About me

Richard Everard

I had the privilege of working for Cisco for over twenty-seven years, and it taught me a great deal that I am grateful for.

I started my career in sales and ended it as Vice President for Service Sales across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In a sales leadership role, the number is everything. Everything else comes second to it, and there is nowhere to hide. I delivered it, and alongside it I helped deliver some of the largest changes in the company’s history.

What I value most is not on that list. I never forgot that a leader is there to serve the people who work for him, and that the job is to shape their environment so they can be at their best. That is where real performance comes from.

Achieving that promotion is one thing. Almost nobody teaches what comes next: how to lead well once you have the seniority, how to hold it without losing yourself, and how never to forget how you got there, or who got you there.

I have always wanted to demystify leadership, which is too often treated as something you are born with rather than something you can build. Leadership is not static. It evolves, and it requires continuous investment in yourself to be your best self. Encouraging the next generation of managers is where my passion lies.

That is what I coach. Not how to climb, everyone gets there differently. It’s how to arrive, still recognise yourself, and be someone people want to follow.

Away from the work

I live in Rome with my partner. Having grown-up children brings new freedoms. Since leaving Cisco, I have had the time to travel, to learn, and to pursue personal development.

What began as an attempt to understand my own behaviour became a lasting interest in neuroscience and behavioural science. I have a keen interest in the science of health because it is an integral part of self-mastery.

What I do now

I trained in behavioural science with NCI, and I work with those instruments both on myself and with the people I coach. Understanding my own mind through that structure has been life-changing. It explained why I had felt the way I felt for most of my life, and it gave me both answers and solutions.

What I bring that most coaches cannot is the other half: years spent in the corporate world at executive level. I combine that lived experience of leadership under pressure with the behavioural work, so it is grounded in the reality you are actually operating in, not just the theory.