Graham Brown-Martin a.k.a. The Catalyst Coach

I work as a catalyst for powerful conversations and fresh thinking. I draw on my experience of leading teams, creating startups and scaling up organisations that challenged the status quo. Often ahead of the curve; I designed mobile computers in the 80s, interactive and online entertainment networks in the 90s, community-based social networks in the early 00s and a global forum for the future of learning in the 10s.

Since starting my first company my natural leadership style was collegial and collaborative; sometimes leading from the front and at other times from the back. The latter was coaching by default. I learned the hard way that to grow my companies and make change happen I had to create the conditions for my co-workers to grow too.

I got most of my learning from making mistakes and I made a lot of them. There were employees whom I failed and others where I succeeded. I’m immensely proud of how so many of them, whom I’m now pleased to call friends, went on to lead remarkable careers; creating their own companies, making films for Pixar, or becoming a globally recognised recording artist picking up a Grammy along the way.

I was invited to leave school at 15 after an incident concerning entrepreneurial activities with organic chemistry. I didn’t go back to formal education until recently when I studied for a Masters in Executive Coaching at Ashridge. My studies were disrupted by the pandemic but after completing the first year I had learned enough to leave and pivot towards an underserved community of change-makers. So here I am.

I received a diagnosis of ADHD with autism in 2015.