Horses helping to coach business leaders

Julia Jones, founder of Altezza People UK, has combined her 20 years of experience in psychometrics and corporate development with her passion for horses to offer experiential learning workshops for businesses, teams and individuals.

Julia, aged 51, hosts the workshops at Coppice Farm. She said: “I trained to become an equine facilitator, specifically for businesspeople, after having my own transformative experience just over eight years ago.

“It inspired me to offer homes to four horses from a charity to join the one I already owned and launch this business, so I can bring this powerful learning to my clients and community.

“Self care as we leave the pandemic is essential. Organisations are supported to recalibrate, and horses offer non-verbal cues that are easy to interpret. We also have a therapy dog on the team for extra support.”

The pandemic presented Julia with challenges, but thanks to Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce she has received mentoring, leads, training, grants, and access to free initiatives.

“The chamber helped me to get my business off the ground!” said Julia. “I’ve gained nine new clients. I’m supported by fantastic bookkeeping, accountancy, digital marketing, web hosting, printing, vets, farm owners, farrier, and equine supplies – all local.”

Julia recently won the South Staffordshire Business Award for allocating 50 per cent of the business’ revenue to supporting other local businesses.

Suraj Rana, director of Sole Legal Services, based at Trentham, helped Julia with terms of business documents and legal support. He said: “I wasn’t sure what to expect from the workshop, but it takes you outside the business environment and you stop thinking about business worries and begin considering how you can approach communication differently.”

Julia is an accredited equine facilitated learning practitioner with the Human-Equine Relational Development Institute. She has worked with a range of businesses in a variety of sectors.