In this episode, Charlie meets Julia Bend, Executive Career Transition Coach and founder of Premier Coaching, who works with high-achieving professionals at a crossroads in their careers, helping them reconnect with who they are and move forward with clarity and confidence. Together, they explore career reinvention and the power of coaching to create meaningful change, sharing reflections, stories, and practical insights about personal growth and leadership. Main Topics Discussed in the Episode: In this conversation, Julia shares her reflections on how coaching can help professionals align their work with their purpose and strengths, offering valuable lessons that will help listeners gain clarity in their own career transitions. We also talk about: Julia's journey from aviation and tech to becoming an executive coach. The mentoring experience that inspired her to pursue coaching. How coaching can help people rediscover confidence and direction during change. Her signature SPEAR framework and how it supports sustainable career transformation. Each story shared brings real-life insights that coaches and professionals at all levels can relate to and learn from. Connect with Julia: If you'd like to learn more about Julia's work or explore her coaching resources, you can visit: Her website: https://www.premier-coaching.co.uk Julia Bend on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-bend-premier-coaching/ Her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julia_premier_coaching/ Podcast: The Secrets of Learning and Development Email: julia.bend@premier-coaching.co.uk Useful Links From This Episode: Our Website Our courses' date Charlie LinkedIn LYC Linkedin LYC Instagram LYC YouTube Transcript: Charlie Warshawski (00:00.921) Hello, coaches. How are you doing? I hope you're having a good day and I hope that all is going well. I'm having a really good day today. I'm doing some podcast recording and early on this morning, I had a lovely conversation with a head teacher who trained to be a coach right in the middle of lockdown 2021, trying to find time to learn his coaching skills at the same time as running a school during lockdown. this year, 2025, this morning when we had a chat, he was telling me all about... he's still using his coaching skills. He's still able to bring coaching out in this very busy role of being a head teacher. And of course, that fills me full of joy. And I think it fills him full of joy because he's able to really help and carry on supporting people in a different way from standard headship work. What about you all? What about you all at home? Something that's been really good, something that you've heard from a fellow coach or that you've been thinking about in your coaching today? I always think it's good to mull over something that's going on in our coaching practice. Today is a guest day and I'm really excited to have our guest here today. going to introduce her properly in a moment. It's Julia. Julia Bent. How are you today, Julia? Julia (01:08.098) I'm fine, thank you, pleased to be here. Charlie Warshawski (01:11.593) Thank you. Julia is told me just now she is she's a podcast nominated for an award. She's up for an award. So if we were doing this next month, I might be able to call her an award winning. She's very much looking forward to the red carpet and the new shoes. As most people who come on our podcast, she's a coach, of course. she's how she titles herself is executive career transition coach, her company's premier coaching and she has come to coaching in the last five or six years with, as many of us do, an ILM Level 7 course qualification. And she has been working with a long career in the commercial sector. So we're going to find out about all of that before we get into our coaching. And this episode is going to go out in the Grow Your Coaching Business series because Julia is not in year one, but nor is she in year 20 of our coaching. So five, six years in, she's got lots of insights, lots of things that she's going to share with us. But first, let's meet Julia. Let's find out about Julia and her background. So Julia, tell us about, you wrote on your notes, nearly 30 years in customer facing roles in the aviation and tech industries. That's a bit of a wow. So tell us about that. Julia (02:28.974) bit of a wow. Hello, everyone. Yes, I actually spent nearly three decades and when you say it like that, it sounds like a long time, but it was a long time. I worked for British Airways and I did various roles within the company. So it wasn't just that, my last tenure was being in an analyst role. Hello. Yeah, it's lovely to be here. So where did it all begin? I actually did spend three decades within the aviation industry. Basically, I worked for British Airways and it sounds like such a long time and it was. But I did various roles within that time there. But one, suppose the biggest role that I did was I left there as a process analyst in IT, which was really good role. I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot. Um, but it was time, it was time to move on and do something different. um, so that was that after that, then I left. Um, I thought I would go back into the commercial sector, into the corporate sector. And I did for a short time as in four months, but I kind of fell out of love in that field. Um, and I realized that, you know, when you leave and you go back in, it's, it was also, it's also a bit too samey for me. And I think I really did. I really did. did my time in that, but I didn't know what I actually wanted to do, which was interesting. I decided, because I've got no children, I also decided, you know what, I'm going to give myself some time to think about what I want to do in the next half of my career. As a result of that, I did, I went to a seminar, somebody invited me to a seminar, a coaching seminar, and really I thought it was that something kind of clicked with me. And I then started to investigate, you know, did my little research as to what it is, what it entails and if it's something that I felt that was aligned to me. And it was. And that's when I did my 18 month accreditation, which is like all of us that have been through the accreditation process, it was not easy. But, you know, I decided that that's where I was going to go and that's what I did. And I was really proud of myself when I completed it. And then after that, I thought that I would have gone back into maybe corporate as a coach and utilize my services that way. But then again, I just felt that I wanted the challenge of creating something for myself. And that's where Premier Coaching was born, really. And here I am. Charlie Warshawski (05:08.568) And hear you are, well, that's a beautiful potted history, isn't it? We could fit that all into one nice document or one nice bubble. we can hear about your enthusiasm for coaching. Let's not lose sight of BA for a little bit. I've got two questions that pop up for me. What brought you in there? and what was being a processed analyst like? And coaches, you'll know I just asked two questions at the same time, which is bad form. So answer one and then the other. What brought you into BA in the first place? Yeah. Julia (05:38.872) What started? Well, I was young and I wanted to travel and I always wanted to work for the airline. I always wanted to be an A students, would you believe? But I never was. I started as a senior secretary within there. And that came in, that came about, I will tell you, I used to temp. I got a diploma in business studies and I used to temp and I was in MFI, if everybody remembers MFI. And I worked for MFI, I did a temp in... Tempest State with them and I was working with a girl who wanted to work for British Caledonian as a stewardess and I said to her, all right, I won't mind working for BA, she goes, we'll ring them up. I said, well, I don't want to be a stewardess and I don't think I've got the figure for a stewardess. And she said to me, but they, but they, they need secretaries. I thought, yeah, maybe they do. And I rang them up and they did. And that's where it started. So I, so I went through the, the, process and that took me into British Airways then. But once you are there, you can have the opportunity to grow and move around. And I did, and I did various roles. I was an account exec. was, like I said, a process analyst. I retrained as a process analyst while I was there. And process analyst was about, it's all about change, really. It's like a change agent and business processes that you actually, in IT, you've got your, if you like, your technical guys that create and do a lot of automation. And you change the processes for the business itself, which I loved. in some ways I knew enough to understand what the technical guys needed and enough that I could explain it to the business. And then you map that process. You map that process so everybody can understand it and then build whatever services they need, the IT need. to support the business really. And I love that. That was really good. When you actually see it come together, I mean, like most things, sometimes we're going through it, can feel like you're trudging through three color a little bit, but when you actually see the product at the end or you see the way they utilize the actual product at the end, it's actually quite satisfying. So that was me. Charlie Warshawski (07:51.203) So, but it sounds interesting. Well, and you know, I'm always trying to make a correlation with coaching and it sounds like the idea of not being the expert, but sort of managing other experts around to be able to facilitate something and empowering other people sounds like this. There's some sort of commonalities. What would you say is a highlight of your time at BA? Julia (08:15.096) You know, that's a really interesting question. What was my highlight? I think my highlight was I was taught when I think about it n
