DIRECTOR / FOUNDER

As a creative mojo coach, author, creative thinking & enterprise educator…

Anna stands out because she genuinely understands others and has a wide range of creative skills, including coaching, mentoring, and mindfulness. When you work with Anna, you're choosing someone who can truly inspire creativity and help you achieve long-term success.

Socially engaged leader, educator, author, coach, artist, & community engagement practitioner. Speaker & podcaster. Clinical solution-focused hypnotherapist & psychotherapist, certified MHFA.

Anna has run a freelance consultancy since 2003, and Open To Create... since 2006. 

She is a qualified creativity & leadership coach through The Cultural Leadership Programme since 2010 and a Member of the Institute for Enterprise and Entrepreneurs (MIoEE).

She has worked with over 10,000 people taking their first steps into personal and leadership development to improve their lives.

She knows what a tentative journey this can be as she has been working on her own development for over 30 years through therapy, personal development through communities such as Tony Robbins, Launchpad, and More To Life.

Anna has delivered a number of significant community ‘firsts’:

• First crowdfunded People’s Millions Lottery Funding for Malborough, Wiltshire

• First community arts exhibition at the London Transport Museum

• First London-wide Arts and Mental Health Festival with Mental Health Foundation

• First disabled young people-led arts exhibition at Hackney Museum

• First Disabled Access Day at Hackney Museum

#femalefirsts

She talks on topics including:

• Arts & community building

• Authenticity in business

• Creative and cultural leadership

• Creative Freelancing #thefreelancerway

• Emotional Intelligence

• Sustaining a career in the Creative industries

She has designed and delivered workshops on:

• Coaching Communication skills

• Creative Networking

• Creative Thinking

• Giving Your Business the green light

• Pitching & presentation

• Self esteem enhancement

• Wellbeing in the workplace

If you are a creative, business owner, or academic feeling creatively blocked, burned out, or struggling with your well-being?

I understand because I've been there too. Whether it's creative tension, imposter syndrome, caregiving responsibilities, or the challenges of entrepreneurship, I've faced them all. But I've learned from top thought leaders in creativity, mental health, entrepreneurship, and self-education, and I've developed a unique toolkit to help you go from blocked and burned out to bold and balanced brilliance.

I use creative thinking, games, and playful tools from my background as an artist and youth worker. I also bring in active listening, brain science, and solution-focused coaching skills from my experience as a hypnotherapist and psychotherapist.

Plus, I incorporate design thinking and agile tools from my entrepreneurship and business training background. I even offer embodied practices like mindful walking and relaxation sessions for holistic recovery.

And if you're struggling with public speaking, I can help there too, drawing from my own journey of overcoming fear and becoming a confident speaker.

Let's have a conversation to shift you from feeling 'broken' to taking control of your life and creativity.

“Over the Summer, and facilitated by a paid internship opportunity with LCR Graduate Futures, I had an incredible opportunity to work alongside Anna. She invited me into and opened her world up to me with a profound generosity. This sense of inclusion, belonging and support radiated throughout the project as she introduced me to her network and facilitated transformative experiences with the likes of Liverpool Business School, Marketing Liverpool, Big Help Project and Liverpool Knowledge Quarter.
Anna consistently demonstrated humility, passion, creativity and importantly how these personal attributes can coexist with professional, socially engaged business practice. From our first email exchange, I was aware of Anna’s perspicacious and empathetic nature. Her ability to listen and communicate ideas, processes and systems thoroughly yet accessibly was pivotal in numerous interactions between us and with others. She has a way of injecting energy, rigour and authenticity into the information and experiences she conveys.
Together, we explored new ideas through independent and collaborative research, but it was Anna's adept signposting to learning and networking opportunities that truly fuelled our individual and collective growth. What is evident and ever present are Anna's excitement for expanding her mind and awareness, whether it be health, tech, art or neuroscience she seamlessly integrates information into her practice adopting a critical yet enthusiastic lens. The tangible impacts of this internship include ‘Feed Your Creativity’ a mindful colouring-in book produced with The Big Help Project, a co-designed lecture/seminar/toolkit we facilitated for the Liverpool Business School and an updated website, but the intangible and invaluable impacts are vast too.
I am so grateful for Anna's mentorship and support throughout these endeavours and for the opportunity to have worked alongside someone with such dedication, creativity, and a genuine commitment to making a positive impact. I recommend Anna for her outstanding leadership and the enriching experiences she brings to any collaborative project. I am looking forward to working with Anna in the future, watching her grow and what she will do next...” December 2023

— Grace Belcher