Karen’s story
Business Books Awards finalist and business strategist with 20+ years’ experience of running her own coaching and consulting companies, Karen Skidmore helps entrepreneurs step into their CEO-ship, uniquely combining the being-ness and doing-ness of business.
She started her first coaching business in 2004. After an 11-year career with Hays Plc managing small teams and building strategic partnerships across brands, her children were approaching school age, and she realised how much she wanted a more flexible and fulfilling professional career.
She was still ambitious, but the expectations of work hours and demands of meeting sales targets wouldn’t work if she wanted to be at the school gates each day.
Within six months of starting up, she was awarded European Social Funds for her Women’s Enterprise Programme and Simply Marketing Workshops, which was instrumental in helping hundreds of women start up their own businesses across Surrey & Sussex.
She went on to set up a regional women’s networking group in 2005, created & ran a membership site teaching 100+ members digital marketing strategies, wrote her first book, Shiny Shiny, and launched dozens of online courses and group programmes over the next decade.
But in 2012, struggling with adrenal fatigue and hormonal imbalances, Karen was burnt out from constantly launching new programmes and marketing campaigns, exasperated by dealing with grief from losing her father to cancer two years previously. She closed down several of her programmes and switched business models to offer longer term consultancy work and deep business strategy work with clients.
After several frustrating years of trying to ‘fix’ myself and ‘make myself better,’ I realised there were no shortcuts to my recovery. But being told to ‘rest more’ became a real challenge, even though I knew logically that I needed to reduce my body’s stress.
My brain was constantly whirling away, and my nervous system was on high alert so I found it incredibly difficult to relax and do nothing.
During my recovery journey, I was introduced to sound healing and embodiment work, and these practices became a game-changer for me. I decided to go on to study sound and movement, and after many years of deep practice, I am now a qualified Level II Sound Healing Practitioner and I will finish my Embodiment Facilitator training in the Autumn of 2024.
It’s been an incredible past few years, and it’s time to start sharing my wisdom and spirituality with business leaders like you.
After the launch of her second book, True Profit Business, Karen developed her Grow Strong® planning processes which has become her flagship programme, Momentum, which she now leads along with her team, Alexia, Melina and Ed.
As a Menopause Champion and understanding the unique challenges women face during this phase of life, Karen has also hosted an annual Embrace Festival and has been instrumental in developing menopause support programmes for organisations.
More recently, she has also recently launched a new sound and embodiment company for business leaders, Serotina Sound & Movement.
You can read about the full story of how Serotina was created here.
Bridging the gap between commercial business success and spiritual connection to energy and self.
Karen’s Incredible Team
Melina Abbott
Melina joined the Momentum team in 2019 and specialises in supporting businesses on B2C and B2B sales training, pricing, and packaging of offers, as well as being a ninja at challenging belief systems and identifying where you may be stuck in your thinking.
She has an extensive career having worked for many years in manufacturing before starting her own consultancy and coaching business. Melina hosts our weekly Monday Mojo Calls which means you also get direct access to her wealth of sales experience and mindset laser coaching.
Alexia Padgham
Alexia has been supporting Karen in her business since 2007 so she knows exactly what our clients and community members need to help them in their business growth journeys.
She personally welcomes you into Momentum and ensures you know where to find all the resources available to you. If you need your password reset, links to any calls, or the date of any of our live sessions, she’s here to help.
Ed Haigh
Ed is an accomplished and purpose-driven business leader with 25 years of international experience across a wide range of industries. He joined the team in 2022 and has a track record both of launching new, disruptive business ventures within established multinational organisations, and of scaling small start-up businesses, at all times putting people and purpose at the heart of his approach to leadership.
Ed supports members by helping them to stay focused on what really matters and to find their unique path to sustainable growth by developing strategies that are rooted in capability, resilience and authenticity.
