founder • principal coach

Sheena Polese

Sheena is an expert and qualified leadership and adult development coach and is an experienced leader in Commercial, For Purpose and Non-Executive roles and organisations.

My coaching focuses on enabling individuals to step into their full capacity and to overcome challenges to achieve their goals. We work together as coach and client to identify suitable pathways depending on your experience, objectives and capacity for growth.

If you come to me as a client, I will help you work that out.

I am passionate about people overcoming their challenges, identify negative and unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs, deal with the past, recognise and appreciate her strengths and achievements, express and manage emotions in healthy ways, tap into her resources and create new possibilities for a more fulfilling and meaningful future.

I work with people (executives and individuals) who want to make changes in their life, be it effectiveness on the job, build relationships with team members, deal with excessive workload, managing up, leading across the business, delegate more, manage conflict, build engagement and team capacity, change job roles or careers, and make personal changes. Sometimes we simply need support to cope with emotional pressure and changes in the world around us. I can provide this for you.

Professional Certifications

Master of Science, Psychology of Coaching -  The University of Sydney

MBA - Macquarie Graduate School of Management

Maturity Assessment Profile -  Adult development and Leadership and the Leadership Maturity Framework (VEDA USA)

Social Leadership Australia Graduate

Hogan Psychometrics and Hogan 360

Mental Toughness assessment tool (MTQ48/Plus)

The Leadership Circle Personality and 360 profile

Mental Health First Aid Facilitator

Wellbeing for Management and Executives (MEWS)

Team coaching - Global Team Coaching Institute Certification

Immunity to Change Framework - Robert Kegan, Harvard University

Mindfulness Facilitator and Meditation teacher - School of Positive Transformation

Leadership Effectiveness Analysis (LEA) - Individual Directions Inventory (IDI) - emotional drivers tool and 360 tool - Management Research Group

Foundations of Directorship – AICD

Designed for You

The importance in any coaching engagement is that it is a unique approach for each client because what needs addressing will be dependent on where you are at.

All adults are on a developmental journey.  

Each adult has their own interpretation of the world based on their lived experiences and the beliefs they have formed.

If you decide to undertake coaching with me, my approach will be designed just for you. It is a non-judgmental engagement.  I will be supporting who you are, your character, your values and your beliefs, and we shape the development path that takes you in the direction you want to go. We will look at how you build your personal power and leverage your authority in appropriate ways that suit who you are and who you want to be.

My coaching can facilitate positive change for you; it can make you more effective personally and professionally, and it can increase your sense of joy, connection and life satisfaction. I’d be delighted to work with you.

Evidence-based approaches for personal and professional growth

I use an evidence-based approach from my Master of Science, Psychology of Coaching training at USyd, an MBA from Macquarie Graduate School Management, plus many other professional education programs including 2 years of applied studies in Adult Development.

This builds on my years in the Corporate world, Not for Profit sector, Non-Executive Director and also in the roles of being a mum, wife, sister, daughter, aunt, friend, committee member and colleague to many.

For us to work effectively in the Coach – Client relationship, I ask you to be open to change, be willing to shake off some old habits, create space for new thinking, and we will work together through the coaching process towards the goals and outcomes you desire.  

I have worked with hundreds of clients over the last 7 years in my coaching practice and have an extremely high success rate with enabling clients to move beyond and towards their goals.

Examples of the areas we address in coaching include

Getting clear on what matters to you and your organisation

Have your assumptions challenged

Helping you see your own strengths and valuable life experiences

Open your eyes to any possible blind spots

Build capacity to overcome, work through and navigate setbacks

Developing a continuous improvement mindset

Sheena is a leadership and development coach who has worked extensively with executives at all organisational levels, varied industries and has broad professional and life experience. Sheena also works with individuals in small and medium sized enterprises, and those looking to re-enter or exit the workforce.

Explicitly informed by her experience and education, Sheena is a developmental coach and works with clients move from where the client is now to where they want to be, whether it’s practical changes in job roles or career stage, personal changes or making changes in response to emotional pressure and changes to the world around them.

Working with clients on overcoming their struggles, Sheena is committed to enabling people develop their capacity to address the gap between their current situation and their idealised one. Sheena supports clients to expand their outlook and attitude about their life experiences, to process and integrate and to move beyond them.  

Sheena understands how a persons past can hold them back from stepping into their fuller potential.  A qualified coach is empathic and an effective sounding board.  

If you haven’t had the mentoring, the opportunities, the development or the capacity to invest in yourself, perhaps Coaching is a method to explore and access your future possibilities.  

Sheena believes everyone has access to choice and the power to create their best life possible and works closely with clients to develop their thinking and behaviour in order to thrive and flourish.

Sheena writes, develops and delivers comprehensive coaching programs for individuals, leaders and teams and, with her team, can provide what you need so you can achieve what you want. Sheena is a qualified athletics coach who has participated in many adventure events, including ultra-marathons, high-altitude trekking and an environmental leadership expedition to the Antarctic and can help you develop the mindfulness and mindset to achieve your professional and physical goals.

Sheena established FitMind Coaching in 2016 after a long career in the Commercial and the For Purpose sectors and has held NFP board roles and Community organisation leadership roles.  Sheena retains a portfolio of coaching clients and is also a Senior Associate at the Positivity Institute. Sheena was the leadership program director and facilitator for Leading Women Uganda for Australia for UNHCR and Co-Director of Coaching for Purpose Women's Leadership Program and is currently the Co-Director of “WomensWellbeing One Day Getaway” and the 4 Day women’s retreat in Byron Bay. 

  • Sheena has no difficulty asking the hard questions to make a person think about their situation. Sheena works to help the group understand the complexities and identify any hidden agendas. Sheena is skilled in endeavouring to seek out the best qualities a candidate has to offer and help them channel their energies.

  • I engaged Sheena for a number of coaching sessions in order to help my transition into the Head of Marketing role within the organisation.

    Coaching has helped me with both my technical and psychological leadership skills, with a particular focus on creating a vision for my leadership and thereby a blueprint for success in my first year. I am better able to relate to team members, through a collaborative approach and subsequently an empowering and supportive environment for the predominantly female cohort. Trust has grown immensely and I can see team members are much more engaged and subsequently productive, as they too experience success

  • I now manage a team of 25, a 60% growth and I needed help. I did the psychometric testing. I needed to know what my strengths and weaknesses were to help me become a better leader. Knowing what the effective leadership traits are to drive peak performance, has enabled me to know what I needed to change. No boss in my entire career has ever articulated these to me in the same way Sheena did. During the debrief, Sheena provided me constructive action plans that are now helping me achieve my goals to become a more effective leader. Thank you, Sheena of FitMind!