Susan is a Business Consultant and Founder of Strive to Thrive. After Uni and the near mandatory year travelling, she started her 13 year journey with Pull&Bear as a Retail Store Manager. She went on to manage 2 additional stores and take on the Country Director role for Ireland & UK which she held for 4 years. Following that, her role of International Commercial Director spanned 5 years & covered nearly 20 countries directly, supporting many more. The role saw her responsible for all commercial strategies and policies, from locations, product, pricing, teams, training & development and logistics, to strategic brand and country synergies and market unique opportunities. Susan had the absolute pleasure and joy to work with some of the most incredible talent any organisation has to offer. To see her teams grow and develop, have confidence in their abilities and lead others to do the same made the demands of the role all worth it. In January 2020, she returned to Ireland because she wanted to establish herself in business back in Ireland and bring her experience to homegrown entrepreneurs. Susan wants to support the growth and development of people, teams and organisations here and be part of the Irish success story again. Covid hit and the world went into lockdown, but never before was she so determined to support SMEs. So she did 2 things: (1) She enrolled for a very well recognised diploma in business & executive coaching and (2) got in contact with the LEOS & consultants agencies to join their teams so she could get stuck into supporting where obstacles lay. So high was the demand for support and help, it took her until November 2020 to formally establish StriveToThrive.ie - her Consulting and Coaching firm focused on helping professionals bring change 'management' to the essence of their business's & career success. She continues to collaborate with a number of LEOs with pre-revenue, micro and SMEs clients, with the development of their strategic direction through smart and realistic goal setting and process management. She loved her return to academia so much that she went on to achieve a further diploma in Team Coaching, a QQI L6 in Life & Workplace Coaching, a PG Dip in Executive Management and is currently in the 2nd year of her MBA & 1st year of a MSc in Psychology.