Founded 2026

A new standard in coaching...

ACE was co-founded by Dr Holly Andrews PCC, and Verity Hannell PCC, two practitioners and coach educators who share a conviction that coach education, training and continuing development must be held to the same rigorous standards as any other professional field.

Between us, we've spent our careers moving between the coaching room, workplaces, the lecture theatre and the literature. We kept arriving at the same frustration: that so much of what passes for coaching development is episodic, poorly evidenced, and undemanding

ACE exists to meet this need.

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We built ACE to be evidence-based, professionally aligned, and demanding
enough to take coaches deeper. 

Evidence first. Depth always.

We call ourselves pracademic. Not academics who coach, and not coaches who dabble in theory. 

We are practitioners first, held to academic standards throughout.

That shows up in our commitments: 

RESPECT
We recognise that you are experienced professionals. We design accordingly: with intellectual depth, and with the expectation that you'll push back on us as readily as we challenge you. 
RELEVANCE
Evidence that stays in a journal is no use. We design learning that connects research to the real conditions of coaching practice. We address the ambiguity, the pressure, and the client in front of you.

RIGOUR

We do not cite research we haven't read. We do not claim what the evidence doesn't support. Precision matters to us and we'd rather say 'the evidence is mixed' than oversell a neat answer. 

REFLEXIVITY
We believe coaches are always part of the work they do. Our learning helps coaches to examine what they bring, question their assumptions, notice, and remain accountable for their impact

We believe that together, these commitments keep a coach's development honest and relevant across their entire career.

Holly & Verity

Who is ACE for?

ACE is built for experienced coaches who want their CPD held to the same standard as their coaching practice, and for organisations who want their investment in coaching and leadership development to meet that same bar.

If you're a coach: You don't need an accreditation. We ask that you've completed some coach training and have experience of coaching. What matters most is your seriousness about the art of coaching, not when you first began your coach learning journey. 

If you're an organisation: We bring the same standards to your coaching needs. So no matter whether we're supporting an internal coaching pool, building coaching skills across teams, or developing leaders together, you can trust them same evidence-led approach being everything we deliver.

The ACE learning model 

This is the model behind everything we design and deliver, whether you're developing your own coaching practice or commissioning ours for your organisation. 

We think about coaching development as work that moves inward: from taking in new evidence, to letting it change how you practise, to taking responsibility for developing others. 

We call these three movements Learn, Deepen and Lead.

Learn is where new evidence, tools and thinking meet your existing practice. 

Deepen is a more personal, experiential learning process designed to increase self-awareness and generate insight.

Lead is what it takes to responsibly develop others coaches, or to take your coaching capability to the next level.  

It's the same model underneath how we develop individual coaches and how we partner with organisations. Because the way people learn and develop doesn't change depending on who is paying for it. 
 
I highly recommend Verity & Holly as coach educators and creators of coach development programmes. Learning takes place outside our comfort zones, and Verity & Holly are skilled at creating safe and supportive environments for this to happen. 

— Kate S, ICF PCC, EMCC Senior Practitioner
I've been lucky enough to be trained by both Verity and Holly at a range of stages through my study. They have this great way of helping you see through the many different perspectives of complex situations, particularly in advanced areas of coaching. 

— Jack D,  ICF PCC, EMCC Senior Practitioner
Verity & Holly combine high levels of technical knowledge with superb emotional intelligence. They offer robust, critically reflective encouragement that has played an instrumental role in my development as a coach. Together they are a force for good.
— Chris W, ICF ACC 
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