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Meet the Team

Nadia Hewstone
Executive School Leadership Coach

Nadia Hewstone is a former Headteacher who now works full-time as a professional coach. Through Destino Coaching. Nadia supports school leaders with coaching programmes and personal development work. She is also a neurodiversity advocate and champions the need to adjust curriculum and approaches to teaching which consider the strengths and needs of young people with autism, ADHD and other neurodiversity challenges. Nadia’s book ‘ The Unhappy Headteacher’ was launched this summer and is a guide for headteachers, who what to uncover the joy in the role and learn some tools to support them through some of the big challenges in headship.  Nadia lives in Norfolk with her husband and two teenage children.
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Aziza Cranmer
Leadership Coach and Mentor

Aziza has been working with Destino Coaching as an Associate Coach and consultant since October 2022. She has been working in schools for twenty-three years and started her career by qualifying and working in New York as a teacher. After moving to the UK and gaining her QTS here, she has gone on to gain her NPQH qualification as well as becoming a certified coach. She has worked in a variety of schools, and alongside school leaders, in both primary and secondary, as well as in both public and private sector schools, and in a variety of context. Her greatest joys though, came in working within schools with high levels of need. As such, she worked for over thirteen years as a leader in schools such as these including as a Headteacher and school Governor.
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Michael Hewstone
Operations Lead

Michael leads Operations for Destino Coaching. He has over 20 years experience of business management in retail and 10 years operations and finance experience in schools. He is currently working as a finance manager for East Anglia Schools Trust (EAST) in Suffolk.  Michael has always been interested in coaching for wellbeing and to improve performance. As well as managing the operations for Destino Michael offers coaching and also mentoring and training for school business leaders.
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Tessa Farr
Executive School Leadership Coach

Originally from London, Tessa is a primary education specialist who started her career 25 years ago in Manchester. With over 18 years of senior leadership experience, she has worked in various school settings and understands first-hand the level of challenge and pressure experienced by school leaders. As a certified professional coach, she is a passionate advocate for its potential to elevate leadership performance and enhance the overall experience for school leaders. Her joy comes simply from helping them achieve this. Tessa’s approach is characterised by compassion, empowerment and courage, values deeply integrated into her leadership philosophy. She understands the delicate balance between professional responsibilities and personal well-being, an insight she brings to her coaching practice.
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Jen Alford
Associate Coach

Jen is a Head Teacher in a primary school in Worcestershire and an associate coach with Destino. In the early days of headship, Jen sought out coaching to support her journey professionally and has exponentially benefited personally and professionally from the process. This led her to becoming a coach herself so she could support others to flourish in the role. Jen is passionate about Head Teachers and senior leaders loving their jobs, emotionally thriving and impacting young lives through their leadership.
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Gerlinde Achenbach
Associate Coach

Gerlinde Achenbach (she/her) is a leadership coach, consultant in EDI and a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching. She joins Destino Coaching as an Associate.

Gerlinde’s career in education has spanned more than 30 years including as Headteacher of two Ofsted-rated ‘Outstanding’ primary schools in SE London.

Since Headship, Gerlinde has become a certified Olevi Professional Coach, supporting school leaders to lead with integrity and humility. Inclusion, particularly LGBTQ+ inclusion, is very important to her, having lived and worked through Section 28 as a teacher and same-sex parent. Through her consultancy, GAEd, Gerlinde now works with leadership and governor teams to build inclusive, values-led, reflective and collaborative school cultures.

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Nick Froy
Associate Coach

After a brief period working in finance Nick Froy worked as a volunteer in schools in Botswana before qualifying as a history teacher in 1993. He has taught in secondary schools for 30 years leading in London and Suffolk in a variety of roles.

He has been a senior leader, a Headteacher or Executive Headteacher for 13 years and a Director of Education for medium-sized MAT. He has led schools through rapid transformation taking two schools out of measures.

Nick would describe his leadership style as collaborative and value-led building success through the development of colleagues.

He has been coaching for three years as he feels this is the natural extension of how he has helped colleagues to grow and develop. He coaches senior leaders in a number of MATs and supports the Ambitions NPQEL as a coach for their Executive Headship programmes.

Nick is married, has four children and lives in Cambridgeshire. He is semi-retired working now for the same MAT with the remit to set up a charitable foundation to support the most vulnerable and disadvantaged of the 15,000 children in the Trust schools. He is a keen cyclist and reader and a bad gardener.

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Sue Arnold
Associate Counsellor

Sue Arnold has worked in education and with young people all her working life in a variety of roles, as well as a counsellor. Sue is a qualified counsellor and supervisor and has a number of years of counselling experience, working in a variety of settings from schools, sixth form colleges, YMCA accommodation, Cambridge University Colleges, Cambridge Womens’ Centre and privately. Sue’s work as a supervisor includes working with Headteachers and Executive Headteachers to support their work, recognising the potential for loneliness in the role and the extraordinary range of issues that Headteachers can face.

Focussing on the client is at the heart of her practice, working with each person as a unique individual. From this starting point, a positive therapeutic relationship can be established to work in a way which suits that individual. Sue has extensive experience of working with anxiety, depression, self-esteem and self-worth, domestic abuse and trauma. She has both experience and training in working with people who are diagnosed as, or feel they are, neurodivergent. Recognising each person as a unique individual provides a safe space to explore a client’s identity and/or issues, whatever that may mean for the individual.  Sue works using creativity and understanding the way the body and brain work where appropriate. She will work with you to find the best approach which suits you.

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Victoria Wulff
Virtual PA

Victoria Wulff is the Virtual PA at Destino Coaching, and is responsible for providing administrative support to the coaching team. She has extensive experience in administration in both the public and private sectors and has worked in Children’s Services, School Administration and Business Support of a Multi Academy Trust. Before working in education, Victoria worked as a Graphic Assistant in an Architects practice and uses her design background and creative skills to produce promotional material and works on various design projects for Destino Coaching.

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