I have been waiting to have this conversation for a long time. Nicole Cunningham-Snell is Vice President of Leadership Development at Shell, and her work sits where human potential meets the systems we live and lead inside. She has also shaped my own thinking more than she would ever admit.

We start with volatility, at work and at home, and with the pressure every leader is under to look after today while seeing round corners for tomorrow. Then we open the mask wardrobe. Nicole names the mask she reaches for first, and rather than criticise it we look at what it has given her, because the parts of ourselves we reject tend to be the ones that end up running the show.

Dr Nicole Cunningham-Snell is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She has built her career at Shell, working across a wide range of businesses and geographies. As Vice President of Leadership Development, she leads Shell's approach to developing leaders at every level and shaping a culture that is playing to win. Her work brings together psychology, neuroscience and organisational development, with a particular interest in the mindsets and conditions that enable people, teams and organisations to grow, adapt and perform at their best.

The views shared in this episode are Nicole's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of her employer.

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The tables turn again, and this time I am the client.

All models are wrong and some are useful, and this one is only useful if you can watch it working on a real life. So rather than explain Reframe as a framework, I asked Jaroslav to coach me through it live, using something from my own life that still has heat in it.

We work with a moment of tension after my wife Monica’s second cancer diagnosis, and with what it revealed about the way fear, love and old survival patterns shape even our best intentions. I look at the stories running underneath my behaviour, at the strategies that once kept me safe and now cost me something, and at why growth is not about leaving the past behind. It is about giving it its rightful place.

You hear Reframe in action rather than as a model, which is as close as I can get to showing what the work actually asks of a person. It is uncomfortable in places. It is also a reminder that the work of reframing is never finished. It is a lifelong practice of understanding ourselves so that we can better connect with others.

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This one is personal. Charlie Cannon is one of the best leadership coach and resilience specialist that I know, and I still remember the first time we met. I was interviewing him for a big culture change programme in a bank, and I asked him why he personally wanted to be on it. He told me he wanted to heal the relationship with his father.

That is more or less where this conversation picks up. We talk about the forces that shape a life and a leadership style. We kept returning to the same idea. Leadership does not begin with changing other people. It begins with the lifelong adventure of knowing ourselves.

Charlie has spent more than twenty-five years helping leaders and teams perform under pressure and meet change with more resilience and awareness. He draws on elite sport, leadership development, depth psychology and contemplative practice, and works with people who want high performance and real personal growth at the same time.

His work rests on one belief: lasting transformation comes through presence, courage and meaningful human connection.

Find out more about Charlie at www.charliecannon.com.

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My first guest is my good friend Jo Whitfield, a retail executive I have worked with for nearly a decade and wanted on this podcast from the beginning.

We start with the human reality behind the polished surface of senior leadership. The so-called ‘soft stuff’ is usually the hardest work a leader will ever do, and the most important.

Jo then traces three moments that shaped her life and career, each one revealing the values that have anchored her decisions since. What surfaces are the quiet themes beneath a life spent at the top of big organisations and some great lessons in how to navigate the tough challenges.

Jo Whitfield is a Non-Executive Director at ASDA since April 2025. A qualified accountant, she chairs Asda's audit committee. Jo previously spent eight years with Asda and George from 2008, holding a number of senior leadership positions across the business. After this, she joined the Co-op, where she was Chief Executive of Food for five years from 2017 and was awarded the CBE in 2021 for her work during the pandemic. Until 2024 Jo was the CEO at Matalan, leading a business turnaround strategy and a refocus on value. Outside of her executive responsibilities, Jo’s activities are mainly focused on inclusivity, mentoring and networking. One of Jo’s key achievements was pioneering a network for the grocery industry called Grocery Girls. She is also a Non-Executive Director for Factory International.

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I have spent a lot of my life asking other people about the moments that changed them. For the first episode, the tables are turned.

Jaroslav interviews me. He has worked with me on and off for fifteen years, so there was not a great deal of room to hide, and what came out is an origin story rather than an introduction.

I talk about three moments that forced me to reinvent myself, and that eventually led to the birth of Purposeful Change. None of them felt like growth at the time. Each one taught me the same thing in a different way:

Identity is not fixed.

We are always in choice about how we show up.

Real change starts when we are willing to name our deepest assumptions and step through them.

We also talk about my work now: being alongside organisations developing leaders, shaping cultures and making room for innovation, and about what’s next. My first book and where I want to take Purposeful Change next.

All of it in service of one question. How do we help more people shape their identity through their purpose, and author what comes next?

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Contact Simon at hello@purposefulchange.co.uk.

Learn about Purposeful Change here.

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