Hi… I’m Andy Parker
- Career and life coach
- Digital Transformation Consultant
- Working with people in the technology and digital sector
- Human being
The quick bio…
For over 20 years I have built a career in technology and Digital design. I’ve worked in some of the world’s top design agencies and consultancies, been an early-stage staffer and co-founder at startups that sold for millions and worked in central British Government and with Local Authority leaders.
More important than all of that. I’m real. I’m a human, not a generativeAI textbox.
Want to talk about how I use design games to coach people to success, or radically change the way that public services are run?
Slightly extended version…
Navigating a career in the fast-pace of the web did not come easy. Self taught, I flunked out of school, lied my way into college and got fired from quite a few jobs. I often found myself struggling to explain what I was thinking, or how I was feeling, which lead to empassionate rants, conflict, and unhappy spaces. It wasn’t until I was in my late 30s that I was diagnosed with a form of Autism that things clicked into place. This is where my journey into becoming a coach began.**
My passion for music, and art not only guided me to a career in digital design, it influences everything I do. I’m a grassroots champion, and shareholder in the Music Venue Properties group. I love supporting people that take the DIY ethos of the punk movement, and build the things they want to see and invite everyone along for the ride.
Becoming a coach
Building a career hasn’t been easy. I have experienced informal and formal disciplinary processes. I’ve been fired from places that I loved. With those experiences come unintended consequences. You lose mutual respect and trust with others, and worse yet - you can lose the friends you make in those businesses.
I wanted to understand why I found it so hard to toe the line, and what it was about how I looked at the world that was so different to what my colleagues would see that we would find ourselves in these difficult, complex and unhappy situations.
I hired a professional coach!
This first experience with a trained and experienced coach radically changed my understanding of who I am and how I function. What I wasn’t expecting was to dig deep into my past behaviours, relationships and experiences and finding something was missing.
Through the work with my coach at the time; the wonderful Rachel Gilmore and a psychotherapist, together we identified a possibility that I was on the Autistic spectrum.
Understanding Neurodivergence
My own journey of discovery, has given me so much confidence and appreciation for who I am, and how I function. Understanding myself in this way has given me tools I didn’t have as a child, or young adult to be able to communicate with the people around me with what is happening in my head, what it might look like to others when I am at a low energy point, and how to best work with me.
Since then I have been a lecturer at a University teaching User Experience Design to young adults, many of whom were on the Autistic spectrum, and engaged with communities of practice and People Teams in organisations to champion and advocate meaningful change in the workplace that support and invite neurodivergent staff to have the confidence to lower their mask if they want to.