As a six-year-old, Linda Stephens was once told to sit down and stop showing off. It was a fleeting remark, delivered without ceremony, but it stayed with her. Like many early messages, it carried an unspoken lesson about visibility, restraint, and the perceived risk of standing out. Years later, Linda would hear echoes of that same hesitation in boardrooms and leadership teams across the world. Highly capable leaders, intelligent and experienced, choosing silence at moments when their voice could have changed the conversation.
Today, Linda Stephens has built a career around helping leaders do the opposite. As Founder and Managing Director of Cobalt Red Executive Coaching, she works with the most senior leaders in business to help them speak with clarity, lead with intention, and act with courage when it matters most. Her work is not about charisma or performance. It is about presence. It is about helping leaders reconnect with their values and make decisions that align with who they are, not just what is expected of them.
A Leadership Philosophy Shaped by Voice and Presence
Linda’s coaching philosophy is grounded in a simple but demanding belief. Leadership is not defined by title or authority, but by the willingness to take responsibility for impact. Silence, she often observes, is rarely neutral. When leaders choose not to speak, they are still shaping outcomes, often in ways they did not intend. Helping leaders recognize this, and act differently, has become a defining thread in her work.
This focus on voice and presence did not emerge by accident. It is the result of a lifetime of observation, experience, and reflection, beginning long before her formal leadership roles and continuing through decades of work in complex, high-pressure environments.
Work Ethic, Curiosity, and Early Influence
Linda grew up in Manchester in the northwest of England, a city built on industry, commerce, and an uncompromising work ethic. The physical legacy of cotton mills and factories was still visible, but more enduring was the mindset. Hard work was expected. Commitment mattered. Results were earned, not assumed.
She attended an all-girls grammar school where academic performance was paramount and expectations were clear. The message from parents and teachers alike was consistent. Effort would be rewarded. These years instilled discipline and focus, but they were balanced by time spent with her maternal grandparents in Lancaster, where a different model of influence was on display.
Her grandfather, Jim Pye, rose to become President of the John O’Gaunt Rowing Club, his name recorded among figures of national prominence. Her grandmother, Mollie, became Nurse Superintendent of St John’s Ambulance and was formally recognized for her service at Buckingham Palace. From them, Linda learned that leadership could be purposeful, service-oriented, and quietly resolute. Courage and determination were not announced. They were lived.
At fifteen, Linda took her first job working Saturdays in a local pharmacy, earning just over one pound an hour. It was a modest start, but it set the direction for what followed. Pharmacy taught her precision, responsibility, and the importance of getting things right when the consequences mattered. These lessons would stay with her throughout her career.
From Healthcare and Global Leadership to Coaching
Linda trained as a pharmacist and went on to build a substantial career across both the private and public sectors. She spent more than two decades at GSK, progressing into Global Director roles and leading high-performing, cross-functional, multinational teams. Her work demanded strategic judgment, influence without authority, and the ability to navigate complexity across cultures and markets.
Earlier in her career, Linda served as a Clinical Director in the NHS, managing more than three hundred people and a thirty-million-pound budget. This role placed her at the intersection of science, leadership, and human behavior, shaping her understanding of responsibility, decision-making, and the human impact of leadership long before her move into global corporate roles. Technical expertise was essential, but it was never sufficient. The leaders who created sustained impact were those who could think clearly under pressure, question assumptions, and bring others with them through uncertainty.
In 1994, Linda completed her MBA at Loughborough University, strengthening her commercial and strategic perspective. Over time, her interest shifted increasingly toward the internal dynamics of leadership. How decisions were shaped. How confidence faltered. How capable leaders talked themselves out of speaking up. Coaching offered a way to address these questions directly.
From Authority to Influence
Linda’s transition into coaching marked a shift from positional authority to relational influence. Rather than directing outcomes, she became focused on creating the conditions in which better thinking could emerge. This distinction would become central to her work and to the culture she built at Cobalt Red.
Creating Space for Courage, Clarity, and Change
Founded in 2019, Cobalt Red was deliberately positioned as a peer to peer partnership rather than a prescriptive intervention. Linda is an ICF accredited executive coach at PCC level, with close to one thousand hours of coaching experience. Clients set the agenda. Her role is to challenge, listen, and support them as they work through complex decisions and transitions.
The name Cobalt Red references the Stroop Effect, a cognitive phenomenon that illustrates how the brain slows down when processing conflicting information. For Linda, it is a powerful metaphor for leadership. Senior leaders operate in environments filled with competing demands, expectations, and narratives. Coaching helps them pause, recognize the interference, and see their situation more clearly.
Her clients span a wide range of industries and geographies, including organizations such as Jaguar Land Rover, E.ON, BT Group, National Grid, AstraZeneca, and De Beers. Across sectors, the challenges are different, but the underlying needs are strikingly similar. Leaders want clarity. They want to be heard. They want to act with confidence and integrity in environments that do not always make space for either.
Clients consistently describe Linda’s coaching as both stretching and supportive. One senior executive spoke of leaving each session with renewed confidence and a clear plan during a turbulent period at work. Another reflected on her ability to combine warmth, professionalism, and challenge in a way that led to genuine transformation. These outcomes are not incidental. They reflect a disciplined coaching approach rooted in accountability, self awareness, and courage.
An integral part of Linda’s impact lies beyond commercial engagements. From the outset, she committed to a one in four pro bono model, coaching one non paying client for every four paying clients. Much of this work has been with alumni of the African Leadership Academy. To date, Linda has delivered more than two hundred pro bono coaching sessions to over fifty alumni, many of whom go on to study at Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford before returning to leadership roles across Africa and beyond. For Linda, this is a deliberate leadership choice, not an adjunct to her work.
Voice, Values, and the Courage to Speak
Linda’s public reflections mirror the themes that run through her coaching. She writes openly about purpose, presence, and the cost of staying silent. She challenges the idea that leadership must be loud to be effective, arguing instead for intentional action rooted in values.
Her advice to younger generations is direct. If you sit in a meeting without saying a word, what are you silently agreeing to. Confidence, she believes, is built through action, not by waiting for fear to disappear. Fear is not a signal to stop. It is a sign that something meaningful is at stake.
A quote that resonates deeply with Linda comes from Brené Brown. “I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.” For Linda, this captures both her philosophy and her personal journey. Courage is choosing to try rather than walking away. It is helping clients confront self-limiting beliefs and uncover answers that are already within reach.
Vision for the Future
Today, Linda Stephens continues to work with senior leaders navigating complexity, transition, and growth. Her focus remains on depth rather than scale, on sustained change rather than quick solutions. Through Cobalt Red, she is shaping a model of executive coaching that values reflection as much as action and integrity as much as achievement.
Her legacy is not measured by titles, but by the leaders who leave her coaching more grounded, more confident, and more willing to use their voice with purpose. In a world that often rewards speed and certainty, Linda Stephens stands for something quieter and more enduring. The courage to show up, to speak with intention, and to shape what comes next.
Editorial Note
Linda Stephens’ story is a reminder that leadership is not about volume or visibility. It is about responsibility, presence, and the courage to act when it matters most. As organizations face increasing complexity, her work challenges leaders to pause, reflect, and choose their voice deliberately. The question she leaves us with is simple. When the moment comes, will you stay silent, or will you choose to speak.
