Montessori Could be the Answer to a Better Workplace
As a former Director of Workplace Culture & HR, Sophie has over 18 years experience in Culture Change, HR, Organisational & Leadership Development, Learning & Development, and Business Transformation, spent mainly within the public sector – local government and social housing. She has won multiple prestigious HR awards such the Personnel Today Award for Excellence in Employee Engagement and is recognised as an authority in her field. She is also one of the youngest people in her industry to make Chartered Fellow status with the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).
She is now the Founder and Chief Workplace Culture Specialist at Ordinarily Different Ltd – an organisation she created in 2018 to “put the WOW into Work” - helping organisations grow through innovative and modern working practices, that shift cultures so that people feel engaged, purposeful, happy, healthy and performing at work. OD Ltd’s values are centred in freedom, curiosity, play - facets that Sophie embodies in all her work with her clients, as well as helping their workplaces adapt these elements into their culture.
Sophie is also an executive, career and life coach at Sophiebryan.co.uk, where her world of work expertise fuses with her 10 years of corporate, action learning and individual coaching skills. She also qualified as a Yoga Teacher and Nutritionist in 2019, and she brings this holistic - whole human- approach to not only her coaching practice, but her corporate culture work too.
As an international & Tedx speaker, Sophie has featured in a 3 part series on BBC Radio 4, Mitchell on Meetings, hosted by David Mitchell, as well as having case studies of her work published in leadership and coaching books.
To compliment her work and TED Talk (Could Montessori Be the Answer to a Better Workplace), Sophie has a real interest in parenting and education, having studied for a Diploma in Montessori (ages 3-6 years), and MMI Teaching Assistant’s Certificate (6-12 yrs). Sophie is due to start the MMI Teaching Assistants Certificate (12-18 yrs) this September. She brings this knowledge into her cultural work, believing that workplaces should be doing more to support the parental experience within their workforce, as well as being a big advocate of Montessori education, and it’s applicability within the workplace.
She has also just recently been appointed on the board of Trustees for the Montessori Group, and the World Institute of Action Learning. This is in addition to her duties as a school governor for 2 local primary schools in Kent, UK.
