about
SONIA JACKSON - Executive Coach.
As a Certified Senior Professional Career Coach, whether you're a C-suite or a young adult, I want to help unlock your fullest potential, uncover self-confidence, ditch pre-conceived barriers and widen career prospects. A shifting mindset and coaching are small but important steps to seeing more people reaching their potential, in Japan and around the world.
As an executive career coach, entrepreneur and writer I have years of experience in senior roles in Asia, Europe and Latin America in National Geographic, News Corporation, Fox Broadcasting Group and Unilever. I've co-launched my own design-tech start up - iroco.com - providing designer furniture to some of the biggest brands in the region for events or contract sales, like the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the Rugby World Cup Japan 2019, HK Art Basel and the IMF.
And as a coach I've placed people in roles in Tokyo, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Milan, London, Toronto and Singapore. It's my greatest joy helping people find their purpose.
I'm a Board Member of the Royal Geographical Society Asia, a member of the Special Advisory Committee of the British School of Tokyo, Japan and a Team GB Tokyo 2020 Olympic Ambassador.
Unlocking the power of women as agents of change.
Born in Lisbon, and brought up in Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Chile and England, I was a global citizen from a young age. I spent much of my youth feeding my adventure, exploration and photography lust with research projects in the Amazon rainforest, climbs up Mt Kilimanjaro, and travels through Latin America and Africa. I started my career at Unilever in London but made sure I was able to fulfil my wanderlust spending many a remote weekend off the beaten track in Central and South America whilst covering the Latin American region. I then sought out my ideal job and was lucky enough to get it - I joined News Corporation with responsibilities for National Geographic and Fox, my dream job, which based me in London, Madrid, Lisbon, Sao Paulo, Tokyo and Hong Kong. I worked with talented photographers and film-makers, on educational and conservation projects, and together with my team we built the National Geographic brand globally. I became a board member for the Royal Geographical Society and this is when I realised I had found my ikigai though I didn't know it yet. It just felt great.
I became interested in the happiness that I saw when travelling through developing nations, the utter contentment in individuals, versus the comparable lack of fulfilment that was often present in the developed world. And I coached many individuals, groups, distributors and panels and always loved helping people find exactly what they should be doing. So I started looking further into the concept of ikigai.
Now living in Tokyo , I co-run IROCO.com bringing 45+ European designer brands within reach of architects and interior designers in Asia. And I coach corporates and individuals on career choices and how to hook that ideal job. And I love my clients.
And most importantly, I spend my spare time exploring Japan’s rural and remote areas with my husband and children fulfilling my photography and writing passions, getting out into the great outdoors, and helping people find their purpose.
Check out my full profile on Linked in.
MoRE ABOUT SONIA
take me there!
Coaching has long been considered one of the most transformative learning interventions. Research shows that women gain a host of benefits from working with a coach. According to the Global Consumer Awareness Study commissioned by the International Coach Federation (ICF), the goals that women bring to coaching include maximising work performance, increasing self-confidence, widening career opportunities and managing a work and life balance.
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One piece of advice for anyone out there trying to achieve the impossible and figure out their entire career in one moment - don't. The best way to take on that question is to realize it's going to be an ongoing process and, most importantly, an ongoing conversation with not just your family, friends, spouse or coach but with yourself.
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According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai—a reason for living. And according to the residents of the Japanese village with the world’s longest-living people, finding it is the key to a happier and longer life. Having a strong sense of ikigai—the place where passion, mission, vocation, and profession intersect—means that each day is infused with meaning. It’s the reason we get up in the morning. It’s also the reason many Japanese never really retire (in fact there’s no word in Japanese that means retire in the sense it does in English): They remain active and work at what they enjoy, because they’ve found a real purpose in life—the happiness of always being busy.
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Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life
CONFUCIUS
