About Lee Lam, Founder and CEO of Your StartUp Partner
Lee Lam brings over 20 years of rich experience in financial services technology, particularly in COO and Chief of Staff roles, complemented by a successful consulting practice spanning more than 16 years. She embodies a unique blend of inventive thinking and strategic insight, adept at navigating change and fostering growth with a focus on seamless implementation.
Lee actively seeks out areas that may be hindering your potential performance—often blind spots that you might not even recognise until they impact your effectiveness.
Her extensive experience within senior leadership teams provides her with a distinctive perspective on team dynamics and management. This insight informs her powerful coaching methodology, which caters to a diverse clientele, from large corporations to entrepreneurial startups. After collaborating at the group level to establish a cohesive strategy, Lee works closely with individual team members, ensuring they feel confident in integrating these strategies into their daily operations. She is skilled at addressing any resistance or concerns that may impede their effectiveness.
By recognising and valuing each person's unique contributions, Lee enhances team collaboration, leading to not only exceptional results but also a motivated and engaged workforce. She is committed to working with businesses of all sizes, from startups to large organisations, to unlock their full potential.
“I believe that the status quo should be constantly challenged and validated, because I believe we can always be better.”
My career began and developed in Technology within Financial Services, where after 24 years I reached COO and Chief of Staff level positions. During this time I have also run a coaching consultancy for 20 years, doing both business consultancy and personal coaching. I enjoyed the mix of corporate acumen alongside using emotional intelligence and coaching methodologies - it meant that I could make a lot of things happen with people willingly getting involved, because they felt seen and appreciated. A real win-win!
The one thing that never reconciled well within the corporate environment however, was my entrepreneurial mindset. It made me resist conformity, challenge the status quo and constantly look for ways to do things differently. It was exhausting trying to fit in with the expectations of the business to just do the job the way they were asking for it to be done - and it was equally frustrating for them when I just couldn’t!
Eventually, I decided to leave the corporate world and run my own consultancy, to take what I had learned in big businesses and see what could be applied in small and young ones - and the answer is a lot! The practicalities of running a business are not the most exciting, but I had seen how even the biggest companies could be impacted by the basics not being right. I didn’t want start-ups and small businesses to have the same problem - because a minor blip on a balance sheet for a FTSE 100 company is bankruptcy and failure for those still trying to grow. And I realised I was also incredibly protective of small business owners - they were trying to make their dreams become a reality, but usually on an incredibly tight initial budget - there was no room for costly mistakes. Helping them think this through brought me a huge amount of personal fulfilment and was also helping them become stronger and more confident business owners and that for me is the real win-win I was after.