“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

~ George Eliot

Mary Ann Evans, the actual name of the author. Like many other female writers of her time Mary Ann took a male pen name to be taken more seriously as a writer. How times have changed…

We’re here for the curious minds, the adventurous souls, the straight-talkers, and the people who strive for anything but mediocre. We’re here to cultivate and nurture performance, leadership practice, and community, to enable leaders and entrepreneurs achieve the success, and lives, they dream of.

Not your normal business consultancy, we don’t subscribe to boring or mundane. We host relevant, honest, lively and to-the-point sessions, with individuals and groups. We create carefully tailored content, that we know works, to ensure all our clients get the absolute best of us.

As well as the day-to-day skills needed to be successful in business, we’re also embedded in leadership development, relationship and network building, behavioural and personality styles, and team cohesion and performance. The things that really make a difference long term.

Our clients tell us we help build their:
  • Knowledge
  • Confidence
  • Resilience
  • Accountability
  • Focus
  • Clarity
Rebecca Maxwell | Perception Insights

Meet Rebecca

The team at Perception Insights is led by Founder, Rebecca Maxwell

Early in life Rebecca learned you’re only ever as good as the last thing you did. As Rebecca says, it kept her on her toes and stopped her being complacent. But she also admits it held her back, feeling she was never quite good enough.

Rebecca began her career in the public sector where she made an early impact but always doubted herself. Mid-career and stagnating, she hired a coach who encouraged her to acknowledge her worth and skillset. It was then things started to change, and she quickly moved into those elusive senior leadership roles, going on to enjoy multiple achievements in her 25+ years leading organisations and managing people, teams, and projects.

Giving back is at the core of Rebecca’s professional ethos, and stems from her early career when she was supported and encouraged by her peers. Perception Insights was created out of a desire to support and encourage others with the tools Rebecca has developed during her career – and hopefully with fewer of the painful experiences as a result.

Rebecca the Coach
Rebecca is a coach, trainer, and facilitator supporting business founders, senior executives and emerging talent across a range of industries. Her professional qualifications, combined with15 years in the C-Suite, enable enables Rebecca to develop compelling insights and practical solutions, to support leadership teams in fast-growing businesses and long-standing organisations. She is adept at delivering services with impact, engaging teams, driving business success, and creating results focused leadership at every level.

Rebecca has a deep interest in understanding how people think, feel and act. A certified Myers Briggs® and DISC® behavioural styles practitioner, she has worked with teams at all levels to build cohesion, high performance and success.

Rebecca the Speaker

Despite being painfully shy growing up, Rebecca is very much at home on stage today, whether real or virtual. Haven spoken on many subjects, to a wide range of people, Rebecca’s commitment to making every presentation clear, practical, interesting, and engaging is clear to all audiences.

Popular topics include: Do They Trust You – How You Can Tell & Why You Should Care; It’s Not Actually Who We Know; It’s How Well We Know Them – Harnessing the Power of our Network; and Getting Unstuck – Making Decisions When Nothing is Clear.

A highlight of Rebecca’s speaking career saw her presenting to a group of small businesses about partnerships and collaboration in a marquee in the middle of a muddy field, projecting to make herself heard above the sound of the rain hammering off the tent. Anything you throw at Rebecca will be easy in comparison…!

Rebecca the Strategist
Rebecca cut her strategic teeth in large-scale public sector transformation, where she learned that brilliant strategies mean nothing without the right culture to back them up. During her senior leadership years, she saw too many well-crafted plans gathering dust simply because organisations hadn’t done the groundwork of getting their people, values, activities and ways of working properly aligned.

These days, Rebecca works with established businesses ready for their next big step. Focusing on companies of 5-100 employees who’ve spent 5-10 years building something solid, she helps founders and leadership teams tackle those make-or-break moments – whether that’s expanding into new territory, going after bigger opportunities, or getting ready for the next generation to take the reins in family businesses.

For businesses at that crucial inflection point between what they’ve been and what they could become, Rebecca provides the strategic clarity and cultural alignment that turns ambitious plans into sustainable growth.

Book Rebecca as a Speaker

Do you have an event or conference coming up and need an inspirational leadership speaker? Rebecca Maxwell can support your event with engaging, unique content.
Our Amazing Associate Pool

Having spent years developing an extensive network of like-minded, talented specialists from a range of industries, we are delighted to collaborate with a truly expert pool of Associates.

Sarah-Jane (SJ) Dale

Founding Director Progress Partners, Associate Perception Insights

    John Drysdale

    Principal Consultant No Guru, Associate Perception Insights

    Richard Timms

    Director Insight Leadership Development, Associate Perception Insights

    Janis Bovaird Martinez

    Founding Director BOMA, Associate Perception Insights

      Alastair Clarkson

      Founding Director Sprout, Associate Perception Insights

      Join Our Team

      We’re always interested in speaking with people who are passionate about helping others do great things in business.

      If that sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you.

      What Our Clients Say About Us

      Claire Shalbrack, VP, Dept® Agency

      We tasked Rebecca with helping us to reimagine how our team and leadership worked together, communicated more efficiently, and be more mindful in how we are manage our staff. Her approach is measured, kind and well rounded. She takes care to construct an experience that is specialised and personalised. Everyone left our trainings more empowered and informed than when we began. Highly recommend!

      Claire Shalbrack

      VP, Dept® Agency

      Kate Gerisamova, OD & Learning Consultant, gothamCulture

      Rebecca is a talented trainer, and it has been a pleasure working with her at gothamCulture! We engaged Rebecca on a few engagements with our clients where she facilitated The Introverted Networker, Building Effective Relationships at Work, and a few others. gothamCulture trusts her with training our clients to deliver a high quality product in a very smooth way that has lasting impact on learning for organizations & their teams. Rebecca goes above and beyond to deliver post training practice materials and research to ensure participants remember the training and continue practicing it over time.

      Kate Gerisamova

      OD & Learning Consultant, gothamCulture

      Michele Berdinis, President, Beeline Legal

      I’ve been working with Rebecca on various business development projects over the past 4 years. She is unfailingly innovative, focused, timely, helpful, and just an all around joy to work with. I couldn’t recommend her more highly.

      Michele Berdinis

      President, Beeline Legal

      Maria Boustead, Owner, Po-Campo

      I highly recommend working with Rebecca! After a couple years of working together, she’s my go-to whenever I need a sounding board for thinking through a sticky problem, helping me prioritise tasks and ideas, and providing a fresh perspective with just about anything I’m wrestling with in my business at any time.

      Maria Boustead

      Owner, Po-Campo

      Dr Hiba Khaled, Founder, Embers Consulting & Coaching

      I cannot recommend working with Rebecca enough! Rebecca helped me identify areas in our business that we could leverage and helped us come up with different strategies for addressing the challenges we were facing! Since working with Rebecca, we have been able to gain traction and see movement in the right direction. Rebecca is highly skilled and knowledgeable, and brings a wealth of experience to her client sessions. She listens intently and was able to find opportunities that I couldn’t see before. By the end of the call, I felt energised to tackle the challenges and implement the ideas we talked about.

      Dr Hiba Khaled

      Founder, Embers Consulting & Coaching

      Ashley Dee, Head of Culture, Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland

      We worked with Rebecca to support the refresh of our organisation’s values. Rebecca recommended a suitable approach based on our objectives, sense checked workforce feedback, and facilitated a day long workshop with the leadership team. She helped us challenge our thinking, engender shared ownership and responsibility, and got us to a place where we landed our new values and behaviours. Rebecca is approachable, creative and excels at finding tailored solutions that felt bespoke to our organisation. I would have no hesitation enlisting her support again.

      Ashley Dee

      Head of Culture, Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland

      Kate Baker Waldsax

      Working with Rebecca has been fantastic. Her skills as a coach have allowed me to find a future direction with my career. Her expertise and advice have been invaluable, and her insights have been thoughtful and practical which has allowed me to challenge my own assumptions & perceptions. Working with Rebecca has helped me to find the joy again in what I do.

      Kate Baker Waldsax

      Commercial & Marketing Executive

      Dale Laszig

      Participating in Perception Insight’s Mastermind Group connected me with entrepreneurs whose day-to-day opportunities and challenges were familiar and relatable. Our interactions, combined with skilled moderating, afforded unique insights that really helped me scale my business.

      Dale Laszig

      Managing Director, DSL Direct

      Pooja Bavishi

      Rebecca is the embodiment of what a business & leadership coach should be – empathetic, acute insights, consistent follow up, and always approachable. Working with her is a huge asset for my company, and for me personally.

      Pooja Bavishi

      Founder & CEO, Malai Ice Cream

      Paul Schuler, Chief Operating Officer, Atlantic Track

      Rebecca possesses an extraordinary talent for uncovering the core issues that lie beneath the surface. Her ability to delve deep and identify the root causes of challenges has been instrumental in my development. Through her insightful guidance, I have been able to use the techniques she presents to uncover issues within my own team, gaining valuable clarity and perspective on my professional journey. She understands the transformative power of empowering others. Under her guidance, I have learned invaluable techniques for cultivating a culture of shared responsibility, leading to improved collaboration and team performance.

      Paul Schuler

      Chief Operating Officer, Atlantic Track

      Sallie Mullins Thompson

      Rebecca exemplifies all that a business coach and leader should be. She is proactive – thinking of the next thing before you realise you need it, has creative and resourceful ideas and gives support beyond the call of duty. She’s a pleasure to work with! Rebecca is a great accountability partner too – her guidance kept me firmly on track, allowing me to jump start a new service offer in my business in record time.

      Sallie Mullins Thompson