I’m Rosie, I help established design consultants attract better clients without diluting their creativity. Here’s how I got here…
After managing 40+ freelancers at a time, working with 30+ brands and over 100 buyers across the global retail industry - I searched everywhere for a coach who truly understood how this business works. I couldn’t find one. So I became her.
Now I help established design consultants become the ‘go-to authority in their niche - without shouting, shrinking, or selling themselves short.
me & making…
I grew up with my mum on a small holding in a quiet Yorkshire village - making bread, feeding chickens, painting on scraps, and stitching stories in my mind.
She made most of my clothes by hand - thrifty, tactile, always beautiful.
She gave me curiosity. Kindness. Creativity that never needed permission.
Living with her wasn’t always easy.
But her influence runs deep - in my love of textiles, my eye for quality, and the belief that creativity isn’t decoration.
It’s how I’ve always made sense of the world.
It still is.
me & my career…
At 11, I decided I wanted to be a fashion designer.
So I became one.
It was the acid house 80s - when manufacturing, music, and retail were shifting fast. Adaptability wasn’t optional. It was the job.
I arrived at my first role expecting to design apparel. Instead, I found myself creating graphics, working alongside typographers, and falling in love with surface pattern.
That unexpected turn shaped everything.
Graphic language became a second skin - and it carried me through a curious, varied career that never fit inside one box.
My mission was simple: Learn how things are made.
All of it.
Not just the creative - but the costing, the cloth, the suppliers, the systems.
I spent a decade with factories in the North of England doing exactly that.
But the real highlight?
Coaching graduates as a design manager — and watching them grow into the kind of creative consultants I now work with today.
That part stuck.
KIND WORDS
“You've help me create clarity that I've failed to initiate for months. And I'm usually self-motivated and good at creating vision. But a few months of terrible clients and being in lockdown for so long have made me very short-sighted. Thank you for shining light on areas that I need to focus on.”
— MABLE TAN, MABLE TAN DESIGNS
a twist of fate…
I went freelance in 2005 - newly redundant (again), pregnant with my second child, and finally forced into the decision I’d been circling for years.
It was a twist of fate.
My dream of working for myself became real.
I designed for some of the world’s biggest retail brands - while raising my daughter and running the day-to-day of a young family.
And as I worked, I noticed what no one seemed to name: An industry built by women, run by women - that made no space for women.
I saw designers shredded in meetings, left in tears, and expected to perform again the next day.
No wellbeing. No flexibility. No care.
And without realising it, I became the one people came to.
For perspective. For clarity. For a different way to lead.
Buyers, designers, product developers - I mentored them informally for years. Then one day, I got a message on LinkedIn:
“You’re seen as an expert in your field. Would you consider strategic mentoring?”
That one sentence cracked something open.
Helping creatives rise made my heart lift - and I’ve never looked back.
KIND WORDS
“You have been a huge source of help and encouragement over the years. I remember when I first met you thinking “she’s a tough nut”, but I couldn’t have been more wrong really. You are so kind and thoughtful and you have really inspired me to succeed.”
— ELISE | CREATIVE BUSINESS OWNER
deep in thought…
The beautiful house.
A successful career.
Two children I adored.
A second home in the sun.
It looked like everything had worked.
But something was off.
I was tired of churning out products that were more about profit than meaning.
Tired of the hamster wheel.
Tired of being brilliant behind the scenes.
And I didn’t know how to get seen outside my network.
I tried government marketing support - but they didn’t understand creativity.
I hired business coaches - but none of them spoke the language of fashion, or the pace of retail, or the nuance of a creative mind.
Then, right after landing my highest-paid design project ever, it hit me.
I should’ve felt proud. But my heart sank.
I’d fallen out of love with the business I’d spent my whole life building.
a new mission…
In 2020, I signed up for the Courageous Living Coaching Certification - an ICF-accredited program led by Kate Swoboda, author of The Courage Habit.
I was terrified. Terrified to invest that much in coaching, in a marketing diploma, in myself.
But I’m so glad I did — because it changed everything.
I began coaching surface pattern designers, footwear specialists, nursery product experts, fashion creatives.
All of them wildly skilled. All of them rebels.
All of them trying to do business differently.
They wanted to grow - but not by shouting, shrinking, or second-guessing their value. They wanted better clients, better boundaries, and a business that felt like theirs.
And I got it.
Because I’d lived both sides:
The creative and the commercial.
The art and the business.
The brilliance and the burnout.
I knew what it was like to be insanely talented - but still unclear on how to position that talent in a way that gets recognised.
That’s when it clicked.
That’s when I realised where I was meant to be - beside the creatives ready to lead.
And that became the new mission: To be the strategic business coach I couldn’t find.
what my clients are saying
“Rosie really helped me get out of my own head. I have a lot more confidence in myself, not only as a designer, but also in terms of how I communicate with people and how I work with clients. I started from zero clients, and now I have five.”
— Jessica Bucci, DESIGN CONSULTANT
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF I’M THE RIGHT COACH FOR YOU?