Bespoke and holistic.
So you can bring your whole self to the table.
Your career and your life.
Everything. And all of you.
From one-on-one developmental coaching with senior leaders near the top of their game to pro-bono support for young professionals at the start of theirs, we will always meet you where you are.
We’re not tied to any pre-determined formulae or fixed ways of working. What we promise is to challenge you — in a safe space — where you can explore your possibilities without judgement.
We ask a lot of questions because we want to understand what great looks like, for you. And your secrets are safe with us. We know that our reputation is only as good as the confidences we keep.
We will always be honest with you, even when you might not like what we have to say. And if we think the fit is wrong, or that we can’t deliver what you need, we will tell you, and make good or walk away. We want the best outcome for you. Because that’s the best outcome for us too.
Your secrets are safe with us; we will keep them like an oath. We know that our reputation is only as good as the confidences we keep, and you can trust us to keep yours. The quality of our conversations, and therefore our support, depends on it.
Our way of working is unique; we don’t operate on a sessional or tick-a-box basis. We will meet you where you are and be there for you when you need us. And we know a career happens in the context of a life, so you can bring your whole self to the table.
We will ask you tough questions, and we’ll challenge your answers. We’ll even call you out if your responses don’t make sense to us, or if they conflict with something else you’ve told us. We’ll do this because we know it’s in your best interests, and because we promised to be courageous.
I founded McKenna BDF to reimagine how career and professional support is designed and delivered. I’ve changed the rules and created something different and unique.
Where client and community are at its heart.
It starts with a conversation about where you’re at professionally and what you’re looking for to figure out if and how we might be able to support you. If we both feel like the fit is right, we would prepare a proposal setting out what we have in mind to support you. We would also be happy to have a conversation with the appropriate person at your organisation to understand what they have in mind and to explain our engagement model.
If everyone was happy, the engagement would be signed off and supported financially by your organisation.
We are almost always engaged by an organisation to support an individual directly. Our engagement model is based on the financial arrangement being between McKenna BDF and the organisation who employs the ultimate client. That means our initial contact is often with a Partner, Director, CPO, OD Leader or equivalent professional to discuss the coaching and developmental needs of a specific individual.
We would always talk to you about what you have in mind and then arrange a meeting with the individual to make sure they are comfortable working with us and we feel we could deliver what they need. If the fit is right, for everyone, we would prepare a proposal for your consideration and move forward if you were happy with it.
We would never pursue an engagement if we didn’t feel like the fit was right – it is not how we work.
For all sorts of reasons, which are often very specific to the individual and the stage they’re at in their career. Here are some examples:
We support people who are on the cusp of a promotion and want to give themselves the best chance of success, people who are newly promoted and need to figure out how to operate in their new role, including recalibrating relationships that have changed since promotion.
We also support people who are starting out as partners and senior leaders in a new firm or organisation, and they want independent and confidential support to determine how best to navigate the new landscape and map out how to proceed and conduct themselves professionally in an unfamiliar environment.
We support people who have been recruited by their organisation from overseas and are repatriating to Australia after years away, so they need to navigate all sorts of changes and adjustments in addition to their new professional role. And sometimes we support people who are returning to a familiar role at a known organisation after a period of parental leave or other absence, and require support as they rebuild their career and find their place after that absence.
There are so many reasons, but we approach every engagement by listening deeply and meeting the individual where they are. Confidentially and without judgement.
Many of our clients wish to work directly with Nicole, to leverage her particular skills, experience and wisdom. However, we also have a number of highly experienced and credentialed Associate Coaches and Associate Mentors who are also available to support our clients.
Once we know what your goals and aspirations are, we will talk to you about who might be the best fit for your unique circumstances, and we’ll take it from there.
It really depends on what your goals and aspirations are, how complex they are (and how senior and experienced you are), and the sort of time period realistically required to realise them (or at least get close).
Most of our coaching and developmental engagements run for between 6 and 12 months, with a small number running for 3 months. Anything less than that would make material change difficult.
We are rarely engaged by individuals to work directly with them, other than our pro-bono clients. That’s because our model is based on the financial arrangement being between McKenna BDF and the organisation who employs the ultimate client. That arrangement has served everyone pretty well in the past, so we very rarely deviate from it.
An important tenet of how we support our clients is assuring them absolutely that the development and coaching space is a confidential one. We don’t report back on our coaching and development conversations and have robust confidentiality provisions in our engagement agreements.
We appreciate that some organisations are looking for a tri-partite arrangement where there is reporting back. That is not how we work, so we would not take on an engagement that included such a requirement.
That’s why your secrets are safe with us.
We operate on an engagement model that spans a period of time, and make ourselves available to clients during that period as and when they need us (within reason!).
We do not work on an hourly or sessional basis as it doesn’t feel like the right fit for us, or align with our strengths and values.
Other providers do work on that basis though, and clients who are looking for that model would be better served by them.
We support individuals who are in transition for all sorts of reasons, including redundancy and moving-on when it’s just time to go. But forget everything you know about out-placement, because we do it very differently.
It is not about CV review and interview prep and office space, nor is it a handful of calls from a relative stranger that starts when you activate it and finishes X months later. If that’s what you’re looking for, we are probably not the right provider.
If you’re looking for holistic and humanistic professional transition support that is grounded in strengths and underpinned by values, and that gives the individual time to explore their possibilities and recalibrate after what is often a profound change with all the associated feelings that go with it, we should definitely talk.
We take on pro-bono coaching clients regularly throughout the year. We always give priority to people who were first in their family to attend university, and, given our experience, people who work in our sweet-spot, professional services and academia, are especially encouraged to reach out.
We do.
The pro-bono coaching scholarship for young women is offered most years, and includes a financial sum as well as professional coaching support for a 12 month period (though the relationship usually lasts much longer than that).
This scholarship is for a young woman, preferably first in her family to attend university, who has secured employment for the year following the year in which she is awarded the scholarship.
Applications open in around September each year, with interviews and a decision made in around November. The scholarship is advertised here, as well as on LinkedIn by Nicole.
The next scholarship application process will open in September 2026.
Contact us and discover how we can help you or your organisation and its people.
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