Occupational Personality Questionnaire OPQ (SHL)
- Motivation Questionnaire MQ (SHL)
- Lominger Architect
- Strengthscope
- Predictive Index
- WAVE
About Phil Colley
As a military leader Phil led troops on counter insurgency operations at age 20, commanded an operational unit of 180+ staff at 30, established a new weapons systems training school, winning awards for simulation systems and new training methods and worked on the central staff for his Corps at MoD UK. He was a Flight commander in the RAF Regiment parachute squadron, he also established the RAF hang-gliding club and spent 6 years living and working in Germany.
He followed his RAF Career as a business leader, establishing and leading a commercial business in the media and training simulation sector winning international FTS 50 clients, acquiring and merging 2 additional companies and closing individual deals up to £20m. He led an international Joint Venture ($10million investment Italy/USA and UK start up) in cartographic media, working across North and South Americas, Russia and throughout Europe.
As a Board member, he worked in the UK and overseas at including interim Commercial Director for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Services and the British Council. Other Board level roles included the then newly established UFI (University for Industry) including Commercial, Business Development and Skills for Life.
As a Business Advisor, Phil worked in the fields of Cyber Security, Business Continuity, Leadership and Board effectiveness to global multinationals.
His pro bono commitment has included 10 years as a trustee with Brandon Trust supporting people with learning disabilities and autism throughout the South West.
Phil founded the original abamentis business in 1996. Suzanne joined in 2005 and together they have been investing in Leadership, igniting potential with strategic leaders and their teams. Phil now works within the abamentis business as an advisor and commercial business sounding board.
About Anna Lewis
Anna brings a rich mix of international, commercial and therapeutic experience to her work. She has lived and worked in the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. Her commercial experience spans over 20 years including over 10 years in Reward and Recognition for a global telecommunications company where she built and delivered both global non sales and sales commission plans. She has worked as a counsellor and school therapist and has supported people with complex needs. She has also offered pro bono work with an autism charity and now at a primary school.
Following a BSc in Psychology, Anna completed her Masters in Counselling focusing on CBT and worked with both adults and children. Anna became passionate about working with children and worked at an Integrated School in Singapore supporting children who found mainstream school challenging, working with autistic and anxious children. Upon returning to the UK, Anna spent time volunteering at an autism charity and began working with small businesses and enterprenuers helping to build their businesses and focused on website designs and builds, supporting their social media and marketing and generally helping businesses to develop and grow.
Along side working with abamentis, Anna also works within the public sector, supporting people with complex lives both in Primary Care and Secondary Mental Health in a person centred and supportive approach ensuring that teams sit around the person versus a person feeling as though they are ‘pushed’ around the system.
Anna started working with Suzanne & Phil and abamentis in 2014. Anna provides support to Suzanne wherever she can drawing on both her commercial and therapeutic experience and expertise from designing and building the website to managing day to day activities. She uses her creativity to help abamentis to continue to develop and grow.
Our network includes
You know the success of your business thrives on the quality of relationships you hold. These are some of ours.
Shirley Attenborough
Shirley and Suzanne trained together as Coach Supervisors in 2012. They continue to meet regularly for peer supervision in addition to their own individual supervision.
Shirley has more than 20-years’ experience, working with a wide variety of FTSE 100 and Forbes 500 companies with key clients in the petrochemical, finance and investment, telecommunications and FMCG industries.
Team based coaching is Shirley’s particular strength. Working with boards of directors, and senior leadership teams, she designs and delivers executive coaching and leadership development workshops which are aimed at professionals who have already participated in workshops and that are looking to introduce a coaching culture into their organisations.
Accreditation, Membership & Education
- MPBsS is a Business Psychologist
- M.Sc in Organisational Psychology
- Qualified in the use of Clean Language Symbolic Modelling Techniques
- Master Coach
- Coach Supervisor
- Level A & B Occupational Testing
- MBTI Step 1 and 2, NEO, Hogan Potential Survey and Hogan Development Survey, 15FQ+, Saville Wave, OPQ, and Emotional Intelligence instruments
- British Psychological Society (BPS), Occupational Division
- Founder Member of the BPS Special Interest Group for Coaching Psychology
- Royal Society of Medicine
- Shirley is one of the executive coaches in the Middle East for London Business School on the MBA and Emerging Leader’s Programmes and coaches on several of their global coaching programmes.
Specialities
Delivery and execution of executive coaching and leadership solutions for large international and regional organisations, business facilitator, she coaches some of the world’s most prestigious corporations and consultancy companies, independent and in-house coaches working in the region.
Shirley’s aims are to enhance coaching skills across the GCC and broader Middle East, offer support and share her knowledge and skills to encourage best practice.
Mark Cheshire
Mark and Suzanne met in 2013 as part Deloitte’s International Leadership Development Programmes. They continue to coach Leaders and their client service teams across the firm today.
Mark is an experienced, resilient and pragmatic business leader with considerable experience across a range of disciplines. He is a straightforward individual, confident and will convey his enthusiasm in a manner that engages others. He is an experienced and successful executive coach.
Mark’s commercial background is in financial services. For 30 years he was with Lloyds Banking Group holding a range of executive roles including CEO of the UK private bank, sitting on the UK retail bank board. He had responsibility for the UK branch network and, reporting to the main board, ran the global groupwide integration programme merging Lloyds Bank and TSB. He had 2 years on secondment at the Bank of England working on banking supervision during the post BCCI crisis. On leaving Lloyds in 2009 Mark joined Syndicate Asset Management PLC becoming Group CEO, delivering a significant turnaround in business performance.
Since 2012 Mark has run his own consultancy business. He has designed and delivered a range of assignments focussing on C-suite effectiveness and mentoring. He has worked with a range of organisations. He brings to all his interventions a “real world/common sense” approach to executive life. Recent engagements have focussed on business development activities supporting clients enter new markets and build new senior client relationships. He sits on the Advisory Board at GoBeyond Partners and is a partner at Strengths Unleashed. He is also a member of the Table Group coaching community. He sits on the 2022 MCA awards judging panel.
Mark is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. He has attended the “Driving Organic Top-Line Growth” programme at the Kellogg Institute, Northwestern University, Illinois. He has a BA (Hons) degree in geography, is a past delegate of the Cabinet Office Top Management Programme, been media trained by the BBC and has attended Institute of Directors programmes on board governance and the role of the chairman.
Andy Gannon
Andy and Suzanne met through their early training in Transactional Analysis in 2009. They bring a combination of psychological and commercial insight to their work.
Andy Gannon is recognised as a very experienced businessman-coach-mentor. He has a portfolio of non-executive, advisory and coaching activities underpinned by over 20 years at Hewlett-Packard he led businesses from £1.5m to £1.5Bn.
Andy; spending half his time as an active coach & mentor and the other half of his time with his “feet-on-the-ground” as a manager and leader.
- Large company experience with a large number of SME assignments as both leader and advisor.
- Well versed in the importance and methods of leadership, Insights into all the key functions of running a business and is particularly successful in helping clients improve their strategic leadership, operational management and individual and company communications.
- Directorships both Executive and Non-Executive, complemented by pro-bono work in the charity and not-for–profit sector.
- Group CEO of a fast growing Aim listed plc
- Interim assignment for new business division for the Pearson Group
- Executive Chairman of a niche manufacturing firm in the electronic authentication market.
Accreditation, Membership & Education
- Harvard Business School: Six-month Executive Management Programme
- London Business School: Advanced Management
- Nottingham University, Civil Engineering BSc
- Member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and Institute of Directors (MIoD)
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA)
- Member British Computer Society (MBCS)
- Freeman of the City of London
- Member of the Reform Club and the MCC
Specialities
Supporting and enabling people, teams and businesses fulfil their potential, particularly in periods of challenge and change.
Vanessa Hill
Vanessa and Suzanne met in 2006, as part of the Partner Development and Assessment Programme for DLA Piper.
For the past 23 years Vanessa Hill has focused on executive coaching with a particular emphasis on enabling functional/technical specialists to successfully transition to senior management roles. She also enjoys career transition work and small group facilitation.
- Works with demanding fee generators and support staff in a broad range of global businesses and sectors including professional service firms, real estate and construction, entertainment and transport.
- Accredited in 1999 as a senior coach using a behavioural model pioneered by Drs Harry Schroder and Tony Cockerill in conjunction with the London Business School and Princeton.
- Associate with Catalyst Change Consultants and TXG as well as running her own independent consultancy.
- Clients describe Vanessa’s approach as challenging, positive, practical and designed to bring the best out of people so they can leverage their undoubted talents whilst being aware of the impact of any weak spots.
Accreditation, Membership & Education
- Vanessa has a joint honours degree in French, Economics and Politics
- Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
- Member of the Association of Coaching and the International Coaching Federation.
- Accredited to interpret a number of personality and aptitude instruments including Myers Briggs
- Vanessa sits on the Children’s Panel in Scotland and is a coach for Macmillan Cancer professionals.
Specialties
Leadership and Management Development, Impact and Influence, Career Transition inc. overseas secondments and post merger, Work Life Balance and Handling Difficult Conversations. Assessment and Development Centre design.
James Wilson
Current Practice
James and Suzanne met through shared connections with Windsor Leadership in 2016 and have since delivered together on Windsor’s Flagship Leadership Programme: The Strategic Leadership Consultation.
James Wilson is an experienced business coach who works primarily with senior leaders. His clients have often excelled in their area of commercial expertise and are now transitioning into leadership roles within their organisation. A common refrain from his clients is: ‘the skills that got me here may not be sufficient for me to be successful in my new role”.
James works across sectors but has particular experience of professional services and of partnership cultures. He works both with individuals and teams, focussing on personal leadership and effective team performance.
James is also maintains his long-standing practice as a commercial mediator. He brings these two strands of his training together in assisting clients manage and resolve conflict within teams and within the working environment generally.
James is a Graduate of the Meyler Campbell Mastered Programme accredited by the Association for Coaching. He is also trained in a range of psychometric tools and makes frequent use of feedback processes to assist his clients deepen their self-awareness. He regularly delivers leadership development programmes in professional service firms and facilitates on the Windsor Leadership senior programmes.
Previous Professional Career (1983-2015)
James was the Global Senior Partner of International Law firm, Ince & Co LLP, from 2008 until 2015, combining the functions often divided between ‘Senior Partner’ and ‘Managing Partner’ in other law firms and equivalent to a CEO role in a corporate structure.
With 90 partners and a total compliment of over 600, Ince & Co had a reputation as one of the leading international firms specialising in Shipping, Energy & Offshore, International Trade and Insurance. The firm comprised 11 offices internationally and in his role as Senior Partner, James had oversight of the entire network, spending much time ‘on the road’ in each of the individual offices.
Prior to transitioning into his firm-wide leadership role, James practised as a commercial litigator in the maritime sector, gaining international recognition for supporting shipping clients through crisis situations in the aftermath of major maritime accidents.
Personal Profile
Having gained an MA in Law from Cambridge University, James joined Ince & Co in 1983. He qualified as a solicitor in 1985. He became an accredited Mediator with CEDR in 2000 and completed the Harvard Advanced Mediator course in 2019.
In his leisure time, James is a keen cyclist and golfer. He also enjoys his tenor part in a local choir. He has been married to Jane for some 30 years and they have four children.
Have a conversation with Suzanne Lines
If you would like to explore how abamentis can support you and your business, let's have a conversation.
No charge – our investment in you.
Have a conversation with Suzanne
If you would like to explore how abamentis can support you and your business then do book in for a one hour chemistry session with me.
No charge – our investment in you.
Client Sector’s include
Pharma, Oil & Gas, FMCG, Telecoms, Defence, Sport, Education, UK Military, Investment Banking, Financial Services, Professional Services: Legal and Accounting, Central Government, Third Sector, Faith, Leadership, CNI Critical National Infrastructure.
Pro Bono Commitment
Windsor Leadership
Organisations we support
The Book Trust;
The Trussell Trust;
The RAF Benevolent Fund
Get In Touch
Suzanne Lines
+44 (0) 7887 897 993
E: suzanne@abamentis.com
Anna Lewis
+44 (0) 7788 796 346
E: anna@abamentis.com