Philip Gimmack
Most organisations know their leaders and teams need stronger emotional intelligence but treat it as a soft add-on to “proper” development work. The result is predictable: escalating conflict at the senior level, poor retention of high performers, and change programmes that stall because the people inside them cannot regulate their own reactions under pressure. The gap is not one of concept but of measurement and method.
Philip Gimmack is an emotional intelligence coach and founder of EQworks who helps leaders and teams use measurable EQ practice to fix the communication, resilience and change problems that technical training leaves behind.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Philip Gimmack
- Twenty-five years spanning enterprise change management at Oracle, KPMG, Cap Gemini and Accenture, followed by a dedicated EQ practice since 2012, means he speaks to senior audiences from inside their vocabulary rather than imposing a coaching register on them.
- His proprietary assessments, the A.R.T. and the 6 Pillars of Resilience Model, turn EQ from an abstract virtue into something a leadership team can score, compare and improve across engagements.
- He holds two of the most widely used professional credentials in the field: certified NLP Psychotherapist (1998) and licensed EQ-i 2.0 practitioner, which gives HR buyers confidence that the underlying method is not bespoke invention.
- He is as comfortable in a 30-minute keynote as in a multi-day programme, which suits organisations that want the keynote to seed a larger capability build rather than stand alone.
- His writing on HR Zone gives HR and L&D audiences prior exposure to his argument before they put him in front of their own leaders.
Biography highlights
- Founder and CEO of EQworks, established 2012
- Designer of The A.R.T. (Advanced Relationship Skills) assessment and the 6 Pillars of Resilience Model
- Certified NLP Psychotherapist (1998); licensed EQ-i 2.0 and A.R.T. practitioner
- Twenty-five years in change management and leadership coaching
- Earlier career in management consulting at Oracle, KPMG, Cap Gemini and Accenture
- Contributor to HR Zone
Biography
The reason most leadership development programmes fail to move the needle is not that the models are weak. It is that the participants cannot regulate their own emotions well enough to apply the models when it matters. Philip Gimmack built EQworks in 2012 to close that specific gap, and his twenty-five-year career has been a progression toward the argument that emotional intelligence is the operating layer underneath every other leadership skill.
His route into the work was through enterprise change. Years as a management consultant at Oracle, KPMG, Cap Gemini and Accenture showed him that the repeatable failure point in transformation programmes was human rather than technical. The response was a deliberate shift into the behavioural disciplines: a certification as an NLP Psychotherapist in 1998, a professional coaching qualification, and licences to use the EQ-i 2.0 psychometric instrument.
EQworks gave him a platform to turn that toolkit into something organisations could deploy. The A.R.T., his Advanced Relationship Skills assessment, diagnoses communication and relationship dynamics in a way that is specific enough to coach against. The 6 Pillars of Resilience Model does the same for how leaders and teams absorb pressure. Both sit underneath the programmes he now runs with UK corporate clients.
Gimmack’s speaking style is built for the audiences he coaches: pragmatic, plain-spoken and framed in business rather than therapeutic terms. For HR directors, L&D leaders and executive teams looking for EQ content that will survive contact with a cynical senior audience, his proposition is a measurable method rather than a motivational message.
Key speaking topics
- Emotional intelligence in leadership
- Resilience and the 6 Pillars model
- Behaviour change and communication skills
- Change management from the people side
- EQ and diversity and inclusion
- Employee engagement and retention
Ideal for
- CHROs, HR directors and L&D leaders designing leadership development programmes with measurable behavioural outcomes
- Executive teams and senior leadership groups working on internal conflict, communication or change fatigue
- Corporate universities and in-house academies looking for EQ content that can scale across cohorts
- Industry conferences and HR forums requiring a practitioner voice on emotional intelligence
Audience outcomes
- A working understanding of what emotional intelligence actually is, measured through established psychometrics rather than intuition
- An introduction to the A.R.T. framework for understanding relationship and communication dynamics in teams
- Practical techniques from the 6 Pillars of Resilience Model that leaders can apply to themselves and their direct reports
- A clearer view of how EQ underpins change management, diversity and retention outcomes
Talks
An applied introduction to EQ grounded in psychometric measurement rather than inspirational framing.
Key takeaways:
- What EQ-i 2.0 and The A.R.T. actually measure and how those scores change under pressure
- The behaviours that distinguish emotionally intelligent leaders from technically competent ones
- A concrete starting point for improving EQ at individual and team level
A session built around the 6 Pillars of Resilience Model, on how leaders sustain judgment and relationships under prolonged pressure.
Key takeaways:
- The six pillars and how each contributes to individual and team resilience
- Common early indicators that one pillar is failing and needs specific attention
- Practical habits leaders can adopt without requiring workload change
A session on why emotional intelligence is the core leadership discipline rather than a supplementary skill.
Key takeaways:
- How EQ determines the quality of decisions, influence and team cohesion in senior roles
- Specific examples of leadership failures that are, at root, EQ failures
- Clear framing for HR and executive teams making the business case for EQ investment
An applied session for leaders running transformation programmes.
Key takeaways:
- Why change programmes consistently stall on emotional rather than rational resistance
- How to use EQ techniques to surface and work with the real objections in the room
- A practical sequence for running the people side of a change initiative
A session on the behavioural foundations of inclusion, rather than its structural or policy layers.
Key takeaways:
- The EQ behaviours that determine whether diverse teams actually function inclusively
- Common patterns that undermine inclusion in high-performing teams
- Specific techniques leaders can use to improve psychological safety