About Southwell Performance
Southwell Performance provides executive, leadership, and career coaching for tech professionals and organisations.
The work is designed to help people think clearly, choose deliberately, and build progress that lasts.
Meet David Killen
I'm David Killen, founder of Southwell Performance.
I’ve spent most of my working life in technology. I started as a software engineer in the mid-1990s and built a career across product teams, demanding delivery environments, and fast-moving technical work. Over time I worked in roles that required deep focus and good judgement, including senior engineering product management work in Web3.
Along the way, I also took a detour that shaped how I see people and change. I studied law, qualified, and practised in commercial, property, and intellectual property matters. Legal work taught me discipline and clarity, and it reinforced something that applies just as much in tech: outcomes are often driven by decisions, behaviour, and the quality of conversations, not raw intelligence.
As my career developed, I kept noticing the same pattern in myself and others. Capable people were working hard and still feeling stuck. They weren’t short on skill. They were carrying too much, second-guessing decisions, avoiding key conversations, and moving without a clear direction that felt like their own.
I really discovered coaching when I started working with engineers making a career transition into Web3. They were learning fast, but what held them back wasn’t technical ability. It was confidence, clarity, and how they saw themselves. The coaching work was helping them ask better questions, make cleaner decisions, and take ownership of the path they wanted to build.
That’s when coaching clicked for me. It isn’t advice. It’s a structured partnership that helps people explore what matters, find their own best answers, and translate insight into action. Over time, that builds the habits and self-trust that make progress sustainable.
Why I do this work
Tech moves fast, and it asks a lot of people who care about doing good work. Priorities shift, scope grows, and decisions pile up. It’s easy to end up busy without being clear, productive without feeling like you’re moving, or successful on paper but unsure what you actually want next.
I do this work because coaching gives people back their ability to think properly. It creates space to step back, explore what’s really going on, and choose a way forward that fits who they are and what they want. The work is client-led, grounded in professional standards, and designed to build capability rather than dependency.
That applies across the full scope of Southwell Performance: executive coaching, leadership development, and career coaching for individuals, as well as coaching for organisations developing leaders at different levels. The aim is progress that holds in real weeks, so growth feels practical, sustainable, and genuinely meaningful.
How I Coach
My coaching is evidence-based and shaped by a deep commitment to understanding what drives lasting human change. I'm drawn to the science because it keeps my work honest. It moves coaching away from hype and toward what actually helps people shift how they think, decide, and act.
A key part of the work is helping you build self-awareness in a practical way. Patterns are useful when you can see them early, name them clearly, and choose a different response. That might be a tendency to avoid conflict, over-control, people-please, second-guess, overwork, or carry too much alone. Coaching helps you see the pattern without judgement, then decide what you want to do instead.
The coaching is also grounded in action. Insight matters, but it isn’t the finish line. Each session aims to leave you with a clear next step that fits your real week. Progress is built through small actions and review over time, so change becomes something you can keep building on, not a burst of motivation that fades.
This approach applies across the full scope of my coaching. For individuals, it supports executive, leadership, and career growth through clarity, confidence, and direction. For organisations, it helps leaders develop the habits that shape performance through teams, such as decision-making, communication, accountability, and steadiness during change.
Throughout the work, clear agreements and confidentiality are treated as central. Sessions remain respectful, client-led, and anchored to professional coaching standards, so clients have the safety to be honest and the structure to move forward.
When Coaching is a Good Fit
Coaching tends to fit people who are ready to be honest with themselves and willing to do something with what they learn. Many clients are capable professionals who feel like they’re circling the same questions, carrying more than they should, or wanting to grow into the next level with more clarity and confidence.
This work is a strong fit if you want a space to think properly, not be told what to do. It suits people who are open to reflection, curious about their own patterns, and willing to take small, meaningful actions between sessions. That might look like making a career decision you’ve been avoiding, changing how you show up in leadership moments, or building a steadier way of working that matches the role you’re in.
For leaders, coaching often focuses on the things that shape outcomes through other people: communication, boundaries, delegation, decision-making, and the conversations that tend to get delayed. For organisations, coaching supports leadership development and role transitions by helping leaders become more consistent in how they lead, especially as expectations rise.
If you’re not sure whether coaching is a fit, that’s normal. A discovery call is the simplest way to talk it through, ask questions, and work out whether coaching makes sense for your situation.
Standards and Confidentiality
Membership reflects a commitment to the ICF Code of Ethics, the Core Competencies, and ongoing professional development. It’s part of keeping the work professional, ethical, and high standard.
Professional Standards You Can Trust
Standards and Ethics
Coaching is delivered in line with ICF-aligned professional standards and ethics. Each engagement begins with clear agreements about purpose, scope, and what success will look like, so expectations are simple and shared. Sessions remain client-led, with the coach’s role focused on supporting thinking, awareness, and choice rather than telling leaders what to do.
Confidentiality and Reporting
Confidentiality is central to effective coaching and is treated with care from the start. Any organisational reporting is agreed upfront and kept at a high level, such as participation, broad themes, and progress against agreed outcomes. Personal details and the content of coaching conversations are not shared, so leaders have the space to be honest and do the work properly.
Ready to see if coaching fits?
Book a discovery call to talk through what you’re looking for and decide whether coaching right for you.
Life, executive, and career coaching with a focus on tech professionals.
Working with clients globally.
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