About me

For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with how humans organise themselves.

As a child I made my parents sit through presentations on ancient civilisations. What held societies together. What caused them to collapse. What made some cultures generative and others destructive. I didn't have the language for it then — but I was already asking the question I'm still asking now.

That curiosity became a career. For fifteen years I've worked inside some of the world's most influential organisations — Apple, Google, LinkedIn, Nike, Monzo, and many more — coaching senior leaders, facilitating executive teams, and partnering on culture and systemic change.

Alongside the professional work I've gone deep into my own transformation — through meditation, somatic practice, shadow work, and plant medicine. A long journey into the understanding that the inner work and the outer work are not separate. The leader who hasn't examined their own patterns will reproduce those patterns in their culture. The organisation that hasn't looked honestly at how it operates will keep getting the same results.

What I'm working toward across all my work is a world where people can live and work with dignity, safety, and meaning. Where we know how to work across our differences rather than be destroyed by them. Where we remember that we are, in the end, on the same side.

Organisations are where that becomes possible to practise. A group of people, bound together by shared purpose, navigating how to relate, decide, lead, and build something together — they are mini societies. Every dynamic that plays out in the world plays out inside them first. When something shifts inside an organisation it isn't abstract. It's measurable, visible, and transferable. It shows the rest of us what's possible.

I believe we're living through a genuine civilisational transition. The old models are breaking down. Something else is trying to emerge. I'm interested in what that is, and in the people and organisations willing to be part of building it.

I speak globally on leadership, power, and what this moment is asking of us. I've spoken at TEDx and been featured in The Sunday Times and the BBC. I write After the King - a Substack on power, leadership and the deeper questions that sit beneath everything - and my essasyshave reached millions of readers across more than 50 countries.

I'm a mother of two sons and one stepdaughter — which has taught me more about leadership than anything else.

  • Holiday Phillips with her family, sitting on a porch in front of a wooden door, smiling and laughing, with white and stone pillars on either side of the steps.

    I HAVE

    2 sons, 1 step-daughter, 1 husband, 1 dog, 1 cat and 6 chickens. They are my greatest loves and my my most honest teachers.

  • A modern white house nestled among dense green trees and shrubs on a hillside, with solar panels on nearby structures in the background.

    I LIVE

    In Ibiza, in a 200 year old finca in the middle of a forest. A space where I can slow down, think deeply, and be close to nature.

  • A table outdoors with various leftover plates of food, garlic bulbs, a small decorative gourd, and scattered autumn leaves after a meal, possibly during fall.

    I LOVE

    Good food, good music, good conversation, the ocean, and my family. The things that remind me that a good life is the point — not a reward for finishing the work.

  • Holiday Phillips wearing headphones mixing music at a pink-themed venue with wall art, a window, and various equipment around her.

    I STARTED

    DJing at 15 years old and have played at Glastonbury festival. Early training in reading a room, holding energy, and creating something collective. Different context, same skills.