About the practice
No stage. No fireworks. A method that works on a wet Tuesday.
Keelworth & Co. was founded in 2013 on an unfashionable idea: that business coaching should be delivered by people who have run businesses, measured like a business improvement, and priced on the website.
The practice began the year after Daniel Okafor sold his logistics company, in a borrowed meeting room with one client — a joiner who could not take a holiday. The joiner got his holiday. He told a bakery owner. The bakery owner told an accountant. Thirteen years later Keelworth has coached more than 240 owner-managed companies from Flax Works, a converted linen warehouse on The Calls, and the referral chain has never needed advertising.
We are deliberately small: six coaches, every one a former operator — a logistics MD, an agency MD, a manufacturing ops director, a retail founder, an AIM-listed FD, and a scale-up people lead. We hire for scar tissue and then train for craft: every coach holds an ICF or EMCC credential, because "I've done it" without coaching skill is just anecdotes with confidence.
Three house rules have survived since 2013. Fees go on the website. Around a third of discovery calls end with us saying "not yet" — and what to do instead. And nobody on this team will ever call what we do a "journey" with a straight face; it is structure, rhythm and numbers, installed until the owner gets their life back.
Credentialed by ICF · EMCC · CMI L7 · AC member
How we behave
The standards behind the credentials.
Accredited, voluntarily. Coaching is unregulated in the UK, so we hold ourselves to the ICF Code of Ethics, carry ICF and EMCC credentials individually, and are an Association for Coaching organisational member. £2m professional indemnity insurance sits behind every engagement.
Confidential, in writing. Every engagement is covered by a written confidentiality agreement; Peer Board members sign a mutual NDA. ICO registered (ZA557201), UK GDPR throughout. Several clients prefer nobody knows they work with us; nobody does.
Measured, awkwardly. Every client's Owner Dependency Index is re-scored every six months. If the score is not moving, that conversation happens with us squarely on the hook — the method is ours, after all.
Complaints, published. A written complaints procedure is available from hello@keelworthandco.co.uk and honoured within 14 days. In thirteen years it has been used four times; all four changed something about how we work.
Free discovery call
Talk it through with someone who has carried it.
A free 45-minute discovery call. You talk, we ask questions, you leave with an honest read — whether or not that involves us.
No slides. No pressure. No cold calls afterwards.