Creating spaces where leaders, teams and organisations can connect, grow and transform together
Through thoughtful leadership, meaningful conversation and the creation of greater clarity and impact
About Us
At MiDDLEGROUND, we believe that meaningful transformation begins with the quality of conversation people are able to have; with themselves, with one another, and within the systems they are part of.
MiDDLEGROUND is a space where leaders, teams and organisations can pause, reflect honestly and explore the challenges and possibilities they are navigating, creating more impactful action.
Our Work
MiDDLEGROUND is a small, internationally connected practice, with collaborators and partners working across the UK, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal and Mexico. The richness of these different perspectives and contexts informs how we think, learn and work with clients.
Our work takes the form of leadership development, team development, system change and organisational learning, and cross sector leadership dialogue.
Leadership Development
We support leaders to navigate complexity with greater clarity, confidence and intention.
Our work helps leaders examine how they take up authority, respond to challenge and lead within the wider systems they are part of. We develop thoughtful, values-based leadership that enables people to work with purpose, accountability and meaningful impact, reconnecting with what matters most in their leadership and work.
Team Development
We work with leadership teams, from boards and executive groups to operational and project teams, helping them think well together, strengthen relationships and navigate complexity collectively.
Our focus is on creating alignment around purpose, ambition and direction while supporting honest conversation, shared understanding and collective responsibility. By building on existing strengths and addressing patterns that limit effectiveness, we help teams develop greater trust, stronger collaboration and the capacity to work meaningfully across difference.
Systemic Change & Organisational Learning
We support organisations navigating change, growth and increasing complexity to work more consciously with the systems they are part of.
Drawing on systems thinking and organisational learning, we help leaders explore the patterns, assumptions and relationships that shape culture, behaviour and decision-making. Our work enables organisations to strengthen collaboration, deepen learning and create greater alignment, allowing people to act with more clarity, coherence and shared purpose.
Cross-Sector Leadership Dialogue
We bring leaders together across sectors, cultures and regions into shared spaces for dialogue, reflection and learning.
These conversations create opportunities to step beyond the immediate pressures of leadership and engage more thoughtfully with the wider systems in which people live and work. Through facilitated dialogue and experiential learning, participants deepen their understanding of leadership, responsibility and collective impact. One expression of this work is The Space Between, a distinct hosted experience grounded in the MiDDLEGROUND philosophy.
The Space Between
The first of The Space Between programmes has been created primarily for women carrying significant leadership responsibility in their lives and work, it offers a space to pause, reflect and think more deeply about leadership, identity, responsibility and the realities they are navigating.
Through thoughtful conversation, shared inquiry and carefully held developmental spaces, participants are invited to reconnect with themselves, recognise their own authority more fully, and explore more conscious and sustainable ways of leading.
The work may take different forms, from intimate hosted conversations and evening gatherings to longer developmental experiences and residential spaces, each designed to create warmth, depth, reflection and meaningful connection between women navigating similar questions and responsibilities.
Our Team
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Elana Friedman is the founder of MiDDLEGROUND, an internationally connected leadership practice born from her belief that the most meaningful and sustainable change happens when people are given the opportunity to pause, engage in high-quality conversations and think more deeply about the challenges they face. Her work creates opportunities for leaders and teams to reflect, deepen their understanding of themselves and the systems they are part of, and develop the clarity, accountability and shared responsibility needed to move forward with confidence.
For more than twenty years, Elana has worked with leaders, teams and organisations across the private, public and NGO sectors throughout the UK, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. She has supported organisations navigating growth, transformation and increasing complexity, helping them strengthen leadership, build high-performing teams and create cultures where learning, collaboration and meaningful change can flourish.
Drawing on a background in psychology, creative therapy and systems thinking, Elana combines thoughtful inquiry with practical action. She is known for creating reflective, participative spaces where leaders and teams can explore different perspectives, better understand the patterns shaping their organisations, and think more deeply together. Her work builds on what is already working while helping people recognise what needs to shift, creating greater clarity about the challenges they face and the opportunities ahead.
Whether working with executive teams, cross-sector leadership groups or individual leaders, Elana enables people to translate insight into meaningful action. Her work strengthens leadership, enhances collaboration and helps organisations create the conditions for sustainable performance and lasting change.
Elana studied psychology at the University of Cape Town and Rhodes University in South Africa before training as a creative therapist in the UK.
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Liz is an executive coach, leadership consultant and educator with over 20 years’ experience supporting leaders, teams and organisations to navigate complexity, lead change and build high-performing, trusting teams.
Having spent much of her career leading large-scale transformation programmes across health and care systems, Liz brings deep expertise in leadership development, organisational change and collaborative working. Her work is grounded in a belief that meaningful and sustainable change happens through greater awareness, thoughtful dialogue and stronger human connection.
A skilled facilitator and coach, Liz creates spaces where individuals and teams can think differently, challenge assumptions and develop greater clarity about how they lead. Her warm, relational approach enables people to explore complex challenges with honesty and curiosity, building the confidence and capability to lead with greater authenticity, intention and impact.
Liz has extensive experience working with leaders across all sectors. She has supported senior leaders responsible for large-scale transformation, helped teams strengthen communication and trust, and designed and delivered leadership programmes focused on emotional intelligence, systems leadership and leading change.
Alongside her consulting and coaching work, Liz is a Principal Lecturer in Leadership Development at the University of Hertfordshire, where she leads postgraduate and undergraduate education in leadership, talent management and coaching for the health and social care sector.
Liz holds a Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching from the Academy of Executive Coaching (AoEC), an MSc in Health and Public Leadership from the Universities of Birmingham and Manchester, and is an EMCC-accredited coach.
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Lauren is an EMCC-accredited coach who works with leaders, teams and organisations navigating complexity, change and growth. Through thoughtful conversation, gentle challenge and genuine curiosity, she helps clients gain greater clarity, perspective and confidence.
Her coaching creates space for people to slow down, think well and make sense of the challenges before them, enabling them to move forward with greater clarity and intention.
Clients often describe Lauren as calm, insightful and quietly challenging. She asks thoughtful questions that help people notice patterns, test assumptions and uncover perspectives they hadn't previously considered.
Whether working with individual leaders, teams or whole organisations, her approach combines warmth, curiosity and thoughtful enquiry to create conversations that are both reflective and practical.
She has worked with organisations across healthcare, technology, energy, higher education and professional services, supporting leaders at every stage of their careers.
Lauren believes that creating space to think is one of the most valuable things we can offer ourselves. When people have time to slow down and think well, it can change how they lead, how they work and how they live.
Before becoming a coach, Lauren trained as a professional musician and completed a Master's degree in music psychology. Those experiences continue to shape her coaching today, bringing deep listening, curiosity and an appreciation of the relationship between individual performance and team dynamics.
Her qualifications and accreditations include EMCC Senior Practitioner (EQA), EMCC Practitioner (EIA), she is an accredited practitioner for the TMSDI Team Management Profile, has an MA Applied Music Psychology,
PGDip Social Research Methods and BMus (Hons.) Music
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Twalib is our associate based in Kenya. His work methodology is informed and nurtured by his belief in valuing others and working with differences. He designs and runs programmes of leadership, partnering, team building, organisational culture and strategy development to create change and impact. His broad experience includes work for public and private sectors as well as NGOs in Africa, the UK and Pakistan including British Council and the charitable trust The DEPOT (Dan Eldon Place Of Tomorrow).
He is committed to experiential and participatory learning as he believes participants need to find their own solutions to the challenges they face. He sees his role as the catalyst to help clients reach those solutions through a more efficient process.
His key focus areas include ‘Developing mentoring & coaching skills’, ‘Strategy development’, ‘Leadership, teams & culture integration’, ‘Train the trainer’.
He is also a Faculty Member of MKU Executive Masters, in Business Administration and has authored papers in Leadership Workshops in healthcare as well as speaking at the Cambridge University’s Teachers conference.
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Gail is our associate based in Mexico. A Life and Business Coach, with specialist expertise in leadership development and education. Her practice is driven by a commitment to helping people create environments that enable them to thrive and achieve lasting change.
Gail is passionate about the inherent possibilities available in any system. Her work helps clients to recognise, release and develop these in order to facilitate clarity and growth for both the individual and the system.
A Spanish speaker, who before completing her training in coaching studied psychology at the University of Cape Town, SA. Gail also completed a Master’s program in Adult Education at the University of Manchester, U.K. Her work has encompassed a variety of Non-Governmental Organisations as well as educational environments.
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Karima is our Associate based in Senegal. A writer for children and young adults, Karima designs and facilitates high impact leadership programs, team-building, and organisational development seminars in English and in French.
With over twenty years’ experience working in the human services, Karima brings her keen insight, deep compassion, and a vibrant energy to any organization or individual’s quest for personal and professional excellence.
Karima’s passion for language as a tool of empowerment inspires clients to access courage as a source of greatness, and creativity as a sustainable solution to evoke powerful positive change in the world.
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Umar is our Associate based in Nigeria. He is a Leadership and Management Development Consultant, who provides support to organisations across all sectors to make them better at what they already do well. He has worked all over Nigeria and across 33 different countries.
He is a Fellow of Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD), an international network of senior professionals committed to sustainable development. He is a member of both the Nigerian Institute of Management (Chartered) and the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria.
He has previously worked in Restral Consulting, Swiss Pharma, Colgate-Palmolive and Pfizer Products as a Senior Consultant, Area Manager, Product Manager and District Manager respectively. He has an MBA and a degree in Pharmacy from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. he is also a certified facilitator of Franklin Covey programs; “FOCUS: Achieving Highest Priorities” and “Aligning Goals for Results”.
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Chris is a highly experienced and well-regarded Executive and Team Coach and Coaching Supervisor.
As a senior partner at the Centre for Teams, his work aims to support leaders, and their teams to transform their mindset, behaviour, and results through the development of exceptional ‘teamship’.
For over 20 years, Chris has been a valued resource to organisations, providing individual and team coaching, together with designing and leading a wide range of team, leadership and coaching development programmes across a wide variety of sectors, within the UK and internationally
His work aims to enable leaders to enact positive change, within themselves and within their teams, supporting them to explore what ‘leadership’ tangibly means for them in their context, the legacy they wish to create, and the ‘stretch’ required to excel, perform, thrive and deliver - in service of their stakeholders and their own development.
Chris became the Operations Director at the School of Coaching in 2005, at the time the leading coach-training organisation in Europe, before becoming one the founding Partner at TPC leadership in 2008, where he supported the international expansion of the company over 10 years.
With a strong belief in youth development, he is a programme director on the International Leadership programmes for WYSE, a UN affiliated charity providing 12-day residential programmes for talented young leaders from across the world.
Chris served as an infantry officer in the British Army for 7 years in peacetime and operational roles. After completing his MBA, he worked as an executive in Associated New Media, where he focussed on new venture development and supported the launch and growth of a series of successful commercial websites.
Chris’s qualifications & certifications include:
MBA (The London Business School), Member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), Master Coach Practitioner (EMCC EIA), Coaching Supervisor (ESIA EIA), Diploma in Integrative and Transpersonal Supervision, Psychotherapeutic Training in Psychosynthesis & Transactional Analysis, accredited in a range of psychometrics, including, Firo B, NEO, Workplace Big Five, Insights, Belbin, Primary Colours and EQi.
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David is an experienced and well-regarded Chartered Occupational & Coaching Psychologist and Founding Partner of The Centre for Teams.
David established the Centre for Teams in 2003 with Chris Sheepshanks. Together, they transform organizations by enabling leaders and teams to learn, adapt and thrive, through exceptional ‘teamship’.
David has been coaching and consulting to senior leaders and their teams and developing and supervising business performance coaches since 1997.
In 1997 David helped establish the leading coach-training organisation in Europe. At that time, he was also a founder Board Member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), which still sets standards for coaching and coach development in Europe. David was an Associate for the Center for Creative Leadership in Brussels for several years and a long-standing coach for the NHS Leadership Academy, for CEOs, Directors and Boards. Prior experience includes various positions in Forte plc, and Price Waterhouse.
David’s qualifications, accreditations and membership include:
BA (Hons.) London University; MBA Nottingham University; MSc Occupational Psychology Birkbeck, University of London; Chartered Occupational Psychologist (BPS); David holds a Certificate in Performance Coaching (University of Strathclyde), is a Team Learning Master Coach and a Trained Coaching Supervisor (Bath Consultancy Group). He is certified to use a wide range of diagnostic and personality instruments including Aston ATPI, TMSDI, FIRO B, MBTI, Primary Colours Leadership Toolkit (360° and NEO) and CCL’s Suite of 360° profiles.
Winner, 2018 CEO Magazine Management Consulting Award
British Psychological Society (‘BPS’) and former Chair of Division of Coaching Psychology; Registered member of the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC); Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA); Affiliate, the Institute of Coaching (IOC) at Harvard Medical School; Member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC)