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Some clients we've worked with and their testimonials

We are privileged to work with some of New Zealand’s most exciting businesses across all industries

Testimonials

Aimee Nicholls

Managing Partner, DRUM (PHD Group)

Frances is one of the most brilliant people I have worked with. She is warm, encouraging and supportive, but also knows when to balance it out with a bit of tough love. She kept me honest, she kept me challenged, and she kept me inspired. I have loved working with her over the last 9 months or so, and look forward to continuing to do so.

Sophie Dysart

Senior Marketing Manager, NZ at Afterpay

Frances is an incredibly switched on, professional, and personable career coach. Over 6 months, Frances has given me effective tools to manage my professional career, and align my focus on my goals and what is important to me right now. Thanks Frances, I have loved working with you and will continue to do so.

Christine Rogers

Director, Darling Digital

I cannot stress this enough - Frances is one of my favourite humans on the planet and has been pivotal to the success of my business in such a short amount of time. When you find someone who leads with their values, is 100% real and cares about you and your business as much as you do, you hold onto them.

Kate Williams

Senior Recruitment Consultant

The coaching I received from Frances exceeded already high expectations. She helped me formulate goals and guided me to understand how to achieve these. This sounds somewhat rudimentary but I would go as far as calling the experience transformative. Frances is professional yet approachable and is able to gain your trust and respect quickly. I will be recommending her to anyone looking for career based and executive coaching.

Maheesha Kottegoda

Web Product Manager, Digital Experience, Inland Revenue

Frances is a warm and pragmatic operator. When I have sought her advice, I have found her to have an impressive breadth of technical HR knowledge, coupled with an intuitive ability to apply it to gain the desired effect. 

​She is an authority in her field, adept at communicating and navigating complex scenarios. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her to my fellow leaders and close friends.

Bronda Smith

Business Strategist

Every now and again you come across those people that are so good at their job, it looks effortless and oh so natural. Frances is one of those people. She is a brilliant coach who gets the best out of you by asking the right questions and challenging your thinking. I highly recommend her and will be continuing with her on a permanent basis. Thanks Frances for being my guide in the last few months and in the future.

Becky Sharp

National Sales Manager, Consumer Health Care NZ, Sanofi

Frances prioritises understanding your values and goals so that every session is highly valuable. She works with you to develop relevant and simple action plans that will challenge your thinking and uncover motivating ‘gems of thought'.

When we reflected on what we achieved in 6 months, it as a phenomenal amount and accelerated the progression towards my goals.

Lucy S.

Senior Adviser, Communication, & Engagement / Kaitohutohu Matua at VOYCE Whakarongo Mai

Frances is a wonderfully empathetic, clever and pragmatic career coach. Her holistic approach to coaching is excellent, and you really do go on a journey of self-discovery both personally and professionally with her committed guidance and skillful mentoring. I am so grateful for the process that Frances took me on, her astute analysis and specific, tangible steps to navigate my professional future have been invaluable.

Cam Anderson

Senior Consultant, Business Transformation & IT

The real talent in a coach is their ability to relate to their students, changing their method so that it empowers the most significant learning experience for the student. I found Frances approach to be highly effective, absorbing a heap of new skills and having significant learning milestones during each session. Culminating into what has amounted to an entirely new collection of leadership skills that have proven invaluable overnight.

If you are fortunate enough to be offered coaching from Human Focus, I would highly encourage anyone to take advantage.

Jonathan Allan

Regional Manager, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare

Frances is a class act in every respect. I’ve known her for 12 years since our time together at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare until recently in her capacity as an executive coach at Human Focus Consultants. Frances is one of those rare people with whom every interaction is a joy. Always interested, engaged and fun. She’s a very astute HR practitioner, with a diverse range of experiences both locally and internationally.

 

At Human Focus Consulting, she’s helped me arrive at career decisions that will shape the remainder of my professional life. Following this I feel professionally reawakened with conviction on future direction and process steps to achieve this. I heartily recommend Frances and her team and will continue to seek her advice into the future

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Sarah Langford

Langford Gates

Our Company Langford Gates worked with Human Focus Consulting this year. Frances and Chris taught me personally so much in the time we worked together. They personalized everything to suit our business and supported us with what we needed. Road mapping every step. Not only the knowledge we received was beneficial but the resources and content they created for us was absolutely what we required. Five Star service, highly recommend.

Paul Gregory

Chief Operating Officer, Pie Funds Management

I asked Frances to work with members of my investment team to identify the strengths and weaknesses they bring to their responsibilities, and their lives in general, whether they’re aware of them or not. Frances then coached each member to create a development plan covering their professional and personal lives.

 

At work, this has resulted in clearer professional goals with associated clarity of role, career progression and development plans. Frances is a high-quality, emotionally intelligent coach and a top human to boot.

Lucy Fox

Group Account Director, Thrive

My experience with Human Focus Consulting was really brilliant. Being relatively new to the world of coaching Frances guided me through and helped me to uncover exactly what I needed to get out of our sessions together. Frances put structure around my career and personal life and gave me perspective on what I could achieve and when. I learnt things I didn't know about myself, how to channel my strengths and work on any weaknesses. And the advice and goal setting was practical and relevant - it was all about setting tasks that would actually help me take that next step, develop that team member, navigate business decisions, issues and ultimately be a more productive and resilient PR practitioner. I couldn't recommend  Frances and Human Focus Consulting more highly.

Victoria Harris

Co-Founder & Head of Finance of The Curve

I was definitely hesitant when I had my first coaching session with Frances. However, that hesitance was quickly dispelled. Frances was so warm, fresh and welcoming. She made every session so easy and conversational. 

 

Coaching with Frances has been an incredible experience. She helped me gain perspective on my current situation, discover what was truly important to me and guide me toward a feeling of success. We set (and achieved!) goals that I never would've been able to achieve without her motivation and assistance. It was such a worthwhile experience. I cannot recommend Frances and her services enough, especially if you feel like you need a bit of direction, more fulfillment or just an awesome person to chat to!

Chief Operating Officer

Medium sized NZ Organisation

Frances helped me to dig down and get a really good understanding of what success looked like for me personally.

It was great to get clear on my thoughts and purpose. She keeps the pressure on and creates an environment where you can trust her. It was really powerful.

Angela Wilton

International Development Director

Frances provided honest, strategic and insightful advice when I needed it. Her accessible and approachable style made it easy to explore the actual issues, look into areas of strength and identify quickly where there may be gaps. She followed up immediately with additional support. Frances marries professionalism with genuine concern and gets to the heart of what's needed.

Joseph Price

General Manager, Chemical Freight Services Ltd

Our business engaged Frances at Human Focus 18 months ago to support our existing HR function. We could not be more delighted with the value added to our business and the expertise made available to our Senior Management Team.

 

Frances has reviewed our HR function from end to end and provided a sense check and full compliance review as well as consulted on a number of contentious issues where we needed commercial advice externally. Frances is a trusted adviser to the Chemfreight Group of Companies.

Owen Gill

Chief Executive Officer, Infrastructure New Zealand

Frances is an outstanding personal adviser to general managers and CEOs, on HR. As a GM, I found her to be extraordinarily insightful on human motivation, both generally and down to individuals.

She also provides expert advice for senior people seeking bigger roles. Again, I found Frances to be exceptionally insightful and cogent. She has a direct, get-to-the-point style, which sharpens decision-making and ensures that details don't get in the way of the big picture.

Kimberly Coats

Client Relationship Manager, Pie Funds

Frances is amazing, she's a very intelligent woman who is also sharp, caring, professional and a joy to be around. Highly recommend reaching out to her and benefitting from her support, skill set and support.

Annemarie Mason

Managing Director, Kiara Cosmetics

As a small business owner, you are forced to wear many hats. HR and managing staff have never been my favourite and most issues I swept under the carpet until I started working with Frances. Frances has helped me to build confidence in managing my team. I always leave our meetings with a clear direction and solutions for any HR issues - highly recommend Human Focus/ Frances!

Tania Li

Engineer, Tektus

I would highly recommend working with Frances. It's tough feeling lost in your mid twenties and figuring out what you actually want to do for the next 40 years of your career. After going through 17 years of an extremely structured education system and working for four, Frances helped me figure out the next steps, what my passions are, and how to turn it into a career. She is kind and empathetic, but also direct and raw. I truly cannot recommend Frances enough!

John Curtin

Owner, Curtin Painters and Decorators Limited

Human focus Consulting were recommended to me to draw up my employment contracts, and as a small to medium painting business it was important that they were able to tailor the paperwork to my needs.


I found Audrey to be extremely knowledgeable and helpful with all my queries I am very happy with the end product and would highly recommend them.

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Kelly Corfield

Senior Business Analyst

As a career contractor working in high pressure project environments, coaching with Frances provides me with a safe, confidential and supportive setting to discuss challenges, issues and situations that I am facing in my professional life. Frances is an exceptional listener and has an ability to hone in on a single phrase or word to discuss further. Drilling deeper typically uncovers a mis-alignment with my own values and beliefs with those of a work situation or environment. Frances is able to recommend or suggest different perspectives to each situation and give practical advice around how to make positive changes. In some situations, we may role play the scenario and practice conversations and interactions. I respond particularly well to diagrams and Frances always knows exactly what to draw to illustrate points and insights during our coaching sessions.

 

Frances has a wealth of knowledge and resources available to her coaching clients and the materials Frances recommends during our sessions are relevant, helpful and insightful. The follow up activities, reading and assignments between coaching sessions help reinforce the theme of the coaching sessions and are a very valuable part of the coaching process.

 

For anyone interested in their own personal career development and taking ownership for their professional growth I highly recommend a series of coaching sessions with Frances to support and guide you.

Sophie Taylor

General Manager, Tiny Voices

I absolutely loved working with Frances, right from the start she was warm and approachable. Frances listened to what it was I was wanting to achieve, and custom built a plan for our group. Before the day, Frances was in touch a lot, to ensure I was happy with the path she was taking. Then on the day, Frances delivered an amazing piece for our group that was thought provoking and collaborative. Would love to use Frances and her team again in the future.

Ash Singh

Senior Product Manager, IAG insurance

Frances is an incredible coach. Before our first session, she took the time to understand what I was seeking from coaching and what I wanted to get out of it. Frances' insightful questions helped me identify my values, strengths and what is important to me. I appreciated her ability to listen actively and provide gentle but firm accountability.Over the last 6 months, Frances has supported me to develop a clear plan that aligns with my values and goals. Thanks to Frances' coaching, I'm feeling empowered and excited about the future of my career.

If you're looking for a supportive and insightful coach who can help you achieve your goals, I highly recommend Frances.

Pedro Silva

Transformational Operations Specialist

Frances Bearne from Human Focus Consulting is simply fantastic and amazing! I worked with Frances for several months, while planning my transition to a new and exciting role. Working with Frances was such a pleasure. She is insightful, pragmatic, and she really helped me see new perspectives and opportunities. Frances has a special gift that makes you feel listened to, while being able to provide an extremely insightful perspective. I felt I learned a lot about myself, and Frances helped me transition into my new role, while helping me create a long-term plan.

If you want to plan your next career move, reflect on next challenges, or just want to re-think your direction, Frances Bearne is the person to talk to. I felt privileged to know and work with Frances. She was a pleasure to work with and is my higher recommendation

Practice Manager, Sandhu Doctors

Frances and Chris at Human Focus Consulting were AMAZING during an HR crisis I was experiencing, as an employer. They were actively on the phone as things unfolded providing me with the right actions to take to protect the business. I'd never experienced that kind of situation before and Frances especially was so understanding of how distressing the situation was, and was not only practically supportive but also emotionally. They continued to check in on us in the weeks after the event and provide support. 10/10 service!

Kirsty Coates (nee Stanbridge)

Founder, BEETL Skincare

I first met Frances at an event where she was speaking. We instantly connected with her warm and welcoming nature. I have loved coaching with Frances, she has helped me to focus on what's important, identify my goals and provide me with the tools to be able to achieve them. It's only been six months and I have seen vast growth both personally and professionally.

After each session, I feel positive, motivated and have clear direction! I can't recommend Frances enough! I am constantly raving about her to all my friends, family and work colleagues.

Bernadette Sharkey-Burns

Principal Consultant, Momentum Consulting Group

I had the pleasure of working with Frances, and I can confidently say her guidance and support were nothing short of transformative. She gave me the courage I didn’t know I had and helped me unlock my full potential. Her insightful coaching brought clarity, focus, and confidence to my career journey, enabling me to move forward with a renewed sense of purpose.


I will always be deeply grateful for her positive influence, and without hesitation, I highly recommend Frances to anyone looking to elevate their professional life. She is the first person I’ll turn to for guidance in the future. Anyone fortunate enough to work with Frances will not only benefit from her exceptional expertise but also from her kindness and genuine investment in their success. I am truly thankful to have met her.

Mark Andrews

Project Director, Casa NZ & Surface NZ

As a small business with steady growth, Frances has helped with strategic advice & Management plans helping the growth of my business with out standing results every time. Our face to face meetings help me gain back my motivation & what ever roadblocks occurred over the month.

She has helped with my personal growth in life as well as my business. With her guidance and knowledge i believe my business would not be where it is today.

I would highly recommend Frances for any professional career coaching.

Hannah Porter

Director, Bear & Moo

Frances is an absolute superstar. She is so easy to work with and relatable and has helped me grow as a business owner, and helped our team with defining their roles and responsibilities. I'm continuing an ongoing relationship with Frances because she is just so valuable to me and the business. Couldn't recommend her highly enough!

Executive Contractor & Consultant

Frances' support as a career coach has allowed me to take a breath and reset. She helped me make changes professionally that have already paid off. It has been transformational and I am on a much clearer and more strategic path. I sincerely thank Frances for her time, energy and commitment.

Samantha Foster

Hear Again

I've had numerous exceptional experiences with Human Focus. The team consistently provides insightful and customised advice that significantly benefits our organisation. Their expertise in HR practices, coupled with their dedication to understanding our specific needs, truly sets them apart. I highly recommend their services to any company seeking professional HR guidance.

CEO

PRINZ have had the pleasure of working with Frances in delivering a session for our members. The feedback was exclusively positive including comments such as "I would love to see more of her workshops" and "liked the focus on soft skills". We look forward to working with Frances again in the future

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