Leaders, could you be needing a....
- Sounding board and trusted advisor?
- Evidence-based executive coach?
- Innovation partner? Experienced product manager with track record for innovation?
- Technology Scout?
- Sherpa as you explore how you might increase your healthspan, wellbeing (e.g. reducing cognitive decline)?
- Partner in upskilling for AI (for you and your organisation)? Create Custom ChatGPTs?
- Award-winning gamified behaviour change platform to build habits and accelerate behaviour change for your teams?
Theresa is a experienced senior leader and consultant with 30 years' commercial experience in Product, Marketing, Go-to-market in startups, scaleups and corporates.
Connect with me on Linkedin!
Helping Leaders Navigate AI & Uncertainty, Build High Performing Teams and Innovate
Evidence-based coaching practices + wide functional and global industry experience in both industry and startups.
I offer evidence-based coaching and mentoring to partner with you. This partnships involves:
- Non-judgmental listening
- 360 degree input
- Candid feedback
- Experimentation and learning
- Challenge and support
- Humour - at ourselves and the systems at play
Expected Outcomes:
- Support in transitioning life stages, in particular job changes due to AI
- Increased self-awareness and compassion
- Alignment to passion and values
- Mutual accountability
- Increased comfort with uncertainty and ambiguity
- Momentum to action
- Continuous learning
- Increased perspective taking and resilience
- Sustainable results
I am one of the coaches in a recently published study of coaching entrepreneurs that improvements in cognition, wellbeing and performance (Hinkelmann, H., O’Connor, S. & Passmore, J. (2024) Coaching entrepreneurs towards growth: An experimental design study of coaching effectiveness for business leaders’ psychological capabilities, Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research & Practice, https://doi.org/10.1080/17521882.2024.2348449). Read about the research here.
Consiliegra - Advisory & Consulting Partner to Leadership Teams
I also offer advisory and consulting services to leadership teams of startups, scaleups and SMEs, with specialisation in Product & Go-to-Market:
- Wisdom, Resilience and Augmenting with AI: moving your team in the age of knowledge towards wisdom, and building systemic resilience by accelerating leveraging AI and maximising human potential.
- Vertical Leadership: moving from Intellectual Intelligence, to Emotional Intelligence, to Systemic Intelligence to Wisdom.
- Strategy & Innovation: sparring partner and sounding board to help you uncover your blind spots, and solidify your thinking before you get buy-in with the rest of your organisation and stakeholders.
This can be delivered on a retainer, weekly/fortnightly coaching sessions, or in a fractional role capacity.
ABOUT THERESA
Theresa has been coaching early-stage start-up founders since 2018, bringing approximately 25 years of corporate and start-up experience supporting clients in finding business solutions. She creates safe spaces with clients to increase their self-awareness and uncover blind spots that support them to improve their wellbeing, manage increasing uncertainty, develop critical thinking skills to solve wicked problems.
Theresa is the founder and CEO of Play2Lead, a gamified mobile behaviour change platform. Prior to becoming an executive coach and leading her third software start-up, Theresa led sales, marketing, and product/operations teams, as well as consulting teams at companies like Mable, Vodafone, Andersen, ThoughtWorks in Silicon Valley, Sydney, and Singapore. Having experienced the challenges of corporate team leaders and early-stage start-up founders, she has a deep understanding of what is needed to succeed and be an effective leader of intergenerational, cross-cultural, on-site/remote/hybrid teams.
Theresa has recently completed the Masters in Coaching Psychology at the the University of Sydney. She has a Bachelor of Commerce and an MBA from the University of New South Wales. She is a scholarship holder of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute program - a leading Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence program which originated at Google. Theresa is especially passionate about helping improve wellbeing, focus, resilience, inclusivity, psychological safety, and compassion in the workplace.
Connect with Theresa via Linkedin.
TESTIMONIALS
"I feel that I can totally be honest with you and express all my emotions and thoughts without being judged. Great support coming from your business/managerial background. After the sessions I always felt energized and with clarity on what to do.” MD of global logistics and travel company.
“Theresa is extremely passionate, energetic and dynamic. Her expertise in Tech and Mobile platforms is obvious and invaluable. She challenged us to think outside our typical paths of experience, pushing us into unknown and sometimes uncomfortable areas but with great motivation and guidance...” Co-Founder of Edtech Startup.
“Theresa is a great listener who can help guide you through finding solutions to problems where you thought there might be none, or even highlighting a problem in a completely new angle.” CEO & Co-Founder of social impact startup.
"Theresa helps me think more deeply around each issue, and therefore modify my behaviour and thinking to get better results. I am more in control of my business and my team are enjoying a better boss. Theresa’s considered and thoughtful approach makes all the difference. I would highly recommend her to anyone looking to improve their business and/or themselves.” CEO of a fintech company.
Develop the mindsets and skills necessary to leverage AI
Evidence-based coaching practices + wide functional and global industry experience in both industry and startups.
Feeling anxious that you don't have the right skills to navigate the Age of AI? I offer evidence-based coaching and mentoring:
- Develop Growth Mindset + Build Psychological Flexibility + AI Upskilling: Identify transferable skills and play with new AI tools to unlock your potential and leverage your strengths, including writing, image/video content generation, analyzing/summarising, building custom chatbots.
- Developmental & Career coaching: transitioning life stages, in particular job changes due to AI
I am one of the coaches in a recently published study of coaching entrepreneurs that improvements in cognition, wellbeing and performance (Hinkelmann, H., O’Connor, S. & Passmore, J. (2024) Coaching entrepreneurs towards growth: An experimental design study of coaching effectiveness for business leaders’ psychological capabilities, Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research & Practice, https://doi.org/10.1080/17521882.2024.2348449). Read about the research here.
ABOUT THERESA
Theresa has been coaching early-stage start-up founders since 2018, bringing approximately 25 years of corporate and start-up experience supporting clients in finding business solutions. She creates safe spaces with clients to increase their self-awareness and uncover blind spots that support them to improve their wellbeing, manage increasing uncertainty, develop critical thinking skills to solve wicked problems.
Theresa is the founder and CEO of Play2Lead, a gamified mobile behaviour change platform. Prior to becoming an executive coach and leading her third software start-up, Theresa led sales, marketing, and product/operations teams, as well as consulting teams at companies like Mable, Vodafone, Andersen, ThoughtWorks in Silicon Valley, Sydney, and Singapore. Having experienced the challenges of corporate team leaders and early-stage start-up founders, she has a deep understanding of what is needed to succeed and be an effective leader of intergenerational, cross-cultural, on-site/remote/hybrid teams.
Theresa has recently completed the Masters in Coaching Psychology at the the University of Sydney. She has a Bachelor of Commerce and an MBA from the University of New South Wales. She is a scholarship holder of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute program - a leading Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence program which originated at Google. Theresa is especially passionate about helping improve wellbeing, focus, resilience, inclusivity, psychological safety, and compassion in the workplace.
Connect with Theresa via Linkedin.
TESTIMONIALS
"I was recently in a position where I’d lost my way with my job and not only did I not know how to resolve it, I couldn’t really identify what the problem was. I found Theresa to be personable, smart and insightful. She provided astute feedback, tools and guidance which were all immensely valuable. But importantly, she created space where I could work through my own thinking. I developed a greater understanding of my strengths." COO of a fintech company who transitioned to COO of a media company.
Evidence-based Longevity Coaching & Virtual Bootcamps
Reduce Cognitive Decline & Improve Subjective Wellbeing through Sustainable Evidence-Based Lifestyle Changes
Evidence-based Lifestyle Changes
We will guide you to integrate evidence-based lifestyle changes (diet, exercise and stress reduction techniques) that work for your lifestyle. This can be through 1:1 coaching and/or group virtual 30-day bootcamps (from Level 1 to Level 5). You will be part of a community to support each other during and after the changes.
CNN Documentary "“The Last Alzheimer’s Patient,” that aired on 7 July 2024 started us on the journey of understanding the various studies on lifestyle changes that can slow down cognitive decline.
About Theresa
- 51 years old and part of sandwich generation - have two elderly parents and two teen sons.
- During COVID, Theresa was part of the care team for a family member with dementia.
- Led team at Mable to build compliance and booking platform to help care managers find in-home care for the elderly.
- Evidence-based Coach (M. Science, Coaching Psychology, USyd 2022) focusing on building habits and mindsets that support goal attainment and wellbeing.
- Was one of the coaches involved in study published in 2024 that indicated that coaching resulted in agency thinking, goal-orientation and attainment, autonomy, self-acceptance, personal growth and purpose in life.
About Xi
- A Coach specialising in midlife cognitive health, helping professionals in their second half of life to maintain high performance and optimise long-term mental vitality and
- With a background in corporate marketing and personal experience overcoming loss, Sylvia brings unique insights into cognitive resilience and adaptability.
- Holistic approach combines Eastern wisdom and Western neuroscience, focusing on stress reduction, brain-nourishing Longevity nutrition, and mindfulness practices.
- Evidence-based coach (M. Science, Coaching Psychology, USyd 2022) helping clients to enhance focus, cultivate emotional intelligence, and develop effective habits promoting long-term cognitive health.
- Supports individuals to leverage midlife as a crucial window for cognitive vitality and healthy aging.
Subscribe now to the
FUTURE THAT WORKS podcast and monthly newsletter on Emotional Intelligence
Unleash You & Your Team's Potential
(Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts)
1. Real-time feedback for optimal learning:
- Get points for every learner activity - quiz, poll, read, watch videos, reflect etc. The more your participate, the more points you earn, the higher you climb up the leaderboards to win prizes set by your company!
- Learners can share their insights and learn from each other.
- Learners also get bonus points for continuing their practice streak!!
2. Rewarding (and habit building):
- Earn points and climb up the individual and team leaderboards for: Learning (watching short videos or reading blogs), Doing (practising and reflecting), and Assessent (doing quizzes and polls which measures your knowledge, and collects your opinions)
- Learners can also redeem their digital points by gifting to their fellow learners, as well as mechanisms to maintain their learderboard ranking.
3. Mindfulness & EQ Microactivities library to create your own journeys:
- Emotional Intelligence is one of the two key skills we do not currently train for that is needed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
- Modular learning programs that allow for rapid reskilling as skill demand evolves
- Microactivities support a learning enabling corporate culture that rewards individual innovation and learning
- Microactivities create direct opportunities for knowledge-sharing and intergenerational learning within the workplace.
- Self-service platform to create your own gamified microlearning and micropractices journey
- Supports multilingual content
30/60/90 day challenges
The award-winning gamified behaviour change platform nudging teams to build EQ, wellbeing & psychological safety.
Evidence-based daily mobile microlearning and micropractices to unlock your agility, performance and wellbeing.
Mindfulness & Focus
You will learn why mindfulness can help you increase your focus and mental clarity, reduce stress, gain more mastery over emotional responses and improve interpersonal relationships.
You will practice different mindfulness techniques that you can integrate into your day.
Growth Mindset, Resilience & Wellbeing
Curated by Dr Kipling Walker (Organisational Psychiatrist) and Donus Loh (Psychologist)
40% of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful. Learning is difficult when workers are stressed.
We help you do daily micropractices to increase your resilience, wellbeing and shift your mindset to a more open, growth mindset - ready for the training your workforce needs to be future ready.
Compassionate
Leadership
You will learn how to and practice to be more curious, inclusive and empathic.
You will also gain competence in having difficult conversations, as well as showing how vulnerability is a strength.
Pre-requisite: Mindfulness & Focus
Inclusivity Beyond Unconscious Bias Training
Short diversity training workshops have only a small effect in reducing unconscious bias.
In this course, you will learn not just what are the unconscious cognitive biases we all have, and how to slow down your thinking and behaviour to mitigate agains these typically automatic behaviours.
You will also learn how to help you team feel safe to ask a question, share an opinion or idea, and learn from mistakes.
Innovation Agility
You will learn how to be more comfortable with being curious and experimental, and approach problem-solving experimentally. You will practice how to listen mindfully, by exploring solutions, test assumptions whilst managing your potential biases, and exercise a growth mindset when getting feedback from real users.
You will also learn how to be more self-compassionate when you "fail', and how to manage your stress during uncertainty.
Building Trust & Psychological Safety
You will learn how to be curious about others to build human to human connections. You will learn how to ask for feedback and give feedback constructively with heart.
You will also learn how to acknowledge your own fallability, and to be aware of status/power differential, and to use levers like certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness to build trust.
Testimonials
What some of our customers and partners say
Parveen Sandhu
Instructional Designer, Corporate Trainer
"As an instructional designer and emotional intelligence facilitator, I have had the wonderful opportunity of working with Play2Lead. Their mobile web app for individual and team learning related to emotional wellbeing are key tools for personal and workplace transformation today. Their leadership solutions are user-centric and designed for a smooth, engaging experience, fuelled with gamification elements. Content is curated and scaffolded meaningfully. Learning format is bite-sized and well-supported with micropractices that really help users build important 21st century skills "
Learning Specialist at Surge Consulting | Certified Search Inside Yourself Facilitator
ONG Whee Teck
CEO
"The Play2Lead program was very well received by our colleagues. Many reported increases in self-awareness and self-regulation and enjoyed the daily nudges to find better balance between work and self-care. It was inspiring to see the high participation levels. Activities in the program that were especially well received included the reframing of their negative thinking to more positive thinking, and the different self-care activities they undertook including new things they learnt during the Circuit Breaker."
CEO of Temasek Management Services
Komala Pakirisamy
Union President
"Play2Lead has been a pleasure to work with to help us engage and prepare a segment of our workforce to help them re-skill as part of our Digital Transformation Intiative. Engagement for this mobile app was high and sustained through the pilot, and we were pleasantly surprised how open our participants were with sharing their challenges and how willing they were to build Resilience & Growth Mindset. We were also surprised how digitally savvy our participants who were mostly over 45. Even though this was only a 6 week intro, our self-assessment surveys indicated that there were improvements in both resilience and wellbeing. 100% signed up for technical courses so that they could be ready for new roles."
President of Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore Staff Union (IRASSU)
Katriina Tahka
Corporate Trainer & CEO
"We selected Play2Lead to be our microlearning platform provider after scanning the market and finding that other products did not meet our specific program delivery needs. Since 2019 we have built and run our pilot sponsorship program and two successful programs on the Play2Lead platform.
The key thing that stands out for us is Play2Lead's responsiveness and can-do attitude. Whenever we have questions or queries, we know that Theresa and her team will jump in and help us out...we're not technical experts and Play2Lead has been a pleasure to work with over the last 18 months, making our journey from concept to pilot and commercialisation much earlier than expected.
Co-founder of Cultivate Sponsorship
Donus Loh
Psychologist, Peak Performance Trainer & Consultant
"I recognize the rigour by the Play2 Lead team in building Play2Lead’s content based on sound scientific research. This is assuring when I recommend to my clients a tool that they can independently engage in to grow healthily in mental well-being. Feedback has been positive especially from clients who have been working from home in the new normal environment. "
Case Studies & Use Cases
Resilience
Training
Mental & Emotional Intelligence
Bite-sized activities to learn and practice how to reframe, be more self-compassionate, mindful breathing, gratitude etc.
Product Knowledge Training
Engage & Measure Learning of Your Field Force!
It can be quite expensive to bring together your sales force and channel partners to teach them about your latest products and solutions. So why not make it fun, leverage their natural competitive spirit and measure the uplift in product knowledge? You can even start measuring
what your sales force know before your face-to-face training, as well as compare the knowledge levels of those that attended your face-to-face training with those that didn't or were relying on e-learning (which probably has low take-up rates). You can then focus your attention to the sales people that need the training most. Companies like Samsung have used our platform repeatedly to engage and measure learning for their field force.
Safety/Compliance Training
Making BORING training FUN!!
Boring compliance training is typically DEATH by Powerpoint. You can keep your participants awake by injecting pop quizzes throughout the session and rewarding them with prizes as they climb up the leaderboard. We also have Virtual Reality immersive training for Construction Site Safety and Warehouse Safety - Hazard Identification - fully integrated to our gamified mobile microlearning platform.
Inclusivity
Beyond Unconscious Bias Training
Bite-sized learning and practice activities to build your skills on mindfulness, empathy and compassion.
Leadership & Strategy Sessions
Measure Buy-In & Get Real-time Feedback!
Bringing your leadership team to get their buy-in on your strategy? Don't just TALK TO them about your strategy! Measure what they understand and motivate them to give real-time feedback (which can of course be anonymous)! Join companies likes Luxoticca and an Asian telco that has used Play2Lead at their leadership sessions.
Oh...and talk to us also if you want to create a Virtual Reality content piece that helps your team immerse themselves in the future you are painting, not just imagine whilst you are showing videos/powerpoint. We can integrate the VR content engagement with our gamified learning platform.
Values-Based On-boarding/ Orientation Training
Keep your new employees excited & aligned (NOT bored)!
Mix up your on-boarding training with quick pop quizzes so that your new employees stay engaged during on-boarding training (which can feel like information overload)!
And if you really want to shake things up, we have partners that can help you create a Virtual Reality content that will help your potential and new employees experience specific functions and geographies across your company. You won't need to have representatives from the different departments talk to the new recruits. Your new recruits can more easily connect with each other as they participate answering pop quizzes and polls during the training. More importantly, you can arm their team leader or manager with what the new recruit doesn't know so that they can bridge the knowledge gap quickly.
Customers and Awards
TOP 5 HRM Asia HRTech PitchFest 2020
1st & 2nd Prize Winner of in.LAB Innovation Challenge 2016
Winner of Mumbrella360 CrocPit 2015
Finalist in Seedstars Australia 2015
2018 Cohort
