Rising Stars of the Profession 2021: Elisabeth Coates

Elisabeth Coates has mastered and continues to refine her craft in change management, complex client delivery and thought leadership.

Elisabeth leads the Global Change Management Capability for North Highland. This entails leading a $50 million BU, with responsibility for developing over 100 change management practitioners and shaping and evolving our market-leading change and culture offerings. North Highland's vision is to be the leading change and transformation consultancy and the team Elisabeth leads is crucial to underpinning our current and future success.

Alongside her Capability leadership role, she leads the change workstreams on complex programs – advising clients and running blended (North Highland and client) teams on engagements from implementing target operating models to defining target cultures. She also runs change health checks to diagnose issues and identify mitigations that support the adoption of change and clients' change maturity journeys.

Elisabeth is a thought leader in change management. A particular focus recently has been developing an approach to change saturation which has resulted in a bespoke tool (Change Pulse) which she has presented at both the ACMP Conference and at the Change Management Institute (both 2020).

"The biggest factor in my success thus far has been my ability to seize opportunities, even those outside my comfort zone, says Elisabeth. "I have a clear moment from my school days that has always stuck with me – taking up debating. I didn't understand how people could stand up and argue something on the spot with relatively little preparation, but I was encouraged to give it a go. If others could do it then surely I could too. Being able to then succeed at something that initially felt so uncomfortable has set the precedent throughout my career of being willing to take steps outside of my comfort zone. From my first role in consulting where I threw myself in at the deep end as the only change practitioner on the project, to the requests I made to support pursuits at a stage in my career earlier than expected, to taking sideways steps with clients to approach problems differently, to briefing industry analysts (surely I wasn't experienced enough!), to coming up with new ways of approaching change, I have always set out to gain as many experiences as I can so I can learn, gain others' wisdom, gain a multitude of reference points and build my confidence in my ability to navigate different situations and challenges."

Elisabeth enjoys the variety and the opportunities consulting presents for incredibly rapid learning and development, "I love the fact that my day involves juggling lots of different competing demands. It is often challenging but never dull. The opportunities I've created for myself and those that have been presented across multiple industry sectors have been a real privileged part of my career."

What is your proudest achievement to date?

"My proudest achievement to date was being promoted as an executive of the firm and being asked to take on a significant leadership role in running the Change Management Capability. Our vision is to be the leading change and transformation consultancy and I lead the team that is at the heart of that vision. It's a huge privilege and opportunity for me. It was a particularly proud moment as I felt that I had the confidence of the firm to play this important role, which involves both a big focus on team leadership and thought leadership. Team leadership for me covers everything from creating a vision the team can follow with enough structure for them to feel they can contribute with some support in place but without being stifled, to having the right experiences in place – both formal and informal to help the team grow in both capability and confidence to better serve their clients and help progress their careers. The thought leadership side is about how I guide the capability to ensure we remain market-leading which entails market eminence, thoughtful understanding of competitor and market trends to inform our offering planning and partnerships with organizations to help stretch our thinking."