Senior leaders in professional services operate in environments of sustained pressure: competing priorities, demanding stakeholders, constant change, constrained resources and responsibility for leading others through it all. But what happens to our own leadership when the pressure doesn’t go away? This interactive session will explore how our natural strengths and leadership behaviours can shift — and sometimes become overextended — under sustained pressure.

Drawing on Lumina Spark principles, professional services experience and real-world examples, we will look at:

• What happens to our behaviour under sustained pressure
• How the strengths that make us effective can sometimes become our derailers
• How this affects our decision-making, communication, stakeholders and teams
• Why self-awareness becomes increasingly important as we move into more senior leadership roles
• How we can recognise our own patterns earlier and make more conscious choices about how we lead

The session will combine practical content, individual reflection, small-group breakout discussion and facilitated debrief. The aim is not to teach resilience or provide a formula for managing pressure. It is to help participants better understand how they show up when under pressure, the impact that can have on others, and what they can consciously do differently.

About the speaker

Katherine Mountford is a professional coach and adviser with more than 25 years’ experience working with senior professionals across the professional services sector in Australia, Asia, the Middle East and the UK.

Through KM Growth, she supports senior professionals as they step into bigger roles, take on broader leadership responsibilities and navigate periods of significant change. Her work helps leaders build greater self-awareness, understand how they show up and adapt their approach as the expectations and complexity of their roles increase.

Katherine is also a Performance Coach with Courageous Co, working with professional services firms across the APAC region to help Partners and senior professionals build the confidence and capability to win and grow client relationships.

She brings a practical, commercially grounded perspective, drawing on her experience working inside professional services firms, running her own businesses and advising senior professionals across the sector. Her style is warm, direct and highly individual, combining challenge with practical support to help people lead with greater clarity, confidence and impact.

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Senior leaders in professional services are operating amid relentless change, competing priorities and pressure to deliver more with less. This practical and interactive session explores how constant demands, uncertainty and context switching affect our energy, judgement and leadership impact. It offers an opportunity to step back from the pace of day-to-day delivery, reflect on the pressures shaping our work and consider how we can remain grounded, focused and effective without compromising performance.

The session introduces practical approaches to managing physical, emotional, mental and purposeful energy, strengthening emotional presence and balancing organisational demands with team wellbeing. Participants will also explore how to lead with both compassion and accountability, supported by a simple regulation toolkit that can be applied when pressure is high.

For senior business development, marketing and communications professionals who must influence widely, manage competing stakeholders and maintain momentum through ambiguity, the session promises relevant ideas, shared reflection and techniques that can be put into practice immediately.

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For many marketing, business development and communications leaders in professional services firms, the path to Director or CMO has traditionally been viewed as the pinnacle of the profession. As careers become longer and more diverse, an increasing number of senior leaders are building fulfilling careers that extend beyond these roles, moving into executive leadership, consulting, entrepreneurship, portfolio careers and board positions. This session will explore the opportunities available to experienced leaders and the skills, experiences and networks that enable successful transitions.

In an engaging panel discussion, Emma Zadow and Tammy Mills will share their personal career journeys, the decisions that shaped their pathways, and the realities of stepping into new professional chapters. Facilitated as an open conversation, the session will examine how leadership capabilities developed within professional services can translate into broader opportunities, what participants can do now to prepare for future career options, and how to redefine career success beyond traditional titles.

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