Laurence's Coaching Offerings

Laurence also coaches for Executive Coaching, Career Coaching, Communication & Public Speaking, Performance, and Leadership Coaching. View all.

Laurence also coaches for Executive Coaching, Career Coaching, Communication & Public Speaking, Performance, and Leadership Coaching. View all.

Why do I coach?

For me coaching is a passion and a calling. Being able to have a positive impact on the career and life of others is an exhilarating privilege. Here are what some of my previous clients have said about their coaching experience with me: "My experience with Laurence Hewitt through the Better Up Coaching Program has been nothing short of amazing. From the first session to the last he coached me through some insecurities I had as a leader and in turn, bettered the larger team. He helped me gain confidence and work towards techniques that helped me grow as a leader. He also coached me to approach and empower my team to grow which has radically changed the day to day within my department. I will always look back on my time with Laurence with such gratitude." VP, Creative Marketing, major media company “This year was certainly a testing one for me along with many others. And I must say, if I could survive these tough times, it is only because of Laurence. I underwent a lot of trauma and struggled to understand the underlying things and it was with your coaching that I started to see myself from within. Thank you so much for all your time throughout. I am glad for you lent your ears and coached me to combat my challenges. I am ever grateful to you for introducing to me the Stoic philosophy and for everything else you did. I wish to continue getting coached and gain strength from you in the coming year too. “ Business Agility Manager, major tech company "Over the past few weeks I have been working to better empower my team members. Through Laurence's guidance, I have been able to have those tough conversations with ease." VP of Creative Marketing, large media company "Laurence was fantastic & introduced me to a great technique to formalize my goals. Working with him thru the exercise was extremely helpful." CyberSecurity Director at large media company. "Working with Laurence helped me to reframe my outlook on working life. His guided approach helped me define what is meaningful about work for me, what criteria are important for me in my career progression, and how to improve my current working relationships." Research Designer within large tech company "Identification of my values and strengths has helped gain even more confidence in myself and having this self-awareness is really helping me identify the areas where i can be most productive and deliver efficient results." Service Delivery Director, major media company "In three sessions, Laurence brought me to an awareness of what was holding me back; something my therapist wasn't able to do in two years!" Marketing Operations Manager in large tech company. "Laurence, having your guidance during my pregnancy, empowered me with a positive and relaxed mindset. My baby will definitely appreciate as much as I do. I am now conquering my fears and feeding my strengths with determination to become even more confident in myself." Digital Strategist and new mother at major tech company.

Work Experience

Career & Business Coach

Torchwood Coaching

January 2017 - Present

Over 12,000 hours of coaching executives from large and mid-sized organizations, in the Tech, Banking, Finance, Sales, Media, Marketing, Real Estate, Energy and Pharma sectors, for weekly or bi-weekly one-on- one coaching engagements over the course of 3-12 months. Accomplishments: * Conducted a variety of assessments to determine the clients’ professional and personality strengths and weaknesses, their level of work satisfaction and engagement, their core values, professional and personal meaning & purpose, levels of empathy and levels of stress & anxiety, depending on the needs of the client * Through coaching conversations and exercises, worked with clients to identify their areas of professional and personal development and to help define specific and actionable goals to develop these areas * Helped clients to develop specific plans of actions, timing, resources and potential obstacles and to define metrics and key results to track progress and hold the client accountable to their desired outcomes * Provided clients situational coaching in the areas of executive presence & personal branding, managing up and executive communication, employee engagement, servant leadership, feedback & employee development, productivity & time management, work/life balance and Agile leadership & methods * For clients dealing with anxiety, automatic negative thinking, lack of confidence, anger issues, etc., I use Cognitive Behavioral coaching techniques to identify the triggers and situations that lead to the negative thoughts and emotions, challenge the veracity of those thoughts and help the client to develop new, more productive thinking and habits Business Strategy, Leadership and +10 skills

Executive Coach

IBM

September 2016 - February 2022

Accomplishments: • As an integral part of IBM’s President, Jim Whitehurst's culture transformation initiative, I developed a transformation program around the culture characteristics of Growth Mindset, Radical Candor, Entrepreneurial Spirit & Inclusion. * To reach the target number of 2,600 participants within 6 months, I trained and led a team of 30 coaches in the curriculum and coaching approach. Each coach then led 2-3 coaching circle cohorts, under my guidance. * I received the People’s Choice Award for Culture, based on the success of the program. The program also received a Net Promoter Score of 89. • Designed the curriculum & delivery approach and facilitated 32 Servant Leadership workshops in 18 cities, worldwide, to a total audience of 750 first and second line managers. The program had a final NPS of 72. • As a follow-on to the Servant Leadership training program, developed a Servant Leadership Goal Definition & Achievement group coaching program, where I coached 20 cohorts of first and second line managers toward setting and achieving their leadership goals. • Designed an innovative approach to addressing employee engagement issues. The Positive Agility model is a construct based on the dimensions of Positive Psychology’s PERMA model, mapped to the dimensions of Servant Leadership, in order to create an effective remediation plan that addresses the root cause of individual and team engagement issues. This construct became the basis of a training program of my design, which I delivered to 350 first and second line managers. • Was awarded the IBM Excellence & Eminence Award, the Manager's Choice Award (3x), the Win Wednesday Recognition and the People's Choice Culture Award for Growth Mindset. • Executive Coach certified by the International Coach Federation, at the Professional Coach (PCC) level, with 7,000 hours of executive coaching experience, plus 3,000 hours of Agile coaching experience. Talent Management, Business Strategy and +10 skills

Agile Coach

IBM

August 2015 - June 2021

Key Projects & Accomplishments • Helped the Europe Digital Sales group to scale and operationalize their Hybrid Cloud Platform pilot to 3 new EMEA markets • Led the Agile transformation of IBM’s Middle East & Africa Digital Sales geography and establish their Agile Squads in a new Cairo Digital Sales Center • Coached the Digital Sales Business Partner Acceleration team toward meeting aggressive quarterly and annual business targets, using Agile methods • Facilitated senior leadership “working meetings” to establish the operational and financial modeling of a large scale Marketing reorganization • Led the Agile transformation of 5 of IBM’s Marketing geographies, representing 12 countries and over 1,200 people • Designed the curriculum & approach and facilitated 32 Agile Leadership workshops in 18 cities, worldwide, to an audience of 750 first and second line managers • Developed the OKRA (OKR + Agile) framework to ensure alignment between the Objectives & Key Results of leadership with the work of the Agile execution & delivery teams and implemented with over 60 Agile teams • Designed a unique approach to measuring the Agile maturity and engagement of teams, correlating the psychological dimensions of employee engagement with the traits of Agile & Servant Leadership, in order to create an effective remediation plan that addresses the root cause of team issues • Greatly reduced The Weather Company Advertising’s time to market, helping to increase revenue for digital ads, using Value Stream Mapping techniques to re-engineer their Sales to Production process • Helped Watson Health Imaging resolve intra-team conflict through a series of “listening sessions”, identification of underlying issues, whole team Polarity Management and conflict resolution workshops and group coaching • Was awarded the IBM Excellence & Eminence Award, the Manager's Choice Award (3x), the Win Wednesday Recognition and the People's Choice Culture Award for Growth Mindset Talent Management, Business Strategy and +7 skills

Senior Director of Operations

PARAMOUNT GLOBAL

September 2009 - November 2014

Accomplishments • Created and managed the first Shared Services group within Viacom, effectively implementing DevOps principles across Shared Service practices • Grew the Quality Assurance & Test Engineering practice from a team of 9 to 72 Test Leads, Test Engineers and Test Analysts, in 2 years, in order to meet internal customer demand • Created and managed Viacom’s first Technical Writing practice to offer comprehensive and consistent documentation services to all digital technology teams • Identified, on-boarded, deployed and managed 85 off-shore resources, across 6 vendor engagements • Negotiated deal with crowd-source based testing vendor, Applause. Transition to Applause represented a cost savings of approximately $600k • Designed and implemented a Service Management Framework that encompassed a system of request management, capacity planning and resource management to effectively address over 350 man hours of work, weekly • Became Viacom’s first Kanban Coach, successfully overseeing more than a dozen implementations of the Agile framework, resulting in an increased Net Promoter Score for service teams, "cleaner" code and higher velocity for software development teams and decreases in support issues Responsibilities • Worked with the Technical Leads of each practice to develop and execute strategic and financial planning • Created and managed the Shared Services budget, ensuring that all expenditures fell within budgetary allowances • Managed program cash flow and vendor payment schedules • Worked with vendors and stakeholders to create and implement Vendor Service Level Agreements to meet the requirements of internal customers • Negotiated and created contracts, Master Service Agreements, Statements of Work, and Non-Disclosure Agreements for all vendor work • Managed daily operations of the Digital Incident Support team to ensure that response and resolution times met established Service Level Agreements Talent Management, Business Strategy and +7 skills

Project Portfolio Director

Paramount Global

February 2008 - September 2009

The program is responsible for the development and distribution of revenue-generating mobile and emerging technology applications and syndication of Viacom digital content. Accomplishments • Successfully implemented the group’s first Agile framework, establishing and managing all Scrum rituals and guiding the Development and Product teams in the transition from a Waterfall approach to Agile • Oversaw the development of some of Viacom’s most successful mobile applications and syndicated content, at a time when executive management began putting more focus on mobile and syndicated content Responsibilities • Supervised team of 8 off-shore and on-site Software Developers and Technical Leads, as well as staff Project Managers • Executed and maintained program management processes and disciplines in the areas of: program schedule and quality management; communications management; human resource management; cost management; procurement management; risk / issue management; change management • Mentored direct reports in best practices in project management and project planning Talent Management, Leadership and +5 skills

Project Portfolio Manager

Nickelodeon

March 2005 - September 2008

The Kids & Family Digital group is responsible for development of original and television-based web, mobile and premium game content for Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., NickToons, NickMom and Teenick. As Project Portfolio Manager I was responsible for partnering with the Kids & Family Business and Tech VPs/Directors to understand the strategic direction and overall project portfolio which will translate into high-level system requirements. Accomplishments • Insightfully identified the need to distinguish project development work from support and content maintenance requests, in order to eliminate development bottlenecks and create efficiencies. Implemented a framework of processes for each type of work to address development issues and process optimization Responsibilities • Partnered with the Business to understand their strategic direction and translate this into high level system requirements. Established and maintained a high level of Business, Product and Tech partnership at the operational level • Worked with the Business to clearly define requests and projects • Effectively managed the digital Tech request process for creation of initial project estimates, capacity planning, resource management and financial scoping • Create an overall release schedule, capacity plan and road map for the digital portfolio of projects • Partnered with the Business, Product and Tech organization to create a clear understanding of resource requirements, trade-offs, and possible scenarios Talent Management, Agile and +3 skills

Director of Project Management

Show & Tell AV Solutions

January 2003 - February 2005

Show & Tell is a creative technology services company specializing in application development, computer-generated design and animation, video production and editing, digital sign operations and consulting services. Managed a team of 3 Project Managers in the creation of digital signage for high-profile clients. Talent Management, Teamwork and +2 skills

Production Manager

Comedy Central

September 2001 - December 2003

Supervised all online production activities, ensuring that deadlines were established and met for all digital projects and that resources were appropriately assigned to each project. Project Management and Organization Skills

Education

New York University

MPS, Interactive Telecommunications

School of Visual Arts

Bachelor of Arts, Film & Television Production