Nik Kinley

Nik is a Director in YSC’s London office and leads our Middle East business.

He began his career in commercial roles, then spent the next decade working in the public sector in prisons as a forensic psychotherapist, before returning to work with businesses around 20 years ago. His prior roles include Global Head of Assessment & Coaching for a major energy company, and Global Head of Leadership Development for a large international banking and financial services company.

As a consultant, Nik has worked with over half of the top 20 FTSE companies and helped businesses across the globe develop and implement their leadership strategy, drive organizational change, and select and develop the leaders they need to succeed. He now specializes in working with Board members, CEOs and Executive Teams in organizations big and small – from Founder-led portfolio companies, to multinational businesses with 100,000s of employees and total assets worth over $2T.

He has written books on leadership, talent assessment, behavior change, and corporate learning. He has published award-winning papers in leading journals. He is a regular lecturer at leading global business schools and a frequent speaker at conferences. His latest book, Leadership OS: Creating the Operating System you Need to Succeed – was published in December 2019 and his latest research identifies the lessons to be learnt from past crises and recessions for today’s organizations and leaders as they seek to recover from the Covid-19 crisis.

Client Testimonials

“Nik is down-to-earth, no-nonsense and always seemed to understand the practical realities of the challenges I faced. He doesn’t dress the hard messages up, but his ability to add humor to seemingly anything made the sessions seem creative and fun more than challenging.”

“Nik is both informal and very task-focused at the same time. His experience and technical knowledge really show through and I always felt I learned something in every session. His ability to bring in research to help illuminate a challenge I had always helped.”