Your Path to Success with Ruth Kearns Wollmann: Inspirational Leadership Stories

Hosted by Ruth Kearns Wollmann PhD, PCC

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Oct 2026

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Your Path to Success is here to inspire, encourage and equip you on your leadership journey. On this podcast you'll hear: 💡 Personal stories and life lessons from accomplished leaders 💡 Honest conversations about the moments that tested them — and what they learned 💡 Practical, evidence-based ways to grow your own leadership impact and presence, from the inside out Ruth Kearns Wollmann is an ICF-accredited professional coach and leadership development facilitator with a background as a cognitive psychologist, business executive and organisational leader in corporate and non-profit organisations. She believes the leaders who make the greatest impact are those who lead from a centred, integrated place — understanding their own patterns, hopes and fears deeply enough to respond rather than react under pressure. Ruth partners with established and emerging leaders ready to lead differently: breaking through their own ceiling, becoming a secure base for others, and making their greatest impact yet from a place of strength, authenticity and purpose. To find out more about Ruth's work with individuals and organisations, visit yourpathtosuccess.ch (http://yourpathtosuccess.ch) Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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November 13, 202633 min

Janice Johnston on Values-Driven Leadership: Choosing the Life, Career and Impact You Want

Janice Johnston on Values-Driven Leadership: Choosing the Life, Career and Impact You Want What will it take to create the life, and the impact, you want? In this episode I sit down with Janice Johnston, CEO of Edge Growth Ventures in Johannesburg, one of South Africa’s leading impact investors in small and medium-sized enterprises. Janice’s story is one of values-driven leadership, both in the career choices she has made and in how she leads. You’ll hear about: 💡 Her journey from Johannesburg to the City of London, and back again 💡 The point at which she realised her pace wasn’t sustainable, and the question she and her family asked next 💡 Why being great at your job as a functional expert doesn’t automatically make you a good leader 💡 What values-driven leadership looks like for Janice day to day 💡 Her advice if you’re looking for more meaning at work Take time to reflect Values-driven leadership starts with knowing what matters to you. Here are two ways you can pause with me to reflect on your year: 🗓️ Free online end-of-year guided reflection (group): Friday 11 December 2026, 8:00–9:30 or 12:00–13:30 CET. Register here 🗓️ One-to-one end-of-year reflection coaching session, in December or January, to go deeper on your own personal leadership journey. Book here More about Janice Janice has a deep and diverse investment background, spanning over 25 years and multiple sectors, with highly regarded financial institutions in South Africa and the UK. Janice spent 10 years with Prudential Capital plc in London as a senior member of its Principal Finance team, before joining Edge Growth, a leading South African SME impact investor, for five years. Thereafter, Janice joined the Identity Partners Group, a majority black women-led investment group. She also worked in the Presidential Climate Finance Task Team, which led the negotiation of South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP), before rejoining Edge Growth Ventures in July 2023 as its Chief Executive. Janice is a CFA Charterholder and is currently a non-executive board member of SAVCA (the South African Private Equity and Venture Capital industry association) and chair of the SAVCA VC Committee, a Digital Collective Africa Council member, and a member of the 100 Women in Finance Global Advisory Council. About Ruth Ruth Kearns Wollmann is an ICF-accredited professional coach and leadership development facilitator with a background as a cognitive psychologist, business executive and organisational leader in corporate and non-profit organisations. She believes the leaders who make the greatest impact are those who lead from a centred, integrated place — understanding their own patterns, hopes and fears deeply enough to respond rather than react under pressure. Ruth partners with established and emerging leaders ready to lead differently: breaking through their own ceiling, becoming a secure base for others, and making their greatest impact yet from a place of strength, authenticity and purpose. To find out more about Ruth's work with individuals and organisations, visit yourpathtosuccess.ch Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

October 7, 202616 min

Healthy Leaders, Healthy Teams: Who You Are Is How You Lead — Self-Knowledge as a Pillar of Your Personal Leadership Journey

Healthy Leaders, Healthy Teams — Who You Are Is How You Lead: Self-Knowledge as a Pillar of Your Personal Leadership Journey Have you ever felt like you were not being seen for who you truly are? In this third solo episode of the Healthy Leaders, Healthy Teams series, Ruth explores why being confident in who you are — and who you are not — is a key quality of leadership, and how getting to know who you are at your core can become a pillar of growth on your personal leadership journey. Perhaps you feel overlooked or underestimated at work, or that your values no longer fit your organisation. Or perhaps you're in transition, and asking yourself what you really want. Whatever your situation, knowing who you are allows you to step out of your comfort zone without losing your sense of integrity. And as you do that, you create the conditions for those you lead to do the same. Ruth introduces the idea of your Core Self — who you are at your best — as three overlapping circles: your strengths, your values, and your personality. At the centre, where they meet, is your purpose: what you bring to the world. Getting to know your Core Self is part of the inner work of leadership — the work of knowing and leading yourself before leading others. She looks back at Dr Michelle Wright's story from the last episode through this lens, and at how Michelle’s clarity about who she was, and who she was not, helped her navigate a major career transition. Ruth then turns to leadership more broadly. Knowing who you are and what you stand for is a key part of healthy leadership — creating a secure base from which you, and the people on your team, can stretch outside your comfort zone. She shares the story of a General Manager at Procter & Gamble whose leadership gave her a secure base to grow. A reflection exercise to come back to There is a guided reflection in the middle of the episode [starting at 08:07]. Ruth invites you to reflect on a situation of resonance with who you are, and one of dissonance — and to get curious about which of your strengths, values and personality traits are expressed, or held back, in each. You may want to re-listen to this part and journal on it in a quiet moment. Coming up next in Healthy Leaders, Healthy Teams — after next month's leadership interview — Ruth looks at the other side of self-knowledge: how you show up under pressure and criticism. If you'd like some support discovering more about your strengths, values and personality, and how they can guide your personal leadership journey, you can book a curiosity call at yourpathtosuccess.ch/book-appointment Ruth Kearns Wollmann is an ICF-accredited professional coach and leadership development facilitator with a background as a cognitive psychologist, business executive and organisational leader in corporate and non-profit organisations. She believes the leaders who make the greatest impact are those who lead from a centred, integrated place — understanding their own patterns, hopes and fears deeply enough to respond rather than react under pressure. Ruth partners with established and emerging leaders ready to lead differently: breaking through their own ceiling, becoming a secure base for others, and making their greatest impact yet from a place of strength, authenticity and purpose. To find out more about Ruth's work with individuals and organisations, visit yourpathtosuccess.ch Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

August 19, 202630 min

Michelle Wright on Reinventing Her Professional Identity and Career Abroad

What does it take to reinvent your professional identity in a new country — while still holding onto everything that made you good at your job in the first place? This episode is a story of professional reinvention: Dr Michelle Wright, a British-qualified GP moved to the Lake Geneva region 22 years ago, leaving behind a busy East London practice to follow her husband's career. Today she's a respected health communicator and educator with over 15 years on Swiss radio, co-founder and director of HealthFirst, and still practises medicine at the International Labour Organization. What I loved about our conversation was hearing how Michelle navigated her professional reinvention — building on the knowledge and skills she'd developed in general practice, weaving in her early passion as a communicator and people person, and courageously stepping into new territory as she founded a company. What we cover: What it took to leave a career she’d already established and start afresh in a new environment Her professional reinvention: How she developed herself and her career at the intersection of her strengths, passions and a true consumer need Learning "the leadership side of things" — hiring, delegating, running a company — as someone who is, in her own words, “a doctor, not a business person” What she's most proud of over the past 20-plus years in Switzerland Listen and connect 🎧 Subscribe to Your Path to Success for more leadership stories and practical insights 📩 Subscribe to my LinkedIn newsletter for monthly leadership insights More about Michelle: Dr Michelle Wright is a British-qualified General Practitioner with over 25 years of experience. Based in Switzerland, she works part-time as a staff doctor at the International Labour Organization in Geneva, supporting the physical and psychological health of employees. She is also Company Director of health education company HealthFirst, which she co-founded in 2012, and a certified Lifestyle Medicine practitioner. A skilled health communicator, Michelle hosted Health Matters on World Radio Switzerland for over 15 years, making evidence-based health information accessible to the wider public. Find out more about HealthFirst and listen to Michelle's own podcast, Health Matters . Ruth Kearns Wollmann is an ICF-accredited professional coach and leadership development facilitator with a background as a cognitive psychologist, business executive and organisational leader in corporate and non-profit organisations. She partners with established and emerging leaders as they seek to navigate their path to success from a place of strength, authenticity and purpose. To find out more about Ruth's work with individuals and organisations visit her website at: yourpathtosuccess.ch Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

June 24, 202615 min

Healthy Leaders, Healthy Teams — Why you need Calm AND Compassion

In this episode, Ruth picks up the thread from Episode 1 on Healthy Leaders, Healthy Teams with a closer look at two of the 6Cs — Calm and Compassion — and why they only really work together. She opens with a story from leading an organisation through uncertainty which became a turning point in how she thinks about what calm leadership actually requires. She unpacks what calm really means — not the absence of emotion, but emotion sufficiently processed that a leader can be present for others. Unfortunately, not all of us grew up in environments that modelled healthy emotion regulation. In fact, only 35% of Americans say that, as children, they knew a compassionate, nonjudgmental adult. The good news, however, is that this can be learned — and learning it starts with understanding calm's essential partner: compassion. Ruth draws a clear line between compassion and empathy, and explains why calm without compassion can land as cold or judgemental — especially to someone who isn't expecting it. The episode closes with a practical pathway: how the 6Cs offer a sequence for navigating strong emotions in the moment — calm, compassion, curiosity, clarity, connection and courage — so that healthy leaders can hold space for others without losing themselves in the process. Reflection — for your journal or a quiet moment: In what situations do you most need to cultivate more calm? Where does compassion — for yourself or for others — need more space? What support or practice will you put in place to help you navigate your emotions when it counts? There is no right answer. The invitation is simply to notice. Take it further — Join Ruth’s free 90-minute mid-year guided reflection on Friday 26th June 2026 It's a chance to pause, take stock of the first half of the year, and step into the second half with more clarity. Online, free, and open to all. Register here and choose your slot (8am or 12pm CET) to receive details of how to join. yourpathtosuccess.ch/events About Ruth Ruth Kearns Wollmann is an ICF-accredited executive and leadership coach and facilitator. Over the past decade she has worked with senior leaders and their teams across a wide range of organisations, helping them do the deeper inner work that creates lasting change — not just better behaviours, but a more integrated, grounded and courageous way of leading. Her path to this work has been anything but linear — but there's always been a thread. She started as a cognitive psychology researcher, fascinated by how people think, learn and change. That curiosity took her into the corporate world, where she spent 14 years at Procter & Gamble as a business executive — and where she discovered that the determining factor in her own success wasn't strategy or insight, but the ability to lead herself and others. That realisation never left her. It led her into a leadership role in the non-profit sector, and eventually into launching her independent coaching practice — bringing research, lived experience and over a decade of practice together in one place. She believes healthy leaders create healthy teams. And the world's biggest challenges need leaders operating from their truest, most integrated selves. yourpathtosuccess.ch Book a curiosity call: yourpathtosuccess.ch/book-appointment Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

May 21, 202632 min

Delphine Donné on leading for sustainable success — for people, planet and business

What does it take to lead for sustainable success — for yourself, for your people, and for the planet? In this episode I sit down with Delphine Donné, VP and General Manager of Logitech's largest business group, Personal Work Solutions — a business worth over two billion dollars. With more than 25 years in consumer electronics and leadership experience across China, North America, and Europe, Delphine is one of just 29% of women in tech who reach executive level. But what struck me most in our conversation wasn't the scale of what she leads. It was the way she leads for sustainable success. What we cover: The three career moments that genuinely tested her — including getting close to burnout — and what she learned about herself each time How a single consumer insight transformed her portfolio, grew her team from 28% to over 50% women, and delivered stellar business results Why leading yourself first is not optional — it's the foundation of everything else The three leadership lessons she'd pass on to anyone building a long career: passion, perseverance, and compassion Listen and connect: 🎧 Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to Your Path to Success for more leadership stories and practical insights 📩 Subscribe to my LinkedIn newsletter for monthly leadership insights 📅 Looking to build healthy leaders and healthy teams? Book a curiosity call to hear more about how I can help More about Delphine: Delphine Donné is VP and General Manager of Logitech's Personal Work Solutions, the company's largest business group. A people-first leader with over 25 years in consumer electronics, she has lived and worked in China, North America, and Europe, leading global teams and driving innovation across some of the world's most recognised tech brands. Under her leadership, her organisation has grown to 56% female — against a global industry average of 26% — and hosts over 30 nationalities. She has led Logitech's sustainability agenda within her business group, taking recycled plastic from zero to over 80% of products, and helping Logitech reach the top 1% of sustainable companies globally. Delphine is a mother of two and a passionate advocate for more equal and inclusive leadership in tech. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

April 23, 202610 min

Healthy Leaders, Healthy Teams — The Inner Work of Leadership

Healthy Leaders, Healthy Teams — The Inner Work of Leadership In this first solo episode, Ruth introduces a new series running alongside her leadership interviews: a space to explore what healthy leadership actually looks and feels like from the inside out — and to share frameworks, tools and reflections to help you grow. Ruth takes a stand for something she deeply believes: that healthy leaders create healthy teams, and healthy teams create better, more sustainable impact in the world. She introduces the 6 Cs of healthy leadership — Calm, Compassion, Curiosity, Clarity, Connection and Courage — and explores what these look like in practice, through the contrast between recognisable patterns of unhealthy leadership and what becomes possible when leaders do their inner work. She also gets personal — sharing her own experience of the parts of her that would rather hide than go public with a point of view, and what it took to record this episode. The episode closes with a reflection exercise — which you'll want to listen to first before coming back to these questions in your own time. Reflection exercise — for your journal or a quiet moment: What experiences from your past have shaped who you are as a leader today? On the positive side, you might think of your best boss, your favourite assignment, or a place or community where you felt truly at home as yourself. What did those experiences teach you about who you are at your best? In what ways do they still show up in how you lead today? On the more difficult side, you might think of an experience that was harsh, hurtful or humiliating — a moment where you came away with a quiet promise to yourself never to let that happen again. What did that teach you — or your nervous system — about what to watch out for? In what ways might that still be showing up in how you lead today? There is no right answer. The invitation is simply to notice. About Ruth Ruth Kearns Wollmann is an ICF-accredited executive and leadership coach and facilitator. Over the past decade she has worked with senior leaders and their teams across a wide range of organisations, helping them do the deeper inner work that creates lasting change — not just better behaviours, but a more integrated, grounded and courageous way of leading. Her path to this work has been anything but linear — but there's always been a thread. She started as a cognitive psychology researcher, fascinated by how people think, learn and change. That curiosity took her into the corporate world, where she spent 14 years at Procter & Gamble as a business executive — and where she discovered that the determining factor in her own success wasn't strategy or insight, but the ability to lead herself and others. That realisation never left her. It led her into a leadership role in the non-profit sector, and eventually into launching her independent coaching practice — bringing research, lived experience and over a decade of practice together in one place. She believes healthy leaders create healthy teams. And the world's biggest challenges need leaders operating from their truest, most integrated selves. yourpathtosuccess.ch Book a curiosity call: yourpathtosuccess.ch/book-appointment Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

March 5, 202635 min

Holly O’Driscoll on Unleashing the potential of people AND ideas

Have you ever felt like you need to pause and ask yourself: what do I really want my career to be about? That's exactly what Holly O'Driscoll did during her fourth maternity leave — and it changed the course of her career. Holly is an innovation strategist, facilitator, and founder of Ampersand Innovation. She spent over 20 years at Procter & Gamble in engineering, design, and innovation leadership before launching her own business. During that pivotal maternity leave, she turned the design thinking tools she used with clients on herself and asked: what's my why? Her answer — unleashing the potential of people AND ideas — became the north star that guided everything that followed, including the founding of her company. In this episode, Holly shares her journey from engineering to design to entrepreneurship, and the principles she learned along the way about asking for what you want, prototyping your next chapter, and redefining success on your own terms. Resources: Finding Your Why 1. Explore the approach Holly used The book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans is a great starting point. You can explore their resources, including the Odyssey Plan framework, at Stanford University's Life Design Lab: https://lifedesignlab.stanford.edu/resources 2. Join me for a live online session Free 75-minute Connect to Your Purpose session on 2 April at 8am CET. Move your purpose from concept to lived reality — we'll work with what you already know and go deeper, reconnecting to when you've felt most aligned and exploring what that tells you about who you are and the impact you have. Register here: https://yourpathtosuccess.ch/events/ Want to stay connected? Subscribe to Your Path to Success wherever you listen to podcasts to hear more leadership stories and practical insights. If you're curious about how coaching could support your own leadership journey, you can book a free 30-minute curiosity call at https://yourpathtosuccess.ch/book-appointment — or explore workshops and resources on the site. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

October 10, 202533 min

Christina Bouglass on Reimagining Purpose after Burnout

Christina Bouglass is originally from the UK and raised in Switzerland. She began her marketing career at Procter & Gamble in Geneva and spent 20 years as a marketing executive shaping some of the world’s most iconic beauty brands, working with celebrities and fashion houses. She held global, regional, and local roles at P&G, Coty, and The Wella Company, spanning every category of the beauty industry. Then, in Christina's own words: "After a toxic private equity takeover, the absence of values and purpose my work led to burnout — and to a complete re-evaluation of my life and what success meant to me." As I stepped away from the corporate world and embarked on an inner transformation, I realised that marketing has alot to answer for: marketing doesn’t just sell products. It manipulates us, fuels endless growth, and reinforces a single-minded picture of success. I took all my industry experience — and my frustration with the way marketing has been done — retrained in sustainable marketing - and reimagined a better way forward. A way for brands not just to sell more, but to serve more. To contribute to solving the world’s biggest challenges rather than accelerating them." From this vision, Christina created her 4B Brand Model : ⭐ Think BIG – brands tackle the world’s biggest challenges and lead the way for others ⭐ Be BOLD – brands challenge the status quo of their industry ⭐ Act BRAVE – brands stand up and live by what they believe in ⭐ Become BELOVED – brands build communities that share their values Today, she helps scale-up founders and leaders at the growth stage reimagine their brands through this lens — building brands that create a positive impact for people, planet, and profit. She also teaches marketing and purpose-led brands at the Haute École de Gestion (HEG) in Geneva as part of their International Bachelor program, sharing this vision with the next generation of marketers. You can contact Christina and subscribe to her newsletter Brands For A New World here: https://www.thebutterflymovements.com If you'd like to contact Ruth and find out more about coaching you can do that here: https://yourpathtosuccess.ch Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

May 28, 202539 min

Vicky Ferrier on Writing Herself Into Being: Mid-Career Reckoning, Courage and Leading for Good

Vicky Ferrier on Writing Herself Into Being - Mid-Career Reckoning, Courage, and Leading for Good What if your mid-career reckoning became an awakening — a chance to realign your strengths, values and purpose? In this episode, Ruth Kearns Wollmann speaks with Vicky Ferrier, Chief People and Commercial Officer at Konsileo — a commercial insurance firm with no managers. Vicky shares insights from her rich and varied career. In particular, she shares how she navigated the messy middle of her career, rediscovered what truly mattered, and began writing her way into a future she could believe in. From self-doubt to self-authorship, from leadership principles to finding the right people, this is an honest and uplifting conversation about growth, identity, and leading for good — at work and in life. Vicky also supports young leaders globally through her work with WYSE, a UN-affiliated leadership development charity. Key Topics: Pivotal moments and mid-career questioning Leading without hierarchy Courage, humility, and imagination Writing as a tool for clarity and growth 🔗 Links : Learn more about Ruth’s coaching work: yourpathtosuccess.ch Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthkearnswollmann/ 🎧 Listen now and be inspired to write your next chapter. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

February 14, 202544 min

Shed Shedletzky on Leadership that Makes a Difference & Speak Up Culture

Stephen (Shed) Shedletzky is an author, speaker, facilitator, and coach whose work is all about empowering leaders to cultivate trusting, purpose-driven workplaces . His first book, Speak Up Culture , explores how and why great leaders make it “safe and worth it” to speak up—and why it matters . In our conversation, Shed shares the formative experiences that led him to his purpose , including: 🔹 Growing up with a stutter and how it shaped his perspective 🔹 Witnessing 1,000 colleagues let go on his first day at his first job 🔹 Discovering Simon Sinek’s work on purpose , deciding he wanted to work for him—and making it happen 🔹 Taking the leap to start his own company and write his book Along the way, we dive into all things leadership , including: ✅ What challenges can teach us—and how weaknesses can become gifts ✅ Psychological safety, speak-up culture, and servant leadership ✅ The legacy Shed hopes to leave—including his plans for his next book Shed’s book "Speak Up Culture" is wise, practical, and a great read—I highly recommend it! 📌 Follow Shed on LinkedIn: Stephen Shedletzky 🌎 Learn more about his work at shedinspires.com Ruth Kearns Wollmann is an ICF-accredited professional coach and leadership development facilitator with a background as a cognitive psychologist, business executive and organisational leader in corporate and non-profit organisations. She partners with established and emerging leaders as they seek to navigate their path to success from a place of strength, authenticity and purpose. Find out more about Ruth's work with individuals and organisations at: yourpathtosuccess.ch To book a 30-minutes appointment with Ruth to explore working together go here: https://yourpathtosuccess.ch/book-appointment/ Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.