Leishman Coaching

I started Leishman Coaching in 2019 because, while I had a successful corporate career for many years,   I also made a lot of mistakes. So while I got there in the end, I wish I had someone to guide and coach me. 

I worked with some great leaders along the way but I always knew that it was difficult for them to be truly independent when they were coaching me.  I needed someone who was. Someone who didn't have conflicting priorities. Someone who could support my career ambitions and accelerate my learning.

There were things I just didn't know. 

In the last few years of my corporate career, I was privileged to work with a couple of incredible coaches. I learned so much from them and still remember the things they taught me. 

And so, I decided to retrain and become a coach.

What makes my coaching approach different is what I call the triple threat.

🔵 I have an extensive corporate and business experience.

🔵 I am an accredited professional coach, AND

🔵 I am a writer, so with me, it can be a one-stop shop - and you can be confident that your personal brand is supported by great career documents.

I have coached more than 500  clients since 2020, across a variety of roles, industries and countries.  

While I have an extensive background in financial services, I have found that the challenges people experience at various points in their careers, are both universal and global.  

I am a lifelong learner, a voracious reader and I regularly pick up new strategies and approaches which I put into practice in my coaching business.

Principal

Financial Basics Foundation

FBF is a national NFP focused on building financial literacy in young people in Australia. As a long standing charity, it has delivered free resources to Australian schools for more than 20 years.

Chair

CUA - Credit Union Australia Limited

Chief Operating Officer

General Manager, Member Experience

Chief Operating Officer (Acting)

Head of Customer Experience and BPR

Responsible for program management, change strategy, and execution of the ANZ Distribution Transformation major projects portfolio.
Business dimensions and scope: Program budget $75M. 800 branches, two call centres and 6,000 employees.

ACHIEVEMENTS

1. Carriage of the GM Distribution Transformation position for an extended period of time - full accountability for strategy development and execution.

2.Branch redesign program to support evolving customer needs resulting in 37 new look branches in 2013.

2. Ongoing development and build of customer management and home loan systems.

3. Development of change strategies and tools for ANZ staff and customers, culminating in the ANZ 'Better Ways to Bank' program.

Portfolio Change Director, Distribution Transformation

Management of all support functions including major projects and program office, investment slate, risk functions, vendor management, business information and improvement teams (Lean Six Sigma community). Business dimensions $40M opex, $100M+ in project capex and opex.

ACHIEVEMENTS

1. Development of a new strategic operating model for all support functions which delivered both a 25% reduction in overall run rate and an increase in stakeholder satisfaction of 20% over an 18 month period. 

2.Leadership of the Australian Retail Offshoring Program. Moved 1000 roles to Bangalore and Manila over a 3 1/2 year timeframe.

3. Capacity planning focus and re-engineering work supported productivity improvements of an average of 27% across all teams and a 20% reduction in customer complaints.

4. Successful Delivery of a number of key infrastructure programs including a new fraud management platform. Benefits exceeded all business case targets.

5. Reduction in vendor management costs of $21M over 2 years.

Head of Business Enablement, Australia Operations

Quest Limited

Responsible for developing a Pacific Operations Hub in Fiji to mitigate financial and operational risk in the region. Business dimensions Opex $6M* Capex $12M. 
*NB Low cost of labor drove relatively low opex in Fiji.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

1. Developed the Pacific Hub strategy and centralised functions from 12 Pacific countries and 2 Asian countries into Fiji.

2. Developed a strong company culture and employment brand. Benchmarked using the Hewitt's survey. Achieved Best Employer status for three consecutive years and moved staff engagement from 68% to 92%. Became an employer of choice in Fiji.

3. Led the company safely through the 2006 military coup and subsequent upheaval, followed by Cyclone Gene in January 2008. 

4.Achieved ISO 9001 2008 accreditation in 2008. 

5. Won a number of external awards including: DHL (Fiji) Exporter of the Year Westpac Services award in 2007 and 2008. Fiji Business Excellence awards in  2006, 2007, and 2008. These awards were an integrated part of the business strategy to develop our quality standards and employment brand.

6. Obtained government approval for 10 year tax free status in 2006.

7. Oversaw design and implementation of a building fit out with all the associated challenges of doing so in a politically unstable and  developing country.

Managing Director

Responsible for mortgage processing Australia wide and all major Mortgages infrastructure projects.

ACHIEVMENTS:

1. Remediation and successful delivery of two infrastructure projects.
2. Restored service levels in 2002 to achieve lead bank status with mortgage brokers.

Head of Mortgage Processing

Responsible for running the end-to-end mortgage business in New Zealand. Business dimensions Budget $170M. FUM $10BN. 

ACHIEVEMENTS:

1. Exceeded profit targets in 2000 and 2001.

2. Achieved market leadership with a new broker value proposition.

3. Staff satisfaction levels of 90%.

General Manager, Mortgages

Responsible for national team of 1000 operations staff across five locations. Business dimensions: 1000 staff. Budget 30M.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

1. Rationalised processing sites from five to three.

2. Managed national restructure to align to new business model.

Chief Operations Manager

Led national  team of 500 staff across 8 locations managing all back office transactions.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

1. Major site rationalisation - from eight locations down to three.

2. Reduced run rate by in excess of 20% over 18 months.

Head of Retail Operations

Responsible for leading and developing all new retail and business distribution strategies.

ACHIEVEMENTS: 
1. Multiple new initiatives including centralised credit and cash processing, network configuration strategy, and ATM profitability model.

Head of Distribution Strategy

Various retail and corporate banking roles

You know you need to work on your career,  but life gets in the way.

We’ve all been there. 
 ➡️ The resume that’s sat half-finished for months. 
 ➡️ The vague idea of "planning the next step" that never makes it to your to-do list. 
 ➡️ The creeping feeling that you could be doing more, earning more, or feeling more satisfied at work,  if only you knew where to start.

Since 2021, I’ve worked with more than 700 professionals to break through that stuck feeling. Whether it’s career direction, preparing for a move, stepping into leadership, or navigating a tough patch, I will help you cut through the noise and take real action.

With over 30 years’ experience as an executive, leader, parent, and business owner, I know the career game from all angles. My coaching is honest, practical, and focused on progress, whatever that looks like for you.

Here are some of the topics I coach on: 

🔵 Gaining clarity on where you are heading with your career and putting a plan in place.

🔵 Pinpointing why you are not getting interviews, jobs, or promotions, and working with you to close the gap.

🔵 Navigating the boardroom as a new or aspiring executive.

🔵 Learning the art of executive presence and high-impact communication.

🔵 Helping you get market ready if you are preparing to leave, between jobs, or returning to work after a break.  

🔵 Writing your career documents because you have looked at them so many times you are losing the will to live. 

🔵 Building a plan to help you come back from the brink when you are sliding backward down the corporate ladder, or have made a career-limiting mistake.

I am a qualified coach with more than 30 years' experience as a leader and executive, both in Australia and internationally.  

I know what good looks like, and I will work with you to help you get there. 

"Brigid offers a rare combination of "expert/practitioner" and "coach/mentor" that distinguishes her from other executive coaches I've worked with throughout my career" 
CEO, Melbourne, Australia

I share practical career advice here every week — follow me for free tips.
Or message me if you’re ready to make real change, and we’ll book a free discovery call.


🕸 Or check out my website for packages and pricing.

leishmancoaching.com

Brigid Leishman

Review and redesign key business risk activities with a focus on optimising and simplifying processes - ensuring the activity meets the intended outcome and risk obligations in an efficient manner. Facilitate end to end reviews including scoping, assessment, solution design (using automation) and reporting.

Risk Strategy and Performance Manager

Working in Risk, delivering on key initiatives for Regulatory Compliance to meet APRA requirements. Key deliverables include automation of current regulatory submission of reports, embedding change within business to allow for APRA changes. This includes designing, developing and implementing change management and communications strategies and working with key stakeholders to implement and drive improvement and change.

Change and implementation lead (Regulatory Risk)

Worked on a new automated solution for Tax reporting (FATCA and CRS) using PEGA. This was a $5million initiative and was critical to the bank’s digitization objective. 
The role involved creating a single workflow system across due diligence, support and reporting teams. Working in an agile environment, I was tasked with bringing the tech and business teams together to deliver the automated solution. The role  involved planning and managing releases for business stakeholders.

Project Manager - Global Tax (Automation)

Worked on support initiatives within Global Tax program for Australia, New Zealand and Asia Pacific region. Activities encompass streamlining activities from an on boarding, due diligence and reporting perspective and managing and change and implementation from a business standpoint.

Key highlights from this time were:
- Undertook a transition program to lift and shift capability to Bangalore. 
- Delivered cost savings of 37% year on year by streamlining activities across geographies
- Used automation to reduce manual effort and remove duplication in the process

Simplification and Improvement lead Global Tax 

Worked on a range of initiatives within Home Lending portfolio, involving credit assessment and improving the overall credit decision outcomes and time to decision. The role involved streamlining the credit decision process for simple applications to 1 day TAT. Worked with technology counterparts to improve the credit decision system and improving the source data feeds.

Key achievements included:
- Streamlining operational process between the offshore and onshore teams. This included removal of handoff's between teams and improving TAT for assessing applications.
- Improved the SLA on delivery of pended applications through CTA.
- Delivered new quick assessment tool called the DNA lite, which reduced the assessment time taken from 48 mins on average to 30 mins, resulting in capacity gain of 10 FTE and improving productivity by 5% across hubs.
- Delivered the same day one-day proposition for brokers and mobile lenders – reducing the time it takes to provide a decision from 72 hrs to 8 hours for complex cases and 4 hours for simple cases.
- Delivered the 6-day operations model (first of the top 4 banks) for Retail operations to service frontline distribution channels.

Business Process Improvement Manager

Worked on Lean six sigma initiatives within operations teams in ANZ

Key achievements included:
- Delivered a saving of $1.5Mil per annum for late stage collections by implementing a new collection strategy based on contact time vs RPC analysis.
- Delivered benefits of 0.5Mil by improving the voucher examination process 
- Realized FTE savings (7 FTE )by re-aligning manual statement retrieval process with automation within source system.
-  Reduced time taken to reimburse customers who are victims of Fraud, by improving the processes and reducing the overall cycle time by 42%
-  Realized FTE savings (10 FTE)  in Retail operations (home lending). This was achieved by automation and implementing smart tools for assessment thus removing dependency on manual processes.

Business Improvement Analyst

Ten+ years of project management and operations experience in Technology, Business, Change management, Business Re-engineering/Transformation, Compliance, Off shoring in Banking and Finance industry. 

Adept working in environments with considerable project compliance standards and strict adherence to methodologies and processes. With extensive experience in SDLC, Waterfall, Agile and Iterative methodologies with extensive stakeholder and communication management in corporate environment. I am skilled in Scrum, Lean, Agile Product management, Business Process management, Business Transformation, Project Delivery, Implementation and Change Management. 

Having a successful track record of delivering process improvement initiatives. I thrive on being process driven, focussed on generating better customer and business value proposition. I am experienced in influencing business strategy and bringing that strategy to life through project execution and leadership of people enabling an organisation to quickly gain traction with its improvement activity.

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Brigid Leishman

Joel Fernandes

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