Howarth Bishopp
Coaching CTOs through the shift to strategic executive.
Howarth Bishopp works with purpose driven companies to develop world-class leaders. The organisations we work with care deeply about their people, recognising that they are their greatest asset and invest in their leaders to create an environment where everyone can thrive and innovate.
Howarth Bishopp is a combination of family names from Ben's ancestors, representing the beliefs and values that have shaped him, and continue to shape the company.
Our Coaching Philosophy
Our coaching philosophy is what sets us apart from many others:
We strongly believes that context shapes who a person is, and that they can choose to shape their context. While many coaches treat context as a second-class citizen and focus on mindset, we treat both as equally important.
We also believe that coaching is far more valuable and powerful when the relationship is an active partnership. Many coaches attempt to manage themselves into neutrality and act only as a mirror. Instead, your coach thinks alongside you, not for you, but with you to help uncover blindspots and surface patterns that you don’t see.
About Ben Cook
Ben is a Cambridge Certified and Association for Coaching Accredited Executive Coach, with an MBA specialising in strategy. He’s also a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Manager, and Fellow of the CMI.
With more than a decade of experience in Engineering & Technology, including senior leadership positions at Siemens & Redgate, Ben’s approach to coaching is grounded in real-world experience and he commits to only use evidence based approaches.
Helping others develop their leadership is core to who Ben is. Alongside his work at Howarth Bishopp, he's a scout leader, helping younger generations develop self and team leadership skills that are hard to build at home and school. He also volunteers for the Institute of Engineering and Technology as a Professional Registration Advisor, helping engineers prepare to apply for chartership.
I used to prioritise getting things done as quickly as possible, treating relationships as a means to an end rather than something worth investing in for their own sake. Ben helped me see that the outcomes I cared about most, the strategic ones, couldn't be rushed. They needed genuine human connection and reciprocity to succeed, built over time rather than transacted in the moment. That shift changed how I show up with my team, my peers, and my board. I listen more, I'm more present in conversations, and people respond to me differently as a result. It's reshaped not just how I lead as a CTO, but how I communicate day to day.
Products and services
Psychologically Informed Coaching Skills for Leaders
Special Offer: 10% off training for Cambridge Network Members until 31st October 2026
Many corporate coach training providers teach models, listening, and question-asking. These are all important but scratch the surface of what coaching is and neglect to support the development of fundamental abilities such as creating a safe holding container, congruence, and psychological mindedness. In addition, training often lacks sufficient experiential learning of doing coaching and being coached in a learning environment that support participants in developing confidence and proficiency.
What We Can Offer
Coach training from a professionally registered practitioner and University of Cambridge trained Coach who alongside practice, continues to stay connected to the academic side through the university.
Training that addresses these shortcomings and goes beyond models to enable participants in leadership roles to become coach-like. Each coaching practice session listed below consists of 1 hour of coaching, 1 hour of being coached, and 1 hour of observing, totalling to 4 hours of each over the extended programme.
This offering can be adapted to suit your organisation’s unique context.
Core Programme
Day 1: Introduction to coaching as a leader, safe practice, and core skills – Empathy, listening, questioning, and building a strong coaching relationship.
Day 2: Coaching models & practice.
Day 3: Person-centred coaching & practice.
Learning outcomes:
Ability to define coaching and distinguish it ethically from other practices.
Able to and understand the importance of creating a working agreement prior to coaching.
Understand deep listening and begin to practice it.
Understanding of the coach’s role in creating the coaching container and able to hold a space for exploration.
Ability to apply coaching models to guide dialogue towards awareness and discovery.
Understand the role of awareness and develop the ability to raise it in others.
Understand the core conditions of person-centred coaching and apply them in coaching.
£5000 at your office, up to 12 delegates.
Extended Programme
Day 4: Systems approaches & practice.
Day 5: Positive psychology, Gestalt & practice.
Learning outcomes:
Understand multiple systems-theory-based approaches and use these in coaching.
Understand the role of values and strengths discovery in coaching and use these in coaching.
Understand the role of positive emotions and experience in coaching and use these in coaching.
Understand the cycle of experience and use this to facilitate here-and-now exploration.
Understand the paradox of change and its implications for working with awareness.
£5000 at your office, up to 12 delegates.
Support Embedding
Monthly small groups of 2-3 people to provide support in making coaching a lasting habit. 1 hour per month over 6 months for participants to share in confidence their challenges and successes with implementing coaching in their leadership style.
£500 per group per month.
About Us
Howarth Bishopp is a leadership development and executive coaching practice helping develop great leaders. Founder Ben Cook grew up in a family business before a career in engineering leadership. He trained as an Executive Coach at the University of Cambridge, holds an MBA and is a chartered engineer and chartered fellow of the chartered management institute.
Contact Ben at [email protected] to arrange a strictly confidential conversation about how we can help you.
Resident Coach
Special offer: 1 year 15% discount for Cambridge Network members who buy before October 31st 2026.
An external coach, in-house on a day rate.
While many leaders receive coach training to enable them to use some basic coaching skills in 1:1s, their role and skill level precludes them from being truly coach-like and offering the full power of coaching to those they lead.
Barriers to effective coaching for leaders
Leaders cannot maintain a non-judgemental stance and separate coaching conversations from their assessment of performance. As a result, confidentiality is not absolute and coachee’s worry what is shared in coaching with their manager may have negative consequences. Apart from individual coachee factors, evidence shows the coaching relationship is the single biggest determining factor of a successful coaching engagement. Confidentiality is key to the success of the relationship.
The solutions-focused approaches leaders are often trained in (e.g., GROW) provide surface level support. Value from coaching comes from a deeper level of work that requires a coach that is appropriately trained in psychologically informed and systemic approaches.
What We Can Offer
Whole-day resident coach packages.
How it works:
You get an expert coach join you for a day at a time 9am – 5pm.
Individuals can sign up for coaching; their managers can also suggest they sign up.
A programme of 1:1 coaching is typically 6 sessions (monthly) plus a chemistry session and a two- or three-way contracting session to agree on outcomes.
Coaching sessions and contracting sessions are 60 mins; chemistry sessions are 30 mins.
You can buy up to 5 days per month.
Packages:
Up to 2 days per month: £1200 per day
3-5 days per month: £1000 per day
About Us
Howarth Bishopp is a leadership development and executive coaching practice helping develop great leaders. Founder Ben Cook grew up in a family business before a career in engineering leadership at Siemens, Mathworks, and Redgate. He trained as an Executive Coach at the University of Cambridge, holds an MBA and is a chartered engineer and chartered fellow of the chartered management institute.
Contact Ben at [email protected] to arrange a strictly confidential conversation about how we can help you.
CTO Coaching
Many CTOs in startups and scaleups are technically brilliant but are yet to make the shift into behaving like an executive. In the early days this is what was needed, they managed an engineering department with a handful of engineers in and understood the codebase inside-out.
But this doesn't scale.
As the company grows, it needs a CTO that creates the conditions for teams to take ownership, co-operate affectively, and deliver high quality valuable products to customers. Engineering needs to shift from relying on the CTO for help writing the code, to believing in their strategic vision. The CTO needs to speak the same language as the rest of the exec team and the board, focusing on customer value enabled through technology over technical jargon.
If this sounds like your CTO, email [email protected] for a discrete, confidential discussion.