FoundHer Fire in corporate partnership.
Your most capable, experienced women work in systems not built for them
They hold an extraordinary amount: institutional knowledge, client relationships, team cohesion, navigational intelligence, all built over decades. They make the complex manageable, lead without being asked to, deliver without fuss or noise.
But some of the systems they work in haven’t kept pace.
Psychological safety may exist in policy but not always in practice. Gender commitments and Diversity, Equality and Inclusion frameworks may lack the sustained support to translate into real change for experienced women in your business. In essence, organisational infrastructures are often not built for the dynamism of the women in their organisations.
The gap is not in the women. The gap is in the scaffolding.
FoundHer Fire closes that gap
Scaffolding gaps come at a cost. Organisations are losing exceptional women and straining their female leadership pipelines – not because those women lack ambition, but because the infrastructure for talent retention isn’t built for them. FoundHer Fire closes that gap.
Getting burnt by the numbers?
1 in 10
women leave their role due to unmanaged health and life-stage pressures
50 – 200%
of annual salary is the cost of replacing a senior employee – before institutional knowledge is counted
45 – 54
is the age bracket that is one of the fastest-growing groups in the UK workforce – and one of the most likely to exit quietly
According to Fawcett Society (2022); McKinsey & LeanIn, Women in the Workplace; World Health Organisation (Burnout as Occupational Phenomenon)
The women most likely to disengage are often your highest performers
Without these women, your organisation suffers.
- Senior female representation stalls despite the talent being there
- Succession pipelines thin, leadership capacity depletes and isn’t restored
- Institutional knowledge exits because there was no targeted talent retention framework to preserve it
FoundHer Fire is not a workshop, or a wing and a prayer
It is the sustained, science-backed self-leadership scaffolding system that sits alongside your formal development programmes and does what they were never designed to do: create real behavioural change for real women in real roles, that holds on a wet Wednesday afternoon when everything’s coming at them at once.
The four pillars of the FoundHer Fire scaffolding system
What FoundHer Fire delivers
FoundHer Fire is a sustained, helical scaffolding system of behavioural science, coaching, peer advisory and deliberate practice working in concert.
Your experienced women are supported to crack on with high performance, strengthen confidence and navigate the full load of leadership and life with purpose and courage, including the physiological realities that too often go unaddressed. Genuine menopause awareness and action is built into the programme, a system of agency that actually works, not a policy that sits on a shelf.
There’s no pretence that development is a straight line. Each month’s rhythm of coaching, peer intelligence, expert input and accountability consciously scaffolds self-leadership, compounding growth rather than resetting it. One end date does not undo it. It becomes part of how your people operate, on purpose and with intent.
There’s power in the room FoundHer Fire creates. Cognitively diverse, psychologically safe and built for honesty, where your female leaders can be transparent without consequences, think out loud without editing themselves, and make better decisions through collective intelligence. The belonging that comes from a network of women at exactly the same life stage is not a soft outcome. It’s a business one.
The programme meets your women in their actual world, its complexity, its load, its competing demands, and works within it, not against it. So they can crack on. With clarity, with confidence and on purpose.
What being inside FoundHer Fire actually looks like
WELCOME: EXECUTIVE ONBOARDING & AUDIT
A one-to-one onboarding session with Sarah Knight – founder, advanced coach, NLP Practitioner and Emergenetics Associate – so the programme meets a realistic model of the world from day one.
THE MONTHLY RHYTHM: PEER ADVISORY
Calls that combine coaching, accountability and real-time support, peer advisory labs: fast, collective thinking from cognitively diverse women at similar life stages.
Every live call is recorded to work with your schedule.
EVERY QUARTER: 1:2:1 COACHING ENGAGEMENT
A dedicated 1:2:1 coaching session. This isn’t a check-in but full depth coaching engagement built into the structure, facilitating a quality of thinking that shouldn’t be a luxury but the point.
The board advisory
Bringing together expertise across leadership, culture, governance and communication, ensuring FoundHer Fire continues to evolve with integrity, accountability and purpose.
The peer community
An engine room of brilliant, experienced women bringing different sectors, perspectives and hard-won wisdom to every conversation, a personal board of advisors invested in your progress because they’re doing the same work, in the same life stage, in real time. They get it.
The monthly rhythm
Ignite clarity, confidence, courage, energy and forge infrastructure.
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June 1
“Who’s at your table?” Live Group Coaching Masterclass
A 45 minute masterclass exploring who is at your table and whether they will help shape who you are, who you are becoming or drain the living life out of you.
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June 8
Guest Expert Emily McGuirk, “Finding your voice and confidence in speaking, presenting and pitching.”
Emily is an award-winning business owner and experienced facilitator, with over 15 years of teaching, performance and public speaking to deliver workshops that are practical, empowering and genuinely enjoyable.
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June 22
Peer Co-Lab: Visibility, confidence and navigating what comes next
This month’s Peer Co-Lab demonstrated the power of a diverse room and psychological safety in action. Members explored how to use photography workshops to build visibility and opportunities, how to create ethical and commercially viable support programmes in sensitive areas of expertise and how to work with changing energy, capacity and performance. Alongside practical business strategy, the room explored Emotional Agility, the NASA framework, circles of control and the 85% Rule, proving that somebody else’s challenge often contains the insight you’ve been looking for too.
What your organisation gets back
When the scaffolding’s right, the capability that was already there gets to show up fully. These are not outcomes created by FoundHer Fire. They are outcomes unlocked by it.
Women inside FoundHer Fire report
- Clearer thinking and faster, more confident decision-making
- Stronger boundaries and more sustainable performance
- Increased confidence in leading and contributing
- Renewed ambition and genuine strategic clarity
- Sustainable momentum – no more boom and bust
Your organisation gains
- Higher engagement and discretionary effort from senior talent
- Reduced burnout, presenteeism and attrition
- Stronger succession pipelines and internal mobility
- Greater visibility and influence from women at senior levels
- Demonstrable, evidenced commitment to the women you cannot afford to lose
Sarah Knight – the woman behind FoundHer Fire
Advanced Coach | NLP Practitioner | Emergenetics Associate
Sarah Knight has spent thirty years working for and with global organisations – including McLaren, Santander, Boots, JCB, Hello Fresh and the FA. Twenty-four of those years as a business owner. She’s been a Communications Director, a Workplace Consultant, a People Director and a Business Mentor. She’s lectured in leadership and resilience, led teams through serious complexity and coached individuals through the kind of crossroads that don’t come with a manual. She built FoundHer Fire because the space that could hold the ambition, the complexity and the hard-won wisdom of this particular life stage simply didn’t exist. So she created it. Her frameworks are trusted by the UK’s leading businesses because they’re grounded in both research and reality, and inside FoundHer Fire, she’s in the room with you. In the live calls. In the one-to-ones. In the thinking that happens in between. Sarah’s mantra? Crack on, on purpose.
The FoundHer Fire Advisory Board
Expertise for every dimension of this life stage. From the right people. At the right moment.
Niki Nightingale
Board Advisory, Organisational Strategic Direction
Niki is chair of the FoundHer Fire Advisory Board, a strategic thinker who connects people, performance and commercial reality with clarity and humour.
Niki is a People & Culture Leader and builder of brave, human-first workplaces, driving performance through people. She designs and lead initiatives that align leadership, culture, and engagement to drive both performance and purpose. Collaborative by nature, she has a wealth of expertise in empowering teams, fostering connection, and creating spaces where people can grow, innovate, and succeed.
Emily McGuirk
Speaker and Communications Coach
Board Advisory and Expert Bench Lead
Emily helps organisations nurture confident, capable teams by equipping them with the skills to speak with clarity, confidence and authority, whether that’s in front of a client, networking with dream clients, pitching or presenting.
She has grown communities and memberships, bringing a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to sustaining powerful networks.
As a trained actress, Emily is an award-winning business owner and experienced facilitator, with over 15 years of teaching, performance and public speaking to deliver workshops that are practical, empowering and genuinely enjoyable.
Clare Campion
Board Advisory and Governance Lead
Strategic consultant and founder of Campion Coaching & Consultancy, Clare brings deep expertise in governance, leadership and values led organisational growth.
Clare is a Pregnancy & Baby Loss Workplace Consultant and Trauma-Aware Leadership Coach, helping organisations close the gap between policy and genuine support.
Clare brings with her over 20 years in higher education, where she built and led a 250-member Parents and Carers staff network, co-designed policy, and delivered training across leadership, EDI, and organisational culture.
The FoundHer Fire Expert Bench
The Expert Bench exists because women should not be left Googling critical life and career decisions at 3am.
Gain access to trusted expertise covering health, menopause, communication, visibility, life administration, caring responsibilities, sustainable performance, career navigation and the realities of modern life and work.
Emily McGuirk
Speaker and Communications Coach Board Advisory and Expert Bench Lead
Emily helps founders, leaders and professionals communicate with confidence, credibility and impact.
An award-winning business coach, she specialises in pitching, presenting, networking and influencing effectively, even when self-doubt or nerves get in the way.
Drawing on a performance background and 15+ years across sectors, she pairs practical tools with real-world expertise in building thriving communities, helping women strengthen their voice and visibility.
Dr Sam Morgan
BMS Accredited Menopause Specialist Dr, Menopause Speaker and Educator
Dr Sam Morgan is a Menopause Specialist Doctor, British Menopause Society Trainer and former NHS GP with more than 20 years’ experience in women’s health.
Founder of Rethink Menopause, she provides evidence-based guidance on perimenopause and menopause, helping women make informed health decisions.
Combining medical expertise with a holistic approach, Sam helps FoundHer Fire members understand their bodies and access trusted information when clarity matters most.
Angela Wilkins-Green
Executive Coach, Workplace Menopause Consultant
Angela helps organisations protect the people they cannot afford to lose. After more than 25 years in senior retail and merchandising leadership, she understands first-hand the realities of leading at a high level whilst navigating changing confidence, identity and energy.
Today, she works with organisations and senior female leaders on practical approaches to workplace menopause, leadership sustainability and talent retention, through executive coaching, manager development and policy support.
Lou Monaghan
Founder, Writer & Lecturer, Campaigner for Better Ageing
Louise enables brilliant humans navigate one of the fastest-growing, least talked about pressures affecting women at work: caring responsibilities and the mental load they bring.
Founder of Dead Organised, Louise supports individuals and families through life’s practical and emotional complexity, from ageing parents to paperwork and planning.
Her approach combines empathy, organisation and practical action, helping women feel more in control when life and work collide.
“When knowledge combines with the ability to inspire, the impact is extraordinary. Her expertise is undeniable, but what truly sets her apart is her ability to connect with participants and create an inspiring, authentic atmosphere. Having her lead this programme made a real difference and took its impact to another level.”
Claudia Bello Martínez · Programme Lead, Exolum
Let’s start the conversation
FoundHer Fire works with a small number of forward-thinking organisations each year who are ready to invest in the women they work with.
To explore what a corporate partnership might look like, please get in touch.
The foundry’s lit.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does FoundHer Fire differ from traditional corporate leadership workshops?
Traditional corporate leadership workshops often deliver short-term motivation based on theoretical models. FoundHer Fire differs by delivering a realistic, highly relevant self-leadership scaffolding system designed specifically for the modern workplace and its relentless pace of change. Rather than deploying surface-level management theories, our frameworks address the real-world pressures your leaders face daily – equipping them with practical, actionable tools to maintain strategic alignment and sustainable performance in an ever-evolving corporate landscape.
Which leaders within our organisation are best suited for this programme?
The scaffolding system is specifically engineered for executive-tier women, C-suite leaders, senior directors, and high-potential female talent within your succession pipeline. It is built for established professionals tasked with steering business units through relentless disruption. If your goal is to ready your business for a perma-VUCA landscape – a world of permanent volatility, uncertainty, and constant change – this programme provides the exact strategic framework senior leaders need to manage the pressure and thrive.
What measurable business outcomes and return on investment can our organisation expect?
Organisations partnering with FoundHer Fire see a direct impact on core people metrics – particularly within senior leadership cohorts and the critical C-suite minus 1 layer where pipeline readiness must be activated. We work collaboratively with your teams to map progress using both quantitative and qualitative data, tracking everything from internal NPS scores to tailored performance impact scales. This data-driven approach ensures a clear return on investment through enhanced talent retention, the successful deployment of personal scaffolding systems, and the sustained clarity and longevity of your senior leaders.
How does the framework address modern corporate mandates like menopause in the workplace and signs of burnout?
FoundHer Fire treats these critical areas not as isolated wellness topics, but as vital business continuity and talent retention priorities. The framework directly addresses the lifecycle transitions of senior, experienced talent – including the professional and physical impact of menopause in the workplace – alongside early signs of burnout. By embedding energy mastery and sustainable high-performance frameworks directly into your leadership infrastructure, we help organisations protect their female talent pipeline and prevent the systemic strain caused by prolonged over-functioning.