gemmamay
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about me
who is Gemma May?
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who am i?
I’m Gemma May, a coach, Tax recruitment specialist, and mum of two beautiful children. The human experience and conscious creation of our best lives are the heart of everything I do.
I work with high-performing, ambitious individuals in a coaching and Talent Management capacity to provide a bespoke service that adds real transformative value, personally and professionally. My clients and candidates are well-respected executives and leaders in law firms, financial services and accountancy firms.
With 20 years of experience placing Partners and leaders into accountancy firms, law firms, banks and financial institutions, I have unique credibility, insight, and knowledge of the professional practices market. Leadership teams see me as their trusted advisor.
As a coach, I work with high-performing individuals who want to evoke a transformation in their lives. I help you explore your vision, purpose and values. We clarify what fulfilment, authenticity, and empowerment look like to you. We work together to encourage deep and meaningful change in an attainable and consistent way.
As a Talent Manager, I work with individuals to explore if there is a better place for you to call home in a career sense. We invest time upfront to establish what is important to you and why. We look at your experience to date, your unique skill set, what you want to do more or less of and your long-term goals and aspirations. I then proactively explore potential opportunities that have the prospect of improving your existing situation. I focus on the role, opportunity, firm, strategy, structure, team, and culture. I will personally hold your hand and manage the process throughout.
I am also a mum to two beautiful children, Isabelle and William. As a mum, my hope for them is that they are mentally and physically healthy, wholehearted, and empowered individuals. I aim to give them wings to fly, roots to come back and reasons to stay.
I also have two cockapoos, Sophie and Elvis. I wish Sophie would stop eating people's picnics and Elvis realises he doesn't need to bark at the wind.
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my career
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my awakening
call or message me on 07734208224 to discuss if and how I may be able to help you
my career
My early career began as a Sales Manager in a fast-growing startup. I managed a team of five in a company that became one of the top four UK domain registrars at the height of the dot com boom.
Wanting a more structured but fast growth and entrepreneurial environment, I moved into IT recruitment with a global FTSE-listed recruitment business. I worked with our largest blue chip accounts and honed my ability to spot and retain exceptional talent.
Having become a proficient recruiter, I moved to an elite headhunting boutique. We specialised in placing Tax and Legal Partners into professional service firms across the UK, Europe, Russia and the US. In a candidate-driven role, I developed my knowledge of Partnerships and professional service firms, the ability to build trust with ambitious and demanding individuals, and place business leaders.
Fast forward to 2007, I had the opportunity to build my own business and launch Gemma May Ltd.
Today my focus is twofold 1-2-1 coaching and Talent Management for Tax specialists.
I am more passionate than ever about what I do.
Coaching evokes a transformation in your life. This process provides clarity of your current life and achievable goals to gain a sense of fulfilment, authenticity, and empowerment. We work together to enable deep and meaningful change in an attainable and consistent way.
In a recruitment sense, I offer a Talent Management service. This is a personalised and discrete method of exploring if there is a better career opportunity available. We clarify your current situation, what you want going forward and why. We then carefully assess the best prospect to achieve your goals and make it happen.
my awakening
My ‘awakening’ moment began around four years ago when my eight-year-old daughter Isabelle said to me,
"But Mummy, I don’t want to be anything like you; you are always stressed with work, are too busy and frustrated. I want to be like Leeanne; Leeanne has us around for dinner, we eat, we laugh and dance our hearts out on the coffee table to Proud Mary".
During this period, I was married, living in a lovely and large detached five-bedroom house in a beautiful spot in Kent. I had two children who were model students at school; I was an active PTA mum and chairperson of our local community-run preschool. I also had an allotment, was an avid runner and had a thriving social life. On the surface, life looked like a dream, but inside I was dying.
In my experience, even those close to you tend to see what’s on the surface, not what’s behind the scenes, yet my daughter could see it all; she knew and lived the truth. The truth of life when nobody on the outside was watching. As the primary breadwinner and caregiver to the children, I overcommitted, stressed out and lived a boom-bust lifestyle. It wasn’t healthy and prevented me from achieving balance, consistency and peace.
I had unconsciously created this hectic and overworked lifestyle. I acknowledged I had a great support network through this, informing family and friends of my unhappiness. Yet, instead of being truthful, I would update everyone with funny anecdotes, suppressing the extent of my struggles. I felt I was performing a comedy routine on stage when, in reality, I lived a detached life. What I presented on the outside did not reflect my feelings inside. I thought I lived with integrity, but that was far from the truth.
I desperately ran around like a headless chicken striving to “fix” every element in that life, burning myself out physically and mentally. Eventually, and I mean eventually, I started 1-2-1 therapy. This was the start of my lightbulb moment and my awakening. I gradually built an awareness, unpicked a lot around childhood trauma and behavioural cycles and then developed acceptance (I’m still working on this, it takes time).
Therapy gave me the release from my past to start my awakening and look to the future.
Coaching gave me back my presence and empowered me to curiously but confidently create my authentic, empowered and fulfilled future. I now know who I am and what I am about. I have a vision and a purpose in all areas of my life, confident in living my best life.
Don’t get me wrong; life isn’t perfect and certainly not easy. Although, I have fully charged batteries and have room in my life for these unavoidable situations.
I embrace the challenges life will throw my way.
Watch out: here I come.