The State of Team Coaching Down Under

High-performing sports teams understand success is not about individual talent or effort – it’s about connections between players, utilising strengths, committing to practice and learning together. Coaches are critical!

Sports coaches are fully embraced down under. Yet, when it comes to investing in team coaching within organisations we lag behind the rest of the world.

Why is uptake so slow? What are we missing?

These questions, and more, were put to 20 industry experts based in Aotearoa New Zealand - HR specialists, consultants, practising coaches, and thought leaders.

In this interactive session we hear what they had to say. We’ll have time to build on their thinking with our own observations and insight. Most importantly we’ll talk about what needs to happen to improve uptake and how we can contribute to a shift in mindset in our part of the world.

Presenters:

Helen Zink

Helen has significant hands-on business and leadership experience at a senior level, including leading teams through change during challenging times. Now she supports leaders and teams to do the same.

To reinforce her work, Helen draws from a large toolkit, including the disciplines of: coaching, team coaching, applied positive psychology, change management and other strategic tools and methodologies.

Helen also holds many qualifications and certifications, including: Senior Practitioner Team and Individual Coach with EMCC, Advanced Certification in Team Coaching and Professional Certified Coach with ICF, MSc (Coaching Psychology), MBA, BMS (hons), and others.

An emerging author, Helen has published several articles about team coaching in professional magazines and contributed chapters and case studies in books. She published her own book about working with teams in complex environments in 2023 – “Team coaching for organisational development: team, leader, organisation, coach and supervision perspectives”.

Real-world transformation is at the heart of all Helen does - partnering with leaders and teams to discover and unlock their unique capability.

Alyson Keller

Alyson is driven by a powerful purpose: to create reflective spaces that accelerate human insight and unlock leadership potential. With over 24 years of experience in leadership development, change management, and behavioural transformation, she specialises in Vertical Development, enabling leaders to shift who they are being to navigate increasing complexity with agility and maturity.

As a Professional Certified Coach (ICF), Facilitator, and EMCC-accredited Senior Practitioner in Team Coaching, Alyson partners with individuals and teams to uncover deeply embedded ways of being, helping them influence the systems they are part of. She believes transformational leadership requires more than new knowledge; it demands expanded awareness and capacity to act in dynamic, systemic ways.