Exceptional Coaching, Early
Our programme is led by senior executive coaches who normally work exclusively with C-suite leaders, international corporations, and high-performing teams. These are professionals brought in to develop CEOs, transform leadership cultures, and unlock potential at the highest levels of business.
Through years of professional development, from global brands like Red Bull to wealth management, we've built relationships with coaches who rarely work outside executive circles. The Path Project brings that expertise to sixth form pupils for the first time.
This isn't school careers advice. This is the kind of coaching that typically costs corporations thousands per day, delivered with the same rigour, depth, and individual attention your child would receive in a boardroom.
Deena Gornick
Presence & Impact
Deena Gornick is an executive coach, speaker, and performance specialist with over 30 years’ experience helping leaders develop presence, confidence, and impact under pressure. Originally trained as an actor and theatre director, Deena’s own journey through fear and stage fright shaped her lifelong belief that confidence is not a feeling, but a behaviour that can be practised. She went on to train as a psychotherapist and became one of the earliest practitioners of executive coaching in the UK, working long before the discipline was widely recognised.
Today, Deena works almost exclusively with senior leaders and board-level executives at organisations including Red Bull, HSBC, BCG, and Barclays. Known for her rare ability to create environments that are both challenging and safe, she blends psychological insight, physical presence, and experiential learning to help people be heard, not perform. Her involvement in The Path Project is deliberately selective, bringing tools normally reserved for the most senior professionals to young people at the moment it matters most.
Georgie Rudd
Self-Discovery & Strengths
Georgie Rudd brings a rare blend of corporate leadership, psychological insight, and coaching depth to Pillar One: Self-Discovery. With 18 years’ experience shaping graduate and executive development inside organisations such as Lloyds Banking Group and Baringa Partners, Georgie understands first-hand the decisions, pressures, and trade-offs people face early in their careers. She is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation and an accredited practitioner in Lumina Spark, EQ-i and Hogan psychometrics.
Georgie has worked with leaders at Baringa Partners, Rothschild, Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, Ocado, SEGRO, and Kingfisher, helping them build self-awareness, confidence, and clarity in complex environments. Her coaching style is thoughtful, grounded, and quietly challenging, creating the psychological safety needed for honest self-reflection and meaningful change. Her involvement in The Path Project is intentionally selective, bringing the same depth of self-understanding usually developed over decades in the workplace to young people before their biggest decisions are made.
Jo Harrington
Self-Discovery & Strengths
Jo Herrington is a senior people development specialist with over 20 years’ experience helping individuals and organisations make smarter decisions about talent, leadership, and careers. She has held senior HR and learning roles at firms including Jupiter Asset Management, Janus Henderson Investors, Brit Insurance, Chaucer, and LHH, bringing a commercial, business-aligned approach to people development.
Formerly Global Head of Talent Development at Janus Henderson Investors, Jo led executive and board-level development, succession planning, and career strategy across complex global organisations. Today, through her consultancy, The Thrive Group, she works with clients including M&G, Pfizer, Baillie Gifford, Baringa Partners, and Artemis, delivering coaching, leadership development, and culture change with clarity and purpose.
Known for her calm authority and collaborative style, Jo brings sharp insight, empathy, and practical challenge to her work. Her involvement in The Path Project reflects a shared belief that confidence, direction, and self-belief should be built early, not left until people reach senior roles.
Oliver Johns
Project Founder
Oliver Johns is the founder of The Path Project and an entrepreneur driven by a simple belief: young people deserve clarity about who they are before they’re asked to decide who they should become. An Old Cliftonian, Oliver’s own career has taken a non-linear path across sports marketing, live events, fitness, and financial services, giving him first-hand insight into how often people make good decisions from the wrong starting point.
Now an Independent Financial Adviser, Oliver helps individuals and families make long-term decisions with confidence and perspective. Along the way, he saw a consistent pattern, talented people losing time, confidence, and momentum through misalignment, not lack of ability. The Path Project was created to fix that.
Oliver is not a coach. He is the architect behind The Path Project, bringing together elite practitioners, professional-grade tools, and a deliberate pause before life’s biggest decisions. His aim is to help young people recognise their value earlier, make more aligned choices, and move forward with confidence in a world that rarely slows down.
The Problem We're Solving
In the UK, around 1 in 3 graduates wish they'd studied something different at university*.
Around 40% of graduates don't end up working in a role related to their degree**.
Many realise, years later, that they climbed the wrong ladder.
Course changes and drop-outs can easily cost £15,000–£20,000***, but the real cost is time, confidence, and years spent in the wrong direction.
The problem isn't ability. It's misalignment.
Our Approach
We use professional-grade psychometric assessments like Lumina Spark, the same tools used by Fortune 500 companies to develop their leadership pipelines. Your child works in intimate groups of just 12, receiving personalised attention normally reserved for executive development programmes.
Over two intensive days, they gain deep insight into how they think, communicate, perform under pressure, and make decisions. Not generic personality labels, but practical self-knowledge they can apply immediately.
Why It Matters
Employers increasingly value self-awareness over perfect answers. The Path Project develops that clarity years ahead of their peers, leading to better choices, stronger applications, and more authentic career decisions.
This is once-in-a-lifetime access to coaching that shapes careers at the highest level, delivered at the crossroads where it can have the greatest impact.
Better self-knowledge now means better outcomes later.
Investment
The Path Project is £950 for two days.
For the inaugural Path Project cohort at Clifton College, a limited number of places are available at a founding cohort rate of £695 per participant.
This includes all executive coaching sessions, the Lumina Spark professional assessment, materials, and catering.
If it prevents even one year in the wrong direction, a course change, a misaligned degree, or years climbing the wrong ladder, it pays for itself many times over.
More importantly, it gives your child the self-knowledge to make decisions that actually fit who they are.
This won't be right for everyone. But if it resonates, it's here.
*HEPI/University of Bristol (2025), The Benefits of Hindsight: Reconsidering higher education choices – Recent data shows this figure may be as high as 52% for graduates aged 25–30
**Prospects Early Careers Survey (2022); CIPD, Graduate Overqualification in the UK
***Based on £9,250 annual tuition plus maintenance and accommodation costs. UCAS, Changing or leaving your course; Student Loans Company