Ceramic vessel beside linen-bound books in soft daylight

Leadership that turns strategy into sustainable change.

I’m Karen Thorpe-Reid. For over twenty-five years, I’ve helped executives connect ambitious strategy with the people who have to live it.

Take the Connection Bridge™ Pulse

Discover where your transformation may be carrying hidden friction — in around 10 minutes.

Request a 30-Minute Executive Triage

Three ways to work together

Executive Advisory

For CEOs and senior leaders navigating difficult transformation decisions, organisational complexity or critical moments of change.

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Leadership Conversations

Facilitated executive and leadership sessions that surface the conversations often missing from transformation.

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Transformation Partnerships

Hands-on strategic support to translate major change from intent into adoption, readiness and sustained behaviour.

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The Connection Bridge™ Pulse

Where is your programme carrying silent friction?

Most transformation scorecards measure deadlines and spend. The Connection Bridge™ Pulse measures whether your people are adopting the change — or quietly working around it.

01
Five Spans scorecard
An immediate score across Clarity, Confidence, Capacity, Contribution and Continuity.
02
Where friction sits
See which span is weakening adoption — for example, clear strategy but too little capacity on the ground.
03
Leadership actions
Practical next steps for your lowest span to take into your next steering conversation.

About 10 minutes · Immediate result on screen · Confidential · Free

Take the Connection Bridge™ Pulse

Already know where the friction is? Talk to Karen about the leadership conditions affecting momentum, trust or adoption.

Request an Executive Triage

Experience

Trusted by executive leaders and complex organisations across diverse global sectors to guide lasting change.

Technology

Energy

Infrastructure

Healthcare

Aviation & Aerospace

Public Sector

Selected work

Where strategy met the people who had to live it.

Two programmes from Karen’s delivery work, and the conditions of the Connection Bridge™ each one turned on.

Rail infrastructure

Network Rail

68% → 91%

feel they contribute to the vision

46% → 67%

feel well informed

Moving service control without losing the people running it

The challenge: A major service-control upgrade: a new location, new signalling and line-control systems, dual-running across two sites and a revised team structure.
The work: Karen used a people-risk assessment to focus the work on a clear change story, sponsor workshops and two-way sessions where leaders and staff shaped solutions together.
The outcome: Contribution rose from 68% to 91%; feeling informed rose from 46% to 67%.

People were more willing to carry the change when they helped shape it.

Bridge conditions: Clarity · Contribution

Aviation

NATS

£850m

change portfolio supported

£200m

predicted benefits, RP3 programmes

Building the change capability behind an £850m portfolio

The challenge: Handling 2.4 million flights a year, NATS needed to carry a business change portfolio in excess of £850 million without compromising service — and needed the organisation-wide capability to keep absorbing change, not just deliver one project.
The work: Karen built end-to-end change capability: a business change framework and practitioner tools, an accredited development programme, rollout programme management, maturity assessment and C-suite engagement.
The outcome: Practitioners equipped and accredited; £200m predicted RP3 programme benefits.

Capability needs a shared way of working, backed by visible executive sponsorship.

Bridge conditions: Confidence · Capacity

Major UK general insurer

Financial services

New managers needed to sponsor and lead a major reorganisation.

110+ managers developed; the programme returned annually.

View case study →

Colt

Technology

Bring finance, people and operations together after a global acquisition.

900 people leaders equipped; portfolio insight across 300+ initiatives.

View case study →

The full set of programmes — and the five conditions they turned on — sits with the Connection Bridge™.

See the framework and all four programmes

Invited to the Table

The right people. The right question. A room designed for honest conversation.

A curated leadership conversation series bringing together 6–8 people to explore the questions shaping leadership, transformation and human experience.

London · Barbados · New York

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Writing

Available to order

People at the Heart of Change

Connecting Strategy with Human Experience.

Introducing The Connection Bridge™

Coming soon

The Secret Life of a Consultant

What I said versus what I wanted to say.

Order the Book

Read inside the book — chapters and how to order

Begin the conversation

30-Minute Executive Triage

A focused conversation for leaders navigating complex transformation. In 30 minutes, we will identify the most significant point of friction between organisational intent and human experience and explore where leadership attention may have the greatest impact.

You will leave with:

A clearer view of the leadership issue beneath the transformation issue
One or two areas requiring immediate attention
A practical next step