I’m Polly May – Executive Business & Confidence Coach, professional singer, former senior leader in education, wife, mum and someone who changed direction in my late forties.
For years, I had a career I was good at. I’d spent 16 years in education leadership alongside a professional singing career spanning more than 25 years.
On paper, there was absolutely no reason to change it.
Except that I knew I wanted something different.
I wanted more freedom. More time for the people who mattered to me. More control over how I worked. And more of the work I knew I was particularly good at – helping people see what they were capable of and giving them the confidence to do something about it.
So I changed direction.
I retrained as a coach, left my employed career and built a new business.
And I discovered something important along the way:
Changing direction doesn’t mean starting again.
The experience, skills, judgement, relationships and confidence you’ve built over decades come with you.
You’re not reinventing yourself. You’re deciding what you want to do with everything you already have.
That’s why I do this work.
Today, I work primarily with experienced women who’ve reached a point where they’re asking:
What do I actually want now?
Sometimes they know they want to change career. Sometimes they’re considering starting or reshaping a business. Sometimes they’re returning after a break or looking for a different way to use everything they’ve learned.
And sometimes all they can tell me is:
“I know I don’t want things to stay exactly as they are.”
That’s enough to start.
My job isn’t to tell you what your next chapter should be. It’s to help you get clear enough to make your own decisions, confident enough to trust them and practical enough to turn them into action.
A slightly unusual background
I’ve spent much of my working life in situations where confidence, communication and presence really matter.
I’ve been a professional classical singer for more than 25 years, performing as a soloist at the BBC Proms and singing on more than 100 film soundtracks, as well as working with artists including Take That, Michael Jackson, Florence + the Machine and Pulp.
Alongside performing, I spent 16 years in senior education leadership, including as a Director of Music, leading people, building teams and helping others perform under pressure.
And then I retrained as a coach.
Those careers might look very different, but there’s a thread running through all of them:
Helping people find the confidence to use what they already have.
How I coach
I’m interested in the big questions.
What do you want? What matters now? What are you avoiding? What would you do if you stopped worrying quite so much about whether you were getting it “right”?
But I’m equally interested in what happens next.
Because insight is useful. Doing something with it is better.
My coaching combines space to think with challenge, practical strategy and accountability. We might be talking about identity and confidence one week and making a very concrete decision about your business or working life the next.
The bigger picture matters. So does what you need to do on Monday morning.
How I Help
I bring together 25 years as a professional performer, 16 years in education and leadership, experience building businesses of my own and ICF coaching training to help experienced, capable people work out what they want next – and make it happen.
You might be changing direction, building a business, stepping into a bigger role or simply questioning whether what you’re doing now is still what you want.
My coaching gives you the space to think properly, an experienced outside perspective to challenge you when you need it, and the practical support and accountability to turn those conversations into action.
Because clarity is important. But what you do with it matters even more.
Ready to think about what comes next?
My signature Next Chapter programme gives you four months to get clear on what you really want next – and build the confidence to go after it.
Or, if you’re only just beginning to wonder whether something needs to change: