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Success coach goes Stateside

A BUSINESS coach who has helped many a footballer return to form and numerous managers overcome difficult dressing rooms has now become hot property in corporate USA.

Tyneside-born Richard Nugent has spent several years developing a flourishing career as a specialist leadership and confidence coach for sports player and managers alongside business leaders.

As well as working for renowned UK consultancy Kaizen – in a role which sees him training some of the largest firms in the world such as Tesco Bank, Alton Towers and EDF Energy – he also works with football, cricket and rugby clubs from the upper echelons to the lower leagues.

He has now been specially selected by Michael Neill – an internationally-renowned American success coach – to teach his expert methods to fellow coaches at a major event in New York later this year.

Having already worked on the East Coast of the US with Merlin Entertainment – the world’s second largest visitor attraction operator – he is also expecting to extend his training sessions to management teams at West Coast attractions such as Madame Tousauds Hollywood and Lego Land, San Diego.

Mr Nugent said: “Michael Neill is the greatest success coach in the world and he has enlisted me to speak at a programme in New York this year in which I’ll be coaching the coaches.

“My vision for the business for the last year has been to be able to help 1,000 people a year to be happier at work, whether that’s a CEO, an entrepreneur or a footballer – I did 750 last year and this year so far I’m already at 1,400.

“We spend more time in work than we do at home and more time with our colleagues than we do with our partners or kids and most of us work for 50 years, so I just think it’s a travesty not to be able to enjoy it.”

In the longer term, Mr Nugent is aiming to adapt his methods to the education sector, which he believes needs to be modernised and reformed.

“Our educations systems are still set up to serve the industry of the 19th Century. We are taught in schools to be an expert in one field. The way it was in the 19th century, when we would come out and have the same job for the rest of our lives.

However, although our grandparents would only have one career, our kids will probably have eight or nine careers.

“Yet we are still teaching people that by 18 they are only allowed to study one topic.”

TO FIND out more about Richard Nugent’s work in the sports world, in which he has worked with £10m Premier League stars as well as young apprentices, read an in-depth interview on bdaily next week.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .