About Nicola

ABOUT NICOLA

Meet Nicola Short, Founder and Director of On coaching Ltd

"Helping others has made me happier and healthier. I want being caring to be contagious and inspire those who I coach to be supportive to the people around them to enable workplaces and communities to be better places. You can still be successful and care. We never stop learning and the more we understand about ourselves and those around us the more successful we will be in life."

How Nicola became a coach....

Nicola was introduced to coaching in her early 30s and could instantly see the benefits that it could bring. Fast forward to 2020 and after being made redundant during the first lockdown, she found herself turning to a career coach to help her navigate through the emotions and uncertainty that it had brought. 

During that year she had also turned 50, three of her four children were at university and the youngest was starting her A-levels. She not only felt redundant in her work life but in the family home too. After a 30-year career working for some of the most iconic organisations in the North East this was the first time she had found herself not knowing what to do next. She had operated at a senior level for the past 18 years working side-by-side with some of the region’s foremost business leaders and influencers. 

As CEO of the Entrepreneurs’ Forum, she had been instrumental in developing and implementing a commercial and financial strategy that would take this social enterprise from a funded model to one with a sustainable prosperous future. 

 Moving Forward

In 2020 Nicola commenced a coaching and mentoring programme at the University of Warwick and received her certificate to practice later that year. Since graduating from Durham with an MBA in 2019, learning had become an energy source for her, linking knowledge as a way to build self-esteem. Coaching gave her a sense of purpose and it sat well with her personal ethics and values. The need to help people is important to her whether with friends, work, colleagues or the charities she represents as trustee. 


On coaching

Nicola officially launched On coaching in December 2021 after 12 months of building experience, practice and knowledge. 

Coaching allows her to call upon her professional and life experiences to help people. For organisational clients her history in developing, implementing and executing strategies allows her to help organisations and their people to be more effective as they experience the growing pains of growth, scaling and continuous change. 

Giving Back

Nicola now has time to ‘give back’ to her own community by being trustee for Tyne & Wear Archive and Museums (TWAM) Enterprises and Tyneside Cinema.

She is also a founding member and trustee for the Zambezi Sunrise Trust, a charity that helps provide more educational opportunities for children in Africa. 

She also supports Action for Happiness.

Organisations Nicola supports...

Getting Personal

In Nicola's own words:


“Even now, after setting up On coaching I still turn to a silent coaching technique to reset my goals and regain focus in my life.


I am my own worst critic and tend to focus at times on the many things I haven’t done instead of accepting that what I have achieved deserves some recognition. After each session I feel heard, decluttered, measured, considered and organised.


For my coachees, I believe that coaching provides a safe environment, where they feel heard without judgement. My role as a coach is to actively listen, with no agenda, opinion or bias to help each coachee explore their own pathways available to them." 

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