Executive performance practice
Better decisions when the stakes are highest. Performance that lasts. Support built for the realities of your role.
Spark Initiatives is a London-based performance practice. We work with Black founder-CEOs and senior executives, and with African founders, across the UK, the US and Africa's major business hubs.
We help leaders do two things: make better decisions when the stakes are highest, and sustain the energy, clarity and judgement those decisions demand, year after year.
The practice was founded by a C-suite executive and a consultant psychologist, with 60 years of experience between them. We work with a small number of leaders at any one time. That is deliberate: the work is personal, confidential and long term.
Leading a growing company or a major function is demanding for anyone. For Black founders and executives, the role often carries extra weight that rarely gets named.
Research on chronic stress shows this load has a real cost to sleep, energy and judgement, often unnoticed until it shows up in performance or health. Most executive coaching was not designed with any of this in mind. Ours was.
Depth for one community serves leaders better than general help for everyone.
Your results depend on seven connected areas. Most coaching works on two or three. We work on all seven, because a change in one shifts the others.
Every partnership starts with a structured diagnostic: validated psychological measures, confidential stakeholder interviews and a review of how your time is actually spent. Progress is tracked against your own baseline.
Commercial judgement from someone who has led at C-suite level, and psychological depth from a registered clinician. Our work follows clinical standards of confidentiality, scope and care, which very few coaching firms can offer.
Our methods address the specific realities of leading as a Black founder or executive, and of building across the UK, the US and Africa. You will not need to explain your world before we can help you in it.
Every relationship starts the same way and develops at your pace.
No charge and no obligation. We learn about your situation and what you want to achieve, and we are both candid about whether we are the right fit.
A focused, fixed scope engagement over about six weeks: validated assessments, in depth conversations, confidential stakeholder interviews, a review of how your time is actually spent, and a written report setting out your strengths, your risks and three clear priorities. The report is yours to keep, whatever you decide next.
Typically 12 to 24 months of one to one work on the priorities the diagnostic identifies, reviewed each quarter against your baseline. If you prefer, part of our fee can be linked to outcomes you define, such as a funding round closed or a board milestone reached.
As the work develops, it can extend to your senior team, to focused sessions on a single high stakes decision such as a raise, an exit or a key hire, and in time to a small, invitation-only network of leaders who have done the work.
Learn about our methodA diagnostic instrument we are developing from the patterns documented in our own practice, built to help you separate substantive feedback from feedback shaped by how you are seen rather than what you did. It is not a general release product; we introduce it to leaders already in conversation with the practice.
Join the early access listWe take on a limited number of founding engagements each year. Founding clients work directly with both founders, help shape how our methods develop, and benefit from founding terms. If the timing is right for you, we would welcome a conversation.
Part of something larger
!GNITE is our programme for young people aged 14 to 25 from underrepresented backgrounds. It gives them the skills, networks and confidence to build successful careers, supported by young professionals who mentor them. When you work with us, you help open doors for the next generation of leaders.
See the !GNITE ProgrammeOur founders
A pairing you will not find elsewhere.
Co-founder
David has 30 years' experience working where government, capital and business meet, across Africa, the UK, Europe and the United States. He has served as a consultant to the Presidency of the Federal Government of Nigeria, and led the investor roadshow for the $20 billion Nigerian Gas Master Plan for NNPC and the Federal Ministry of Petroleum.
Co-founder
Ade is a consultant psychologist with 30 years of clinical experience. He is registered with the HCPC, accredited by the BABCP as a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist, and trained at King's College London and the Oxford Mindfulness Centre.
60 years
of combined executive and clinical experience
Three continents
Africa, Europe and North America
One standard
registered clinical governance in every engagement