Please note that this list has been updated. See the Top 10 Best Business Coaches in Brisbane 2023 list here.
Five years ago I built a list of the Best Business Coaches in Brisbane, based on a LinkedIn list. In that time, some of those listed have quit coaching, or stopped their personal development, and in one case actually died.
Many readers also thought that I had curated that list, and viewed those people as a personal endorsement. Given the need for an update and a desire for a curated list of the best business coaches written by an actual, experienced business coach … I hereby deliver you “The 20 Best Business Coaches in Brisbane Australia, 2019/20 edition”.
(Note that these are listed alphabetically. I know everyone on this list, and it’s not about “a better coach” it’s about “a better match for your business and yourself”. Find a business coach on this list who suits you, and your business and life will be improved enormously. Thank me later!)
OK, so making the list alphabetical by Surname has its advantages. If you haven’t yet noticed, this is me and you’re on my website.
Since 2006, more than 300 active growth businesses in Australia, the UK, and Asia-Pacific have worked with Jacob in his role as an international business coach, partner and advisor, and more than 1,000 more have attended one of his workshops or facilitated retreats.
Jacob’s focus is energetic young companies, primarily professional services firms with 12 – 96 staff per location. He delivers high-impact results through a consistent business system that connects vision and personal intent all the way down to clear expectations and day-to-day team management. Jacob works with clients in person and around the world, leveraging technology for consistent support and guidance despite his family’s nomadic lifestyle.
Alumni clients and colleagues describe Jacob as the smart and quirky business guy who makes things happen, bringing a unique energy borne from the belief that business is best when it’s fun.
Since a fear of working for his father prevented Jacob from earning a law degree, his most impressive qualification is the Guinness World Record for non-stop movie-watching – a sleep-deprivation marathon that prepared him for his most recent role as a new dad.
Simon fell in love with business in 2004, and since then has successfully founded eight companies across six industries: automotive, finance, retail clothing, coaching and training, outsourcing and offshoring, and fire safety.
Since 2009, building on his experience and (importantly) proven approaches to business growth, Simon has also coached and trained over a thousand entrepreneurs (from plumbers to poledancers, baristas to barristers) all around Australia and the USA.
Simon’s focus and passion is partnering with business owners, founders and entrepreneurs to help them uncover the limiting beliefs that are holding them back – not just from building a successful business, but from living a life they love.
3. Nathan Brett
Director of Coaching at Real Estate Dynamics since 2011
Nathan has over 24 impressive years working in the Real Estate industry and has a passion for uncomplicating the world of Property Management.
As the previous owner of a multi-award winning, highly profitable Agency, Nathan strategically grew his business by applying a successful business model to Property Management that supported efficiency, delighted customers and maximised business profit.
Nathan has trained thousands of Business Owners, Property Managers, Leasing Consultants and Business Development Managers in high performance Property Management businesses across Australia.
His skills as a specialised Business Coach has seen him work with over 450 Business Owners and Property Management Team Members, delivering “uncomplicating coaching” across the country.
When I started my coaching career at Shirlaws, we actively positioned ourselves against the many Action Coaches that were flooding the market. One name kept coming up though – all around Australia, people would say to me “Any group has some poor coaches – but Charmian Campbell is the real deal”. And they were right.
Currently ranked in the top ten Action Coaches in the world and Number 1 female Action Coach in Australia and New Zealand, Charmian’s success as a Brisbane Business Coach reflects her ability to create success and results for her clients.
Putting both skills and experience to work, Charmian’s coaching and matter of fact approach facilitates more resourceful outcomes for those seemingly-impossible situations. It’s her passion and approach that has seen her clients make huge financial gains, develop balance, confidence, efficiencies and a multitude of other life changing and workplace performance improvements.
5. Sueanne Carr and
Customer Strategy Superhero at Customer Frame since 2015
5. Peter Turner
Customer Strategy Superhero at Customer Frame since 2015; International business coach since 2007
I’m grouping Sue and Pete, because you can’t separate their complementary brilliance (plus we all know that having a team is a critical aspect of being a successful business coach.) Of everyone on this list, I possibly love Customer Frame the most because I have worked alongside these guys (Peter and I worked together twice over 10 years), have used them in my business (where they ran some amazing changes for businessDEPOT), and know how much fun it is to share a glass (yeah, only) of wine with them on a personal level.
Customer Frame is about making customer strategy and improvement accessible AND doable for businesses of any size, not just for the big kids!
With over a two decades of customer strategy + experience transformation for some of the worlds biggest brands + government bodies, Peter and Sueanne have distilled all of that experience, expertise and proven theory into an actionable framework for businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes.
Plus their passionate about customers and putting them at the heart of business, with all the commercial and cultural benefits that then creates.
6. Anna Chipperfield
Head of People & Culture at businessDEPOT since 2015
Anna actually took over my role as Head of Advisory at businessDEPOT when I departed, and having worked alongside her for 3+ years I knew what an excellent decision that was.
Anna has a long-standing career in operations, people management, and business strategy, covering industries such as construction, retail and professional services both in Australia and Internationally.
At businessDEPOT and with their clients, Anna’s focus is on people and culture. With a great passion for creating and maintaining a working environment where people can focus on their strengths, continue to develop and grow while bringing their authentic selves to the office, Anna focuses her time ensuring that teams are aligned and engaged through communication, strategy and education.
7. Darren Clark
Business Coach and Partner at Knoego and Encite since 2006
Darren has over twenty years experience as a business owner, investor and coach – I love working with and even just talking with Darren, because he truly understands the perspective of business leaders and entrepreneurs having been there at every stage himself.
Darren can see five steps ahead, uncover hidden assets, develop new business models and have bold or uncomfortable conversations. He can somehow translate what clients want into what they need.
For Darren, coaching comes down to relationship. Despite his notable skills as a negotiator, strategist and leader, he is primarily driven by integrity. His down-to-earth, honest, no-bullshit personality – is immediately apparent. He has the ability to cut through formalities and get to the root of what the leader or business requires to succeed.
Darren will leverage and share openly his past experiences, good and bad, to help you see where you’re at and show you where you could go
8. Greg Gunther and
Business Coach, Mentor, and Author at Your Business Momentum since 2006
8. Joshna Daya
Principal Business Consultant at Your Business Momentum since 2014
Greg and Josh are another pair that can’t be separated, and one of the few coaching teams I’ve met in Queensland that combine all of their complementary strengths to deliver consistent client changes for the long term.
Importantly, they love working with those sprawling organisations that have outgrown the founder’s ability to manage every person, every client, and every process – those established organisations that suddenly hit a brick wall, often for reasons unknown.
Your Business Momentum’s ability to provide both strategy and implementation support is the key reason I recommend them so highly. They actually make the right changes feel easy, based on a track record of business ownership and mentoring success.
9. Tim Dwyer
Business Mentor and Leader at Shirlaws, BoB (Business of Brand), and Growth Metrics Australia since 2002
Tim is the reason I became a business coach, and he’s still one of the best coaches I know. A business growth specialist; a consultant, entrepreneur, mentor, keynote speaker and a business leader, Tim specialises in helping businesses strategically grow their assets, improve their capabilities and increase their business value.
As the Founder of Growth Metrics and Partner of BoB (Business of Brand) Group, Tim is today bringing his diverse experience to help SME’s build capability and grow through brand led growth strategies. As a partner of Dent Global, Tim is a regular keynote speaker and one of the key mentors of their KPI (Key Person of Influence) Brand Accelerator program.
I actually met Adam in the UK, when I was adding the “International” to my bio and he was looking to expand the ways in which he could help small-and-growing businesses. I like to think I helped rescue his family from a life in the cold damp mother country, though they had already identified a move to Queensland at that time.
Adam specialises in his work with businesses who want to grow. He challenges them; reconnecting them with their cultural and commercial vision; creating a clear and well defined path to that vision; ultimately giving them the freedom and growth they seek.
In particular, Adam’s strength is the people change especially working with the founder, owner, or small leadership team.
11. Margie Ireland
Leadership and Career Coach at Connect Inspire Transform since 2013
Quite simply… Margie helps leaders and their teams understand what is getting in their way so they can get on the same page and achieve greater performance.
Margie is a Leadership & Career Coach and a Psychologist – I’ve worked with her personally, and brought her in to work with my team, and I just love to additional depth and credibility that Margie achieves combining her extensive career and her formal studies.
Margie’s clients learn how to re-connect with their teams, finding renewed inspiration and confidence to enable a clear path towards high performance. Importantly, Margie offers a step by step plan that transforms their short and long term career performance, and wellbeing at work.
You can’t limit Rose to a category like “real estate business coach”, and it’s also unfair to say “since 2013” as if her formal coaching business wasn’t a by-product of decades of real estate industry experience.
I’m proud to have Rose as part of my Tribe at #RealReach, and to know that the real estate industry I love is being supported by coaches and leaders like her while at the same time benefiting from her as a leader practicing within the industry and delivering energised results with integrity.
13. James McCarthy
Business Coach, Management and Performance Consultant since 2000
James works with business owners, boards, executive teams to create fresh thinking to support sustainable growth of their business assets. He has been supporting business owners, boards and senior managers for over 20 years, and all of his clients benefit from the wealth of accumulated knowledge gained over that journey as a business owner, as a consultant, and as a business coach.
I love having Jimmy on this list, because it means (after he took on leadership and founder roles with coaching organisations in the United Kingdom and the Middle East) that he and his family are back in Australia. If you’re looking for a business coach who has ‘walked the walk’ with scaling-up and expanding internationally, then James and his team are the people to work with.
Few of us on this list have the calm energy that Jon brings to any conversation, and having known and worked with Jon now for a number of years I appreciate that his focus and success is borne from a base of integrity and authenticity.
The growth of ProTrade United (an evolution of the National College of Business) has meant Jon now has a team of expert business coaches working with clients, especially those leading Trade-based companies, all around Australia.
15. Nicky Miklos-Woodley
Sales and Business Growth Consultant at Evergreen Coaching since 2016
Passionate about businesses breaking through their sales barriers, and determined to remove the stigma attached to ‘sales’, Nicky is on a mission to inspire change, growth and ultimately, better business. With 16 years’ sales and leadership experience under her belt, Nicky’s skill and ability to understand and identify gaps within a business underpins her approach to implementing, training and guiding businesses to aim for, and achieve, effective sales outcomes.
Behind Nicky’s sales and leadership acumen is a genuine love for and understanding of human behaviour. She made this love affair formal, acquiring qualifications through the Australian College of Applied Pyschology and The Coaching Institute. Accredited in eDISC Behavioural Profiling, a Meta Dynamics Level 3 Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic-Programming and a qualified Professional Coach and Trainer, Nicky brings a human-centric and fresh perspective to your sales strategy.
In 2017 & 2018, Nicky and I co-hosted a series of live webinars on Sales Talk for Start-Ups, SMEs, and Corporates – easily some of the most fun joint-delivery of coaching and training that I’ve done, because Nicky brings so much energy, experience and insight.
16. Jacqueline Nagle
Professional Speaking Coach and Executive Communications Coach at SpeakableYOU since 2018
A successful business-leader, presenter and trainer, Jacqueline is well known for her straight talk, commercial savvy, and spirited presentations. Her diverse career includes securing in excess of $20,000,000 in sales, driving business growth from $4M to $22M in 15 months, building start-up businesses in multiple industries, and speaking / MCing / delivering workshops at hundreds of events around the world.
The core to Jacqueline’s success has been her ability to speak, pitch and present with strength in a way that clearly communicates her intended message and achieves her intended results.
I was so excited to meet Jacqueline in 2018 and to have her as my coach as I further develop my professional speaking business – if speaking is a core part of building your business, or indeed professional speaking is your business, then Jacqueline is undoubtedly the best coach in Brisbane, and in Australia and beyond.
17. Kate Osborne
Business Coach and Franchise Trainer at Leisure Seekers since 2004
An engaging storyteller and a passionate coach, Kate has the power to help entrepreneurs and business owners shift their thinking about how they live and breath their business.
Kate’s well rounded background in psychology, a successful share owner of two Flight Centres, and a leading international business coach brings a depth of expertise and skill to those she guides through business. She sees people as a whole; not just figures and sales. To Kate, a successful business has to start with a person who has faced the things holding them back so they build a sustainable and successful business.
Kate is also the heart of Leisure Seekers. After being named one of the top business coaches in Australia, she knew she wanted to add a different flavour to the coaching industry and Leisure Seekers was born with its mission develop successful leaders whose businesses support their lifestyle.
18. Rob Pillans
Accounting Firm Coach and Mentor at Planet Consulting since 2008
For 30 years Rob has been working in and with accounting firms. Few people, if any, can match the breadth and depth of his experience in the management of firms.
He’s been the CEO of two accounting firms, the GM of one and the Business Manager for two more. He also spent 10 years delivering client services, including as a Business Services Manager.
Rob is analytical, perceptive and able to make sense of the complex and simplify it for others. He has an innate ability connect with people and a passion to help. And while he takes his work seriously, his quick wit is never far away and his energy and enthusiasm for “getting the job done” is almost legendary. These traits serve Rob well in helping accounting firm owners and managers to improve their businesses.
I personally worked alongside Rob for several years, including his time completing the world’s first Master of Business Coaching program where I was a beneficiary of his research, and he graduated with Distinction.
Sonya is the Queensland Practice Principal and Senior Business Leadership Coach/Facilitator in the AltusQ Brisbane based team. Since joining AltusQ in 2008 (on the same team that recruited me, so you know they only invited superstars to join), Sonya has delivered over 6,000 hours in leadership team coaching, executive coaching and facilitation.
She is passionate about working with established and emerging business owners/leaders to achieve the changes they seek to strategically grow and develop their businesses. She brings a unique blend of cultural (people) and commercial experience to the room. She was a co-author of AltusQ’s breakthrough 4 tiered Leadership development program in 2013 and again in 2017 and the Q-Women Leadership program in 2014.
Sonya specialises in world class Mentoring programs, and I would particular recommend her for larger mid-tier and corporate companies or those with a disperse workforce seeking guidance and support to build consistent, internal systems around coaching and mentoring.
20. Amon Woulfe
High-Performance Mindset Coach and Managing Director at Collective Mind since 2014
I reckon Amon wishes this non-ranked list was ordered alphabetically by first name, not surname…
Amon is a performance expert passionate about helping people lift their performance through the mind. He works with leaders and teams to excel under pressure in high-stakes environments.
Amon’s work has including coaching and guiding some of the most elite athletes and teams in the NRL and AFL, high performers who now realise that training the mind is the next great frontier of human performance.
He also works with top CEOs, Executives, and Leadership teams in Brisbane and around the world (we share a client internationally!), helping them, their reports, and their entire organisations drive success.
Highly Commended Business Coaches serving Brisbane, Australia
Once again, every coach on this list has been personally vetted through my experience – and often by knowing one or more of their clients.
Unlike the Top 20 Business Coaches in Brisbane list above, some of these Highly Commended Coaches are not actually based in Brisbane – they regularly work with companies, CEOs, and individuals in Brisbane using technology.
Given LinkedIn shows more than 15,300 “business coaches” based in “Brisbane Australia” … to make the Top 30, rather than the Top 20, is still a testament to the incredible abilities of these coaches and the value they bring to their clients.
21. Millie Aldridge
22. Bradley Dean
23. Grant Doyle
24. Aaron Emery
25. Ross Hanson
26. Sonya Henderson-Edbrooke
27. Gary Morgan
28. Rob Olver
29. Marc Orchard
30. Lorna Patten
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