About Matthew Dashper-Hughes

Matthew Dashper-Hughes Executive Coach & Coaching Supervisor

Level 7 Qualified in Coaching, Coaching Supervision, and Non-Executive Directorship

Qualifications in Sales, Commercial and Business Development Coaching

Accredited DiSC Psychometric Practitioner

Qualifications in Solution Focused Therapy Approaches

Member, ILM · Adherent to the Global Code of Ethics for Coaches, Mentors and Supervisors (EMCC Global and co-signatories)

About Me

Psychological Depth.
Commercial Realism.

I run Corryvreckan Consulting – a practice built on twenty-five years of senior commercial leadership and a straightforward belief that the people and organisations that invest seriously in themselves are the ones that grow.

The work spans four things: one-to-one coaching for senior professionals, business owners and leaders who are navigating growth, transition or change; coaching supervision for practising coaches and mentors who want a reflective, professionally challenging space for their own development; leadership and management training for organisations that want to build capability in a systematic, diagnostic way; and commercial consultancy for founders and businesses at significant inflection points.

What ties those four things together is a conviction that most of the problems worth solving – in leadership, in business, in teams – are problems of thinking and behaviour, not just strategy or skill. The strategy is usually available. What gets in the way is the quality of the conversation, the clarity of the thinking, and the willingness to face the thing that is actually happening rather than the more comfortable version of it.

That is not a comfortable thing to offer, and it is not always a comfortable thing to receive. But it is what I think people deserve from someone they are trusting with the things that genuinely matter to them. I try to be consistently honest, consistently warm, and consistently focused on what is actually useful.

Clients tell me they value the fact that I sit in both worlds. I have done the commercial work at serious levels – the P&L accountability, the board-level decisions, the conversations where the stakes are genuinely high. And I have done the inner work: the formal study in coaching and supervision, the ongoing practice of reflective development, the commitment to being supervised myself. Those two things do not always live together in the same person. When they do, it changes what is possible in the room.

I have led at board level throughout my career:

Chief Operating Officer – Ryman National retail brand owned by Theo Paphitis (Dragons' Den)

Managing Director – Bargain Booze £500m turnover franchise business (UK's largest off-licence chain); led a £63.5m private equity-backed MBO

Director of Development – Gunnercooke LLP Top 75 UK law firm; also coaches partners and senior consultants

Alongside my commercial work, I serve as Chair of Trustees at Alice Charity, which supports vulnerable families in Staffordshire. The work there is a constant reminder that coaching and development are not only about performance. They are about helping people build lives and careers that are genuinely rewarding – and that sometimes starts with helping someone believe they are capable of more than they currently think.

I am based in rural Cheshire and work nationally, with clients across England and Scotland. Most ongoing engagements are a blend of in-person and remote work.

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What I Believe

The Work That Matters

Corryvreckan takes its name from a whirlpool off the west coast of Scotland – one of the largest in the world, and a stretch of water that can be navigated more easily with someone who knows the way through. That is what I try to be for the people I work with.

The most important thing I can do for any client – whether that is an executive working through a leadership challenge, a coach developing their practice, a team improving how they work together, or a business at a turning point – is to help them see their situation more clearly than they could on their own. That clarity is usually available. It just needs the right questions, the right space, and honest enough conversation to reach it.

I do not believe in dependency. My job is to be useful enough that you eventually need me less, not more. The goal is always your growth, your capability, your freedom.

I also believe in naming the real problem rather than the presenting one. The most common request I receive is some version of 'I need to be a better communicator' or 'I need to manage my time more effectively'. Those requests are almost never wrong, but they are almost never the whole story. The conversation that follows usually reveals something more specific, more personal, and more tractable than the original request suggested. That conversation is where the useful work begins.

I am direct in the way I work, but I try to be direct in a way that leaves people feeling clearer, not smaller. Candour without care is just criticism. Care without candour is just comfort. I aim for the version that is both, because I think that is what people actually need from someone they are trusting with their professional lives.

Finally: I do not take clients I do not think I can genuinely help. If the scoping conversation reveals that what you need is something I cannot offer – a different specialism, a different kind of support, a different kind of relationship – I will say so. That is not a failure. It is the beginning of finding the right answer.

Psychological Depth.Commercial Realism.

The Work That Matters

Start with a Conversation

Psychological Depth.
Commercial Realism.