Darlene Harrison

Partner
Coach | Facilitator

My professional journey has spanned over two decades immersed in elite sport and high performance people roles across 3 systems in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.

I am passionate about developing and supporting leaders, teams and organisations to lead with integrity in complex environments. My work is focused on how leaders might become better equipped to lead with purpose, facilitate performance enablers, engage staff and teams and shape cultural change to deliver high performing, inclusive environments that meet the diverse and unique needs of their people.  I apply evidence based approaches, use impact measurement and have a deep interest in longitudinal investment in leadership development as a lever for transforming systems and people.

I have extensive experience in leading and managing high performing people. As a member of senior leadership teams, I have hands on experience of the challenges faced by these roles and an understanding of what it is like to work strategically as part of a bigger system, to lead and implement sustainable change, and to deliver outcomes. Most recently, I was a senior leader at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), where for over 10 years I worked with incredibly passionate professionals in sports, institutes of sport, government and private providers to take a strategic approach to the development of leadership capability and capacity in the Australian high performance system.  

I have led the design and delivery of customised learning and leadership solutions across Olympic and Paralympic sports and professional football codes, as well as government and education sectors. As the Head of Coaching at UK Sport my role focused on the identification and growth of home-grown talent resulting in over 40 new elite coaches selected for Team GB at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

I have Bachelor Degrees in Political Science (University of Canterbury) and Applied Science, Coaching (University of Canberra) and a Diploma in Fitness & Recreation Leadership (CIT). I am accredited in Hogans Profiling and apply these tools extensively in high performance sport, publishing a paper about this work in 2020 titled ‘Dark traits as a potential feature of leadership in the high-performance sports coach’.