I’m David Roche.
Welcome to Grey Area Coaching.
I work with first-time CEOs to ensure their success.
McKinsey estimates that $1 Trillion of market value is lost from S&P’s top 1500 companies every year as a result of poorly planned transitions for CEOs and C-Suite appointments. According to Harvard Business Review, four out of ten new CEOs don’t make it and are gone with 18 months.
Even the most outwardly confident new CEOs suffer doubts about themselves that restrict their ability to grow into their role. The 100 Day Plan clock starts ticking on day one and they think they need to have all the answers. The added pressure of stakeholders and teams who need guidance and effective nurturing can become debilitating for those who lack the tools to manage the critical relationships. It can be lonely at the top, but I believe that with the right support, the vast majority of first-time CEOs can grow into strong and capable leaders.
I use both coaching and mentoring in a tailored combination that utilises my 28 years’ experience as an award-winning Board Director, CEO, Chair, President, and professional coach and mentor. I convert new CEOs’ angst about their perceived lack of experience or skills into a strength, so they become successful, contemporary leaders with high emotional intelligence, who enjoy both their professional and personal life.
I believe passionately that professional, independent coaching and mentoring should be compulsory for every first-time CEO. It’s a relatively minor investment but with a major, long-term payback, both commercially and personally. This in turn shapes the next generation of leaders that the world needs.
Get in touch and find out more.
NEW BOOK OUT NOW
Become a Successful First-Time CEO by David Roche
“Not many business books can pull off being a genuine page-turner.”
The book that provides the help needed to boost your odds of success is out now and is an Amazon Number 1 Bestseller. You can purchase it HERE, HERE or HERE
Read the many interviews and articles around the book in the MEDIA/NEWS tab on this website.
David’s coaching sessions have had a profound impact on my life
Salma Ibrahim, Literary Natives
Why Grey Area Coaching?
Work takes up around a third of our lives and requires a level of enjoyment. Work is not just about having success and progressing, though that does make life easier, but learning to cope with our everyday routines. If you are in a rut, how do you motivate yourself to keep moving forward? If Sunday nights are your dread evenings then something is seriously wrong. Yet we have probably all been there and soldiered on regardless. Why? Because we don’t often take ownership of what happens to us and our career. We allow it to happen, instead of taking control.
How do you find the right support for you?
Not everyone fits the theoretical pigeonholes for coaching or mentoring precisely. Coaching is excellent for constructing innovative plans to achieve specific goals and exploring the reasons that may be holding you back. For other issues that require resolution, or relationships that need to be developed, mentoring can provide powerful support. Grey Area Coaching offers the most effective combination of both coaching and mentoring.
Through my experience gained over 28 years at senior board level, and my focus on developing people to become leaders themselves, I can see potential pitfalls and provide possible or alternative answers. I had a lot of success but also made occasional mistakes and learned the hard way; you can benefit from this experience from someone who has been there. I work with all my clients to define what it is they want and how they can achieve it, by challenging pre-conceived attitudes and limiting beliefs, and exploring their motivation. Grey Area Coaching provides the skilled use of powerful questioning that is essential to fully examine the issues at hand and enable you to own the plan that you are going to put into action.
The CEO Winner’s Circle:
People and relationships are the basis from which everything flows. Get these right, and all the processes, policies, pitches, partnerships, profile and strategy will follow. Grey Area Coaching focuses on these internal and external relationships while all the time focusing on the one constant: YOU.
The Process:
Grey Area Coaching and Mentoring will get you from your problems to your goals, removing the obstacles along the way.
Are you ready to be a CEO?
Our scorecard will help you find out
Do you know what areas you personally need to improve to be appointed and become a successful first-time CEO? In just three minutes, discover your rating, along with tangible action steps to improve your chances. We’re here to help you ace this first role and make it the launch pad for the rest of your career as a respected and inspirational leader.
Identify what you need to improve to succeed
his Scorecard has been designed to show fist-time and aspiring CEOs their blind spots and provide instant, actionable steps on how to improve.
- It takes just 3 minutes
- It’s completely free
- Receive customised results instantly
- Claim a free copy of my Amazon number one bestselling book Become a Successful First-Time CEO
TAKE THE QUIZ HERE
…and why all the diving photos?
I have been lucky enough to have scuba-dived at many beautiful locations around the world, and three years ago I enrolled in a freediving course to learn how to dive without an air tank. This was inspirational and worked as a result of a perfect blend of both coaching and mentoring. I definitely needed to be told what to do, but I also needed to have my limiting beliefs removed in order to imagine – and truly believe – that I actually could do it. Within three hours I was holding my breath underwater for three and a half minutes, and a day later I was freediving down to 22 metres. This result was, to me, staggering – even if it was, as I was told, fairly typical for people who go through the same course.
Grey Area Coaching offers this powerful blend of coaching and mentoring, and I can deliver staggering results too.
You not only have to want to change, you have to do something about it
David is a natural leader, listener and connector who genuinely wants people to perform to the best of their ability and he has the necessary expertise, experience, insight and networks to help them do so… an exceptional coach and mentor
Charlie Redmayne, CEO, HarperCollins Publishing
Grey Area Coaching services
David combines his accredited professional coaching and mentoring skills with both his degree in Psychology and the invaluable experience gained throughout a highly successful career in commercial, publishing and not-for-profit board roles. David continues his roles as Chair of three publishing related companies and has an extensive and well-connected network that he can call on.
This is a collaborative growth process: I listen without pre-conceptions, you grow and grow
A real source of inspiration and a fountain of advice and knowledge – in a month I’ve made more progress than I’ve made in a year
Julia Leckey, CEO, The Honest Brand
About me
I have been lucky enough to have enjoyed my career, and never more so than now.
I studied Psychology at Durham University and then worked for 20 years in retail, as Product Director at HMV and Waterstones, then as CEO at Borders and Books etc. I then joined HarperCollins Publishing as Group Sales and Marketing Director, and along the way also held the trade association office of President of The Booksellers Association of UK and Ireland. I was a Trustee of the largest book charity, BookTrust, for 7 years.
I now run Grey Area Coaching and David Roche Enterprises Ltd, through which I hold several non-exec directorships. I am Chair of The London Book Fair, Chair of writing agency New Writing North, and stood down in 2023 as Chair of the publishing industry digital news service BookBrunch. I lecture and mentor students at the National Film and Television School and give occasional masterclasses to Masters students in publishing or creative writing courses at various UK universities.
I have been operating on senior boards for 28 years and coaching and mentoring for most of that time. I became an accredited coach with The Coaching Academy in July 2020.
My second book, Become a Successful First-Time CEO, was published on 5th March 2024 by Rethink Press and is an Amazon #1 Bestseller.
There is no substitute for experience
Tough, bright, no-nonsense, and immensely likeable
Christine Martin, Co-CEO, The Pragmatiko Partnership
RECENT MEDIA ACTIVITY
What does it really take to succeed as a first-time CEO?
8 Jul 2025 Behind The Numbers With Dave Bookbinder Watch the podcast HERE. What does it really take to succeed as a first-time CEO? In this episode of Behind The Numbers With Dave Bookbinder, we're cutting through the theory and getting real about leadership at the...
Back to the Future at HMV
READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN BOOKBRUNCH:
“I always feel a bit better about everything, a bit better about myself, after I have a chat with him.”
“I always feel a bit better about everything, a bit better about myself, after I have a chat with him." Rory McIlroy on Bob Rotella, sports psychologist and coach https://www.golfmonthly.com/tour/who-is-bob-rotella-golf The combination of being a psychologist and a...
It is easy to see what other people should do, it is extremely difficult to apply this to our own situations
David’s knowledge and insights are vast, as are his network and connections
Linda Muir, LMA International
Contact Grey Area Coaching
Whatever your needs are, whether you would like help in achieving your goals, talking through your options, or gaining advice on where you can go next, I would love to have a conversation with you.
Please fill in the questions on this page to qualify for a limited FREE consultation so we can map out your needs and explore how I can help you become the CEO you dream of becoming.
I am based in Kingston upon Thames and I am happy to have consultations in person, online, or over the phone.
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