About Tesse

Tesse Akpeki

Host

Tesse Akpeki

Tesse is a wellbeing and resilience specialist, a mentor encourager, facilitator, podcaster, talent developer, leadership strategist, bridge builder and story teller.

“Nothing pleases me than seeing other people growing, feeling fulfilled and fulfilling their potential” she says. “If there is any way I can use my knowledge, or expertise to support this, I will. I will encourage, uplift and inspire”

Tesse is able to:

  • negotiate the space between theory and practice;
  • encourage growth by inviting feedback and feedforward.
  • be sensitive to cultural differences
  • negotiate spaces that fit the current and future needs
  • tailor policies, procedures and training to different situations which empower and enable individuals and organizations
  • recognize that there is no template to achieve something new. I accept the need and embrace the need for flexibility, responsiveness, adaptability, alignment, agility and outcome focus;
  • determine what is needed to facilitate dialogue and conversations
  • brings clarity to personal and professional journeys that lead to impact; and sustainable goals
  • demonstrate a strong client focus, by offering and delivering accessible and relevant services.

I am a skilled coach, passionate about facilitating connections, peacemaking, and bridge building.  I create safe, sensitive and supportive places and spaces where people and teams can be open, honest, inclusive and productive.  As an empath, I shape the conditions for sustainable, successful and scalable relationships.

Who is Tesse Akpeki

Tesse Akpeki identifies as a poet alongside her corporate governance and coaching work.. She incorporates poetry and story telling into her broader mission of fostering wellbeing, empathy, and creative expression in professional spaces.
She treats poetry as a vital part of her personal definition of success, actively combining it with story telling and comedy to bring joy and laughter to others.

Her past tendencies towards workaholism has led her to intentionally balance prioritising joy, creative expression and play to achieve a healthy state of well-being.
Reframing success is not about professional titles, but about her multi-faced identity as a creative who loves musicals, writing poetry and singing.
Rather than limiting herself to standard consulting, Tesse splits her time across structured business advisory and creative media, including TesseTalks podcast and TesseReads book club.

Tesse uses poetry to train ethical, compassionate leaders by disrupting purely analytical thinking to activate emotional depth and moral reading. Poetic engagement bypasses dry data and builds deep human connections. Celebrated mountain top moments serve as an emotional buffer to draw upon when the next crisis hits.

Integrating the personal canvas
Personal dimensions such as exploration, learning and artistic expressions can be usefully applied alongside financial and corporate key performance indicators. Leaders can tap into their emotional baselines to find meaning and purpose without burning out.

Her message
True healing doesn’t mean deleting your past or pretending the storms never happened. It means processing the memories until they lose their power to trigger panic in your body.
For Tesse, a way to do this is identifying mechanisms, strategies, habits that allow you to face memories safely. Sometimes the outcome may be like returning to a Home that has changed

Tesse speaks with host of Chatting with the Experts , Podcast Paula and shares why every petal matters.

What People Say About Tesse

Tesse is insightful and has a gentle manner and a good deal of governance experience.  She brings these skills to a board and used them to take board members along with her to understand the very essence of the issues that they need to face into to make a deep lead forward in governance improvement terms – getting them from good to great in terms of awareness and implementation of actions to achieve their purpose.  Like all good facilitators, she encourages the group to find its own solutions, so that there is actual buy in. A real skill.
Dr Margaret CaselyHayford CBE, Chair Shakespeare Globe Theatre
Thank you Tesse for delivering such an enjoyable dynamic, participative, informative and fun day’s Governance training to Womankind trustees. We covered everything we needed and more. One notable key message was Governance is not just about negotiating and includes how we behave too. Tesse’s speciality “Compassionate Accountability” amplified the message by suggesting we need as a board to be kind, compassionate, empathetic at the same time as being competent, capable and holding people to account. A very thoughtful provoking and inspiring day
Maggie Baxter CBE, Trustee at Hilden Charitable Fund, Chair Womankind International
Tesse is an absolute pleasure to work with. Her knowledge of and commitment to equity and inclusion is inspiring and powerful.
Taryn GoldVice President, Chapter Engagement at Association of Fundraising Professionals
Tesse provided me with culturally sensitive and intuitive mentoring that was exactly what I needed as I embarked on a new chapter in my governance consulting career. Tesse’s breath of experience, compliance, wellbeing and leadership coaching was very useful in mentoring calls. I’m grateful to have her counsel.
Shiraz Z MansarayChief Executive Officer, NED
Tesse was the facilitator for our charity board away day in 2022. She and I worked together to create a space in which trustees could explore the strategic and emotional dimensions of rapid organisational change and lay the ground work for a re-examination of the charity’s purpose, vision, values and future. She went above and beyond in seeking to understand the nature of the organisation and its people and develop a tailored approach which met our needs. We benefited hugely from Tesse’s extensive skill set in mentoring and facilitation, her warmth and ability to illuminate challenging concepts and experiences, through storytelling. Her expert input was essential in creating a constructive and stimulating day and providing the clarity we required to move forward.
Catherine OakleyExecutive Director, The Rowntree Society
Tesse is an amazing speaker, able to captivate your attention from the first to the last second!  She speaks passionately about leadership and governance. She is able to relate easily with the audience through humour. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to listen to her presentation at the Association for Midwives Conference in Portugal 2022.
Eduardo CostaEconomist, Researcher in Health Economics
Dispute resolution mediation sessions can be a hostile experience, but not with Tesse. Tesse’s unique approach immediately made me feel ‘heard’, seen and validated. Tesse’s warmth, understanding and relatability is evident. I have come away with more powerful insights, reflections and deeper understanding of myself and others.
Dian SmallRegional Director, RIBA London at Royal Institute for British Architects
Tesse is wonderful.  With her expertise she makes an invaluable contribution wherever she is involved on governance and mediation matters. With herself she brings positivity, energy and spirit to the task at hand. An absolute pleasure to work with.
Alan VallanceCEO/Private Equity NED in leading commercial and customer/member-focused change strategies that maximise value and future-proof established organisations
Tesse is a force to be reckoned with.  Personable, approachable and a fountain of knowledge
Melvyna MumunieEmployment Solicitor
Being a guest on Tesse’s two podcasts #TesseTalks and #TesseLeads was one of the most rewarding and fun Agile/Leadership focused activities I have done in a long while!  Tesse finds the perfect balance between professionalism, creativity and very fun knowledge sharing experience! I have added Tesse’s Podcast to my must listen to list and I am so grateful that Tesse has inspired me into doing my own Podcast
Max EkesiAgile Transformational Leader @PayPal

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    We would love to hear your story. Please send at email to us to indicate your interest in being a guest on the show.