About — The Practice & The Practitioner

Chrysalis is a practice built on listening.

Rachael Watkins, founder of Chrysalis Consult
Rachael Watkins
Founder · Chrysalis Consult

Rachael is a People & Culture executive, team effectiveness specialist and qualified business coach with over 20 years' international experience, 15 of them across Africa. She partners senior and emerging leaders in financial services, fintech, global development and government — coaching individuals and teams to become the leaders their organisations actually need.

Her approach starts from a simple belief: leaders already have the answers; they rarely find them alone. Rachael's job is to ask the harder question, hold the silence, and stay alongside long enough for the real diagnostic to surface. She doesn't prescribe. She walks the journey with her clients and lets them own what changes.

Clients describe her work as “creative and unique.” Rachael's own test is simpler: what shifts in the room after she leaves — the harder conversations the team can now hold for themselves, and the ones they no longer need her to start.

20 yrs
Global leadership experience
Global reach
Europe · Africa · Asia · North America
100+
Conversations that changed something
Philosophy

We hold a particular kind of space.

Bold, but never brash. Courageous, but never careless. Professional, but never distant.

We will challenge you to think more deeply than you might choose to alone. We will reflect back what we hear — and what we notice you are not saying. We will sit with the harder questions for as long as they need to be sat with. And we will do all of this in service of what you are here to build, not what we think you should be building.

We believe —

  • · Each person holds the answers to their own challenges.
  • · The goals of the leader and the organisation must align.
  • · Creativity is not decoration. It is essential to every solution.
  • · Curiosity, not certainty, opens the doors that matter.

We will —

  • · Challenge you to think deeply and reflect honestly.
  • · Approach each situation with deep curiosity.
  • · Build bespoke — never templated — partnerships.
  • · Hold the work to the standard it deserves.
Credentials

Rigour behind the warmth.

Accredited, evidence-based and grounded in two decades of work with the leaders who carry the weight of the rooms they're in.

Key Experience
  • CEO
    Chrysalis Consult, UK
  • Head of Human Capital, CIB, Africa
    Standard Bank of South Africa, Remote
  • Head of Human Capital, East & West Africa
    Standard Bank of South Africa, Uganda
  • Senior HR Business Partner
    Standard Bank of South Africa, South Africa
  • HR Business Partner
    Clifford Chance LLP, UK
Areas of Coaching Expertise
  • Team Coaching & Team Effectiveness
  • Individual Coaching & Strategic Thinking
  • Partnerships, Culture & Organisational
  • Change, Talent Attraction & Management
  • Purpose & Storytelling
Education, Credentials & Professional
  • Chartered Fellow Member
    Institute of Personal Development
  • Masters in Personnel & Development
    Westminster Business School, UK
  • BA (Econ) Hons
    University of Manchester, UK
  • Professional Certified Coach (PCC)
    International Coaching Federation (ICF)
  • Advanced ICF Business Coaching Certificate
    Gordon Institute of Business Science, South Africa
  • Team ICF Coaching Diploma
    Henley Business School, UK
A wider circle

A network of trusted associates, when the work calls for more than one set of hands.

For larger-scale projects — multi-team transformations, leadership programmes, organisational facilitation — Rachael partners with a global network of proven, accredited associates. Carefully chosen, deeply trusted, and held to the same standard as the practice itself.

A constellation, not a roster
Begin a conversation

If something here resonates —

The first step is small, and there is no obligation in it. A conversation, to see if we are the right fit for the work in front of you.

Reach out →