Katharine St John-Brooks, Jeremy Gomm and Kevin Cowley discuss the challenges and benefits of internal supervision within the context of Kevin’s experience in the civil service. They highlight the importance of reflection and peer supervision in the coaching profession and compare the differences between internal and external supervision of internal coaches.

Katharine St John-Brooks is the author of the first book to focus exclusively on internal coaches, Internal Coaching – The Inside Story, published in 2014 and currently being updated for a second edition.

She is a speaker, contributor to numerous books on coaching and now a fiction author having written a thriller whose main character is a coach. Previously she worked in the UK Government (where her first thriller is set) and later set up her own management consultancy and executive coaching business.

Jeremy Gomm is an ILM Level 7 qualified supervisor and a practising supervisor, coach and mentor, largely for clients in organisations.

He was a voluntary director of EMCC UK for more than eight years during which he developed corporate membership and began a keen interest in internal coaching. This led to him setting up the first international conference exclusively for internal coaches, the International Internal Coaching Conference, in partnership with internal coaching associations in France, Belgium and Holland.

Kevin Cowley spent 30 years in various roles in the public sector, in HM Revenue & Customs, Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Cabinet Office, before setting up his own business as coach, supervisor and leadership and change facilitator.

Much of his time in the public sector focused on developing talent and leadership. Coaching roles included supporting senior leaders across the Civil Service and as supervisor supporting other internal coaches.