Who We Are:
About Returning Works®

Emma Waltham

Returning Works® was founded by Emma Waltham, who started her career in STEM before becoming a client services director in a variety of sectors including media and recruitment and becoming an executive director at the age of 35.

She found having children disrupted her career. After finding it a challenge to blend family responsibilities with her professional life, her solution was to set up her own business in order to be able to work flexibly around her family.

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She chose to work as a consultant and executive coach, wanting to bring about change through showing organisations how they benefit from creating an inclusive culture for their returner talent, improving retention, attraction and diversity at senior levels.

Joshua Otieno

Joshua Otieno works as a virtual assistant from Nairobi, Kenya.

He supports the business's administrative functions. His specialties include: lead generation, cold email outreach, LinkedIn outreach, and Hubspot CRM management.

He assists in conducting outreach, mapping out businesses and stakeholders in the HE and STEM sectors, and seeking to schedule business development calls.

Joshua holds a bachelor's degree in telecommunications and aspires to work as a network engineer. What’s special about Joshua is that he defeated cancer and is a cancer survivor!

He is passionate about community work and volunteering.

Eloise Spearman

Eloise started her career in publishing, where she was the editor of a series of careers guides for graduates.

She then made the move to marketing and communications, and gained experience in a variety of sectors, including media and recruitment.

Moving to the public sector, Eloise led on communications and engagement for the Mayor of London's campaign to recruit, train and deploy 8,000 Team London Ambassadors during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. After the Games, Eloise chose to stay at City Hall and develop a volunteer legacy programme for London.

Eloise has a Chartered Institute of Marketing postgraduate diploma from London Metropolitan University.

Claire Burgess

Claire specialises in working with women at different stages of their career. Her passion and enthusiasm for working with women to overcome barriers, develop confidence and self-belief, and achieve their goals shines through in her work and the feedback she receives. She has a Masters in Occupational Psychology and is a qualified Coach and Coach Supervisor.

Claire has designed and led a number of Women In Leadership programmes across sectors, combining training, facilitation and coaching to achieve results such as increased confidence, resilience, role promotions and job satisfaction. She is an advocate of Positive Psychology and the effect that having a positive approach to situations can have on your life.

Claire was previously a Tutor on the Certificate in Coaching at The University of Cambridge as well as teaching on a range of professional qualifications in Coaching.

Claire was thrilled to receive an award for ‘Best Women in Leadership Coach’ in the 2021 Midlands Enterprise Awards.

Kerry Dudley

Kerry is passionate about diversity and helping women to thrive. She provides a warm and collaborative coaching service designed to help clients learn, develop and grow. Kerry is known for her positive, empathic and supportive style underpinned on a foundation of wellbeing.

Kerry worked in the global financial service industry for over 20 years holding a variety of roles and international leadership responsibilities. She has an MBA from Henley Business School, is a licensed practitioner of Motivational Maps and an accredited practitioner of Emotional Intelligence tool EIP3.

Following the birth of her second child, Kerry took a career break and retrained as an executive coach at Cambridge University. She founded Parity Executive Coaching to help companies attract, retain and develop valuable and diverse talent.

Coaching areas of expertise include:

growing self-confidence, managing imposter syndrome, managing work life balance and returning to work.

Karen Chamberlain

Karen is a seasoned coach and facilitator with over two decades of leadership development experience. She brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her clients, specialising in one-to-one and group coaching, and team development facilitation.

Karen focuses on empowering others to be the best version of themselves, and to recognise and fulfil their potential.

A mum to teenage girls, Karen relates to the challenges of returning and adapting to work after having children. Practicing a positive, open and growth mindset have proved invaluable for Karen, and are demonstrated in her quest to achieve her fitness goals and overcome setbacks.

Karen’s clients have benefitted from coaching on strengthening mindset and resilience, career clarity and planning, building confidence, managing stress, personal impact, and more!.

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Her professional accreditations include NLP, The Strengths Profile and Clarity4D. 

Tomi Ayodeji

Tomi works with leaders and teams to enhance their professional development,
performance and engagement at work, particularly at periods of transition. With over 15 years of experience within the finance, non-profit and IT sector, she brings a practical and collaborative approach to the coaching process.

Balancing her career in the Tech industry with the responsibilities of parenting two young children, served as inspiration for embarking on her coaching career and setting up FORTéFIED, her coaching practice. She employs a person-centred style and collaborates with individuals to access opportunities for learning and growth.

Tomi is an experienced facilitator; designing and delivering workshops to drive personal effectiveness, mission and purpose, team synergy and effective goal setting.

She has a Diploma in Coaching from the University of Cambridge and focuses on confidence building, managing difficult conversations, time management and career transitions.

Guy Peters

Guy is a qualified coach and is experienced in coaching people who are transitioning into new roles within their organisation or moving to a different stage in their career. 

He also has a Masters in Business Administration and is currently studying towards a Doctorate in Business Administration at Aston Business School.

Guy has over twenty years' experience in the HE sector developing academia and industry partnerships, specialising in Executive Education and CPD short courses for Professional Learners.

As a parent and a professional who has been through several organisational change programmes and career transitions, he can relate to the challenges and opportunities that career breaks and returning to work can bring.

Guy’s approach is based on an integrated person-centred practice. He uses a non-directive approach using tools and techniques that work positively and collaboratively with the client to help them achieve their goals.