Nicky Moffat
Most organisations now ask their leaders to absorb continuous restructure, retain people through it, and still hit performance numbers. The leadership behaviours that worked in calmer years do not hold up under that load. The capability that does hold up is rarely taught and almost never modelled at the top.
Nicky Moffat CBE is a leadership advisor and former Brigadier who helps organisations build the leadership capability needed to hold teams together through sustained change.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Nicky Moffat
- Direct experience of leading 4,500 officers and soldiers at the Army Personnel Centre, giving her a practical authority on leadership at scale that few civilian speakers can match.
- A working definition of inclusive leadership built inside an institution where she was, for years, the only woman in the room at her level. Not a theoretical position.
- A track record of supporting ministerial decision-making during live operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, which translates into credibility with senior leaders facing high-stakes calls under public scrutiny.
- Story-led delivery grounded in named events and decisions, so the leadership argument lands as a worked example rather than a model on a slide.
Biography highlights
- Brigadier, British Army, 2009 to 2012; highest-ranking woman in the service during that period.
- Appointed CBE in the 2012 New Year Honours.
- Former military Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon.
- Named among BBC’s 100 Women in 2014.
- Primary instructor on BBC’s Secret Agent Selection: WW2 (2018), released on Netflix as Churchill’s Secret Agents: The New Recruits.
- Founder of What Good Leadership Looks Like, working with organisations in financial services, energy, law, healthcare, construction, transport and media.
Biography
Leading 4,500 people through continuous restructure tests every assumption a leader has about authority, communication and the limits of their own composure. Nicky Moffat did exactly that as the most senior woman the British Army had, running the Army Personnel Centre and serving as Brigadier from 2009 to 2012.
Her career before that was unusual in its proximity to live decisions. As military Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence, she was in the room as ministers made calls on operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, and during the UK’s Foot and Mouth response. That work shaped a view of leadership as something that has to function under public scrutiny, not in a workshop. She was appointed CBE in 2012.
Since leaving the Army she has built What Good Leadership Looks Like, a practice that works with senior teams in financial services, energy, law, healthcare, construction, transport and media. The work centres on a question most large organisations now have to answer: how do you keep a workforce engaged and performing through restructure after restructure? She approaches inclusion as part of the answer rather than a parallel conversation, having spent much of her own career as the only woman of her rank in the room.
She was named among BBC’s 100 Women in 2014 and was the primary instructor on the BBC series Secret Agent Selection: WW2, broadcast in 2018 and released internationally on Netflix as Churchill’s Secret Agents: The New Recruits.
Key speaking topics
- Inclusive leadership
- Leading through transformational change
- Building leadership culture at scale
- High-performing teams
- Career transition and self-leadership
- Women in senior leadership
Ideal for
- CEOs and executive committees holding the line through restructure
- CHROs and people directors rebuilding leadership benches
- Senior women’s networks and emerging leader programmes
- Boards and partnerships in financial services, energy, law, healthcare, construction, transport and media
Audience outcomes
- A sharper read on what inclusive leadership actually requires of senior leaders, beyond statements of intent
- Specific behaviours to keep teams engaged through repeated structural change
- A reference point for leading at scale drawn from inside one of the UK’s largest hierarchical institutions
- Practical language for the harder parts of senior leadership, including being the only one of your kind in the room
Talks
A working definition of leadership built from 27 years inside the British Army and a decade advising senior teams in business.
Key takeaways:
- The leadership behaviours that hold up when an organisation is under sustained pressure
- How to set a clear standard for leadership without retreating into competency frameworks
- What senior leaders owe their people, and what they cannot delegate
A practical session on holding a workforce together through restructure, drawing on her experience running the Army Personnel Centre.
Key takeaways:
- The communication discipline required when uncertainty is the operating condition
- How to keep performance and retention in view at the same time
- The leadership decisions that determine whether change lands or stalls
Inclusion treated as a leadership capability rather than a policy position, grounded in her own experience as the only woman at her rank.
Key takeaways:
- What inclusive leadership looks like as a daily practice, not an annual statement
- How senior leaders create the conditions for talent to surface
- The cost of getting this wrong at the top of an organisation