Testimonials

I’ve helped corporates, academics, artists, government agencies, teams and individuals with their coaching and workshop facilitation needs. Here’s what they’ve said about my services.

What our clients say

“For a group of creatives planning their year ahead, the need to keep matters on track was essential. Equal to that, was the need to allow the freedom of expression that creatives thrive on. The task of balancing the two was not – it appeared – going to be easy. That said, from the moment Cathryn worked through the pre-planning, we could tell that the event was going to proceed like clockwork, but with the bonus of a relaxed fluidity, so vital for success. Cathryn is the consummate professional, but she also understands the creative process better than anyone. That combination makes her essential in any creative setting.”

Colin

Founder - Colin Bushell Photography, The Gap Creative – President

“Dr Cathryn has single handedly changed the way I operate as a manager/asset management specialist and change maker. Since her facilitation session, I have completely uprooted my stakeholder engagement style and became an active listener and engager. At times, Infrastructure and Assets can be a bit dry or a topic but the tools Dr C has taught me come in handy every workshop I now create. I could not recommend Dr C L enough.”

Ish Bhuiyan

Manager, Strategic Asset Management & Board Member – Asset, Fraser Coast Regional Council

“I had the privilege of collaborating with the exceptional Cathryn Lloyd of Maverick Minds to deliver our annual Inertia Connect team event. The seamless blend of creativity and connectivity fostered an inspiring environment for innovation and collaboration. Cathryn’s dynamic energy and personalised approach made the experience enriching, sparking creativity and strengthening team connections.”

Emma Skea

Marketing and Engagement Lead, Inertia Engineering

“We had the pleasure of working with Cathryn for our team connection day – “ Working-Well Workshop”. The business is in a time of significant growth. We sought guidance and support with aligning new team members with fundamentals through a shared understanding of the core principles, values, and goals of the business. We went on journey with the team to learn, who we are, where we came from and what we do. Our connection day with Cathryn helped us to think outside the box and truly open our minds to new possibilities and perspectives. We got to know each other on a more personal level and aligned the team to move forward together to build an even more amazing culture and business. The day was an absolute hoot, we all had a lot of fun with lots of laughs. It was far from your traditional, dry team day!”

Dr Lou Waldie & Phoebe Sampson

Tooth Dental

“Inertia Connect is all about bringing our team together, away from the office, discussing our organisation, our future and the plans that we have in place for Inertia and our Inertians. Days like this are really important to us; it is an opportunity for us to spend quality time together – something that often gets lost in the bustle of the day-to-day – to get to know each other’s strengths, personalities, and values, and to be pushed outside our comfort zones, increasing our bonds as a team, meaning we can be more effective in support of each other, our partners, our clients and their projects.”

Scott Clements

Managing Director, Inertia Engineering

“As a relatively new, nationally distributed team, I was looking for someone to facilitate connection, shared values, and an alignment in our ways of working and output. Cathryn provided just that – she is business like but fun, has an intuition about the flow and pace of a team building day, is organised, flexible, knowledgeable, and professional. Cathryn takes time to understand your requirements to ensure the exercises and outcome suit the culture of the team and the individuals within it – she was pitch perfect and I wouldn’t hesitate to employ Cathryn again. This was a high quality, value for money investment in our team and we have continued to reflect on our learnings in the weeks that followed our day with Cathryn.”

Jane Angel

Executive Director, Council of Australian University Librarians

“I was honoured to receive the inaugural DTESB All Star Award. There were (and are!) so many deserving nominees within the department. It was incredibly meaningful to be recognised for my work, and I thank everyone who nominated me. While the recognition itself was invaluable the award provided me with a budget to attend multiple 1-1 coaching sessions with Cathryn Lloyd from Maverick Minds. I’ve never worked with a coach before, and now that I have, I highly recommend the experience (and Cathryn). Initially, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I found that Cathryn’s ability to challenge my assumptions and focus my thoughts allowed me to clarify who I want to be as a colleague, supervisor and leader. Working with a coach at a time in my life, turned out to be one of great change—leaving DTESB after 7 years—was powerful, and I will take my “light-bulb moments” with me into my new role. Thank you DTESB for this opportunity!”

Trudi Plaschke

DTESB

“Our business has been working with Maverick Minds for over 2 years and the professionalism, team engagement, clarity, creativity, energy and focus that Cathryn has bought to all our planning and connection sessions has been second to none. Cathryn makes everyone feel included and has the unique ability in getting the best out of everyone. By creating a safe space where you are comfortable to be yourself, it allows you to open up and step outside your comfort zone and to be challenged. Together we have shared some amazing experiences and the value gained by our team having fun together, learning more about each other and forming deeper connections has been paramount in improving our camaraderie, collaboration and ultimately the success of our business. People are the building blocks of our company and Cathryn has helped us mix the best mortar. I highly recommend Maverick Minds.”

Dave Kelly

Director, Inertia Engineering

“I’ve been working with Cathryn as an executive coach for many years. The benefit and value that I get from her coaching is her creative mind-set and her ability to take a completely different perspective on issues.  She is open and curious and consistently prompts me with left-field questions that make me think differently.  Her arts-based and aesthetic approach has been structured so that we work through topics including leadership, creativity and stress management but is flexible enough to deal with particular issues as they arise. I have found her highly engaging and our sessions thought-provoking and enriching.”

Cameron Henry

Partner, BDO

“Before I started the Business Leaders Program, I was interested in developing my leadership skills to cater for my changing role, leading a rapidly expanding team within a growing business. My coach Cathryn Lloyd guided and supported me by primarily being a sounding board, allowing me to articulate a variety of issues being faced within the role. Cathryn offered practical advice, perspective, and strategies to approach the issues discussed. She was also influential with advice provided during a period of leadership change within the business. As a result of this, I have grown in confidence in my leadership role and have developed my skills particularly focused on building strong engagement and leadership structure with others in my team. I would highly recommend Cathryn to other business leaders looking to build self-belief and find support for the challenges that leadership can bring. Thanks, Cathryn, for the support you have offered me throughout the program, in what has been a tumultuous time with a changing leadership landscape within the business. I look forward to future discussions.”

Sean Stacey

Principal – Buildings, Inertia Engineering

“I undertook Executive Coaching through Maverick Minds with Cathryn Lloyd. Through this I was able to challenge my boundaries of traditional leadership. Cathryn was very easy to engage with. I was working in an extremely difficult environment, and we at that time, were working through a particularly toxic period. Cathryn was able to give me the tools to be able to work through my day-to-day challenges and not become bogged down in negativity. Her program was individualised, specific and targeted to my needs. I felt fully supported. I would highly recommend Cathryn.”

Gayle Hocking

Queensland Health

“Cathryn Lloyd is one of those rare gifts that come into your life, if you’re lucky. She is a coach of extraordinary talent, offering an opportunity for insight through her highly honed listening, questioning and synthesising skills, which are some of the best I have ever encountered in 25 years of working life. It’s a gift to have an intelligent and wise professional give you their full attention and offer you the opportunity to see yourself and your situation through fresh eyes, and this is the gift that Cathryn’s coaching provides.”

Jill Chivers

Where Corporate Meets Creative

“When I started my coaching sessions with Cathryn the aim was to seek her expert assistance in how to build on my current knowledge and make that leap to leadership at an executive level in state government. I had an idea in my mind of what I wanted out of the sessions and I decided to work with Cathryn as I knew that her approach would be innovative, creative and instinctual – I have done many leadership courses and workshops and I had the building blocks: I needed someone to help me put them together in a way that made sense to me and met my needs right now as a senior executive in the public service. Each coaching session was completely different – I liked the way that Cathryn let me influence discussion topics, but it was uncanny how she always had seemed to have been ready for where I was going in my thoughts and questions. This is the key to her approach that makes it, in my mind, highly effective: it is a searching kind of coaching that lets the coachee find their own way but guided by Cathryn’s instinctive ability to subtly direct and probe, asking questions that enabled me to come to my own conclusions. The sessions gave me valuable tools to ask the right questions of myself and to have the confidence again to accept the leadership challenge and to better understand my professional needs and ambitions as well as how I can work better to achieve these.”

Executive Officer

Queensland Government

“What I observed from our time with Cathryn Lloyd/Maverick Minds and also the feedback from the senior management team was the importance of making time to get out of the trenches some creative thinking time and also to connect as a team. The various theoretical concepts Maverick Minds exposed us to and the relationship building processes really helped set the scene for how we communicated with each other. The design thinking building process enabled us to envisage new organsiational approaches was raved about. It created a shared understanding and language. It was fun as well and very collaborative. There was no room for judgments or rejections and we were able to physically see and engage with the ideas people exressed. Cathryn is an exceptional facilitator and was able to motivate all involved to not only participate and generate ideas but to give of themselves and share feelings and vulnerabilities in a safe space. It has been a very worthwhile experience for us as a leadership team. We look forward to following up on what we have started.”

Mark Walter

Director, SQCC/SERCO

“The program that was presented by Cathryn really help me map my career path and own my practice, my identity in the Queensland arts ecology. It helped me articulate and clarify the providence of my practice. The human centred design used in the delivery is an inside out process that Cathryn takes us through with careful consideration to each individual’s journey and capacity. I would recommend Cathryn’s creative inquiry methods to any artist or any organisation who is serious about being more adaptive and resilient hence more prosperous.”

Kuweni Dias-Mendis

Artist

“A review and change in my professional life brought me to a point where I had several options to consider. I took the opportunity to explore one of those options, a business idea, with Dr Cathryn Lloyd of Maverick Minds. The discovery coaching session provided me with some much needed creative and reflective space to explore the many emerging ideas for this business project. Through guidance, questioning, using images as visual stimulation, metaphor, and stories I was about to see the bigger picture as well as detail for this project. It allowed me to see the various parts, put names to these parts, gain a new perspective as well as clarity. Cathryn is a skillful coach. She holds the space well for people to focus on what’s important for them while drawing out what else is possible. I would recommend Cathryn and can see the potential for working with her again at points along the way.”

Kerryanne Farrer

Arts Professional and Creative Engagement Specialist

“I had the pleasure of attending a two-part online seminar called ‘Mind Your Creativity’ with Dr Cathryn Lloyd recently. I had no expectations but hoped to find a way to climb out of the creative vacuum in which I’d found myself and connect with others. The seminar delivered
more than I’d hoped for, thanks to Cathryn’s extensive knowledge, facilitation skills, and practical experience. By way of summary, she provided:

  • a framework for reviewing my practice supported by sound research and reading material
  • an opportunity to hear others’ stories and reflect on my own situation in a safe environment
  • time to reflect, and then a process for working through structured questions and action planning tools.

Cathryn facilitated an easily flowing conversation within the group, and ably carried every topic raised, adding her own deep knowledge and extensive experience as a researcher, creative coach, and practising artist. The latter particularly provided an extra layer of credibility and understanding. I look forward to a continuing coaching relationship with Cathryn.

Rosemarie Jennings (Van Haeften)

Artist

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