Kate Walmsley MCIPD
Strategic People Advisor, Executive Coach and founder of Theta Waves
I have spent more than 25 years working in HR, leadership and organisational change, helping founders, executives and businesses understand what is happening across their people and decide what to do next.
My career has included supporting organisations through rapid growth, high employee turnover, leadership change, restructuring, cultural change and international expansion. I have worked with businesses ranging from 20 people to more than 1,000, across financial services, investment, telecoms, technology and other sectors.
Throughout that work, people have tended to open up to me quickly. I listen carefully, notice the patterns across different perspectives and make sense of what those insights mean for the individual or organisation.
Today, I use that combination of experience and deep attention in two ways: diagnosing what is happening across organisations and coaching people who want to understand themselves, their choices and their direction more deeply.
My career in People and HR
I began my HR career more than 25 years ago and have since worked across the full range of people and organisational challenges.
My experience includes:
Supporting a PE backed financial-services business as it grew from approximately 200 to more than 1,000 employees.
Helping reduce employee turnover from approximately 30% to 15% within a boutique investment business.
Working directly with founders, leadership teams and boards.
Supporting businesses through restructuring, leadership transition and significant organisational change.
Leading People work across organisations operating in multiple countries.
Establishing the structures, policies and management practices required as businesses grow.
Meeting employees individually to develop an honest picture of how an organisation works in practice.
I have often been brought into businesses where leaders can see that something needs attention but do not yet have a complete picture. My role is to understand the commercial circumstances, hear the different perspectives, identify the underlying patterns and turn them into a practical strategy.
The experience that changed my direction
In 2016, life came to an abrupt stop when I developed Guillain-Barré Syndrome and lost the use of my limbs within 3 days. My immune system had gone into overdrive and was ‘eating’ my nervous system from my limbs inwards. By the time I was admitted to hospital I had lost all use of my arms, legs, my swallow function, was in an incredible amount of intense pain and the condition was starting to reach my lungs making breathing painful.
It was very frightening, but, with hindsight, surprisingly transformative!
The miracle of this situation for me was the gift of time. When you’re paralysed in both your arms and legs there really isn’t much else you can do but think.
During those months of recovery, I realised that the conversations I valued most were the ones in which somebody trusted me enough to talk honestly. I loved listening, asking questions and helping people understand what they thought, felt and wanted, without imposing my own answer.
That realisation led me to train as a coach.
I later returned to senior HR leadership, bringing the coaching skills with me. They changed the way I worked. I listened differently, noticed more and became increasingly interested in the beliefs, emotions and patterns influencing how people behaved at work and beyond it.
Taking my first steps again whilst recovering from Guillain-Barre syndrome in 2016
Theta Waves HR & Coaching Ltd
I founded Theta Waves in 2025 to bring together my organisational experience and coaching work.
Through the Theta Waves People Diagnostic, I help founders and leadership teams develop an evidence-based understanding of what is happening across their organisation. I bring together the commercial context, leadership priorities, organisational foundations and employee experience to create a People Strategy and prioritised roadmap.
Through Executive Coaching, I work with founders, leaders and experienced professionals who want to give proper attention to something that matters to them. That may be a decision, a period of change, an ambition, a recurring pattern or a desire to understand themselves more deeply.
The two services are distinct, but the same qualities underpin both: careful listening, curiosity, an ability to recognise patterns and the experience to ask questions that lead somewhere useful.
Professional Credentials
I hold a Master’s degree in Human Resources (CIPD Level 7) and am a member of the CIPD (MCIPD).
I’m also a certified Life Coach (Distinction) and an Accredited Executive Coach through the AoEC Practitioner Diploma.
Start with a conversation
Whether you want to understand what is happening across your organisation or explore something important in your own work or life, an initial confidential conversation will help us establish what you need and whether I am the right person to support you.