UPCOMING EVENTS
Pavlina Schmidt is an Executive Coach, Psychotherapist and Systemic Supervisor with more than 20 years of international experience across Europe and the GCC. She works with leaders, business owners and professionals navigating pressure, transitions and complex relationships. Her distinctive strength lies in combining organisational experience with psychotherapeutic depth and a systemic perspective, helping clients understand not only the challenges they face, but also the personal and relational dynamics influencing their decisions and actions.
Pavlina holds EMCC European Individual Accreditation (EIA) at Senior Practitioner level and a Master’s degree in Social Work from Charles University in Prague. She is a trained psychotherapist with qualifications in Gestalt psychotherapy and Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor (PBSP) psychotherapy, complemented by training in couples counselling. She is also certified in systemic supervision through CoachME, a member of the Czech Association for Psychotherapy, and holds professional authorisation to provide counselling psychotherapy services.
Pavlina brings more than 20 years of international experience spanning corporate HR, executive coaching and psychotherapy. She coaches leaders across levels, from middle managers to senior executives, founders and business owners, supporting them through leadership challenges, complex decisions, professional transitions and relational difficulties. Her experience includes work with Accenture, Johnson & Johnson, ATOS, North Oil, ADP, Dolphin Energy and Porsche Engineering, among others.
Her organisational background includes building an HR function from the ground up, recruiting a management team and up to 150 employees, and supporting preparations for operations across five European countries. Alongside this work, she has maintained a psychotherapy practice since 2005 with individuals and couples. Earlier crisis-line experience and living across cultures inform her sensitivity to emotional intensity, identity, belonging and differing expectations.
Pavlina combines reflective depth with practical structure. Executive coaching brings attention to decisions, action and impact; psychotherapy offers an understanding of emotional patterns, needs and embodied experience; systemic supervision widens the lens to roles, relationships and organisational dynamics. She supports leadership development, career transitions, talent development and individual effectiveness, drawing where appropriate on 360-degree feedback, Hogan, Birkman First Look and Gallup. Her practice integrates Gestalt, PBSP, trauma-informed approaches and mindfulness, with clear professional boundaries. Her focus includes leadership under pressure, authority, identity and relational complexity across cultures.
“Awareness leads to change” is a thread through Pavlina’s practice and reflective writing. She explores how leaders can remain connected to themselves while navigating pressure, uncertainty and complex decisions. Drawing on psychotherapy, mindfulness and insights from neuroscience, her reflections consider how attention, emotional regulation and habitual patterns influence leadership behaviour. She draws on everyday experiences and metaphors, including her “Coaching While Walking” concept, developed over 18 years of practice, to encourage fresh perspectives and more intentional choices.
As a systemic supervisor, Pavlina supports coaches and helping professionals in navigating ethical dilemmas, professional boundaries and complex relational dynamics. Drawing on her experience in psychotherapy, coaching and organisational life, she brings different perspectives to situations where there are rarely simple answers. Beyond her professional practice, she volunteers as a coach and mentor, helping young people facing challenges explore educational and career opportunities and find their own direction. For Pavlina, professional experience carries a responsibility to contribute beyond one’s own practice.
Favourite material
Oak wood |
Countries visited
Never enough |
Coaching
Hours 2,500+, sectors 15+, nationalities 20+ |
Currently practising
French |
Greatest achievement
Being a mother of three |
In the kitchen
Turning an empty fridge into a delicious meal |
Tone section
Former choir singer, vinyl enthusiast |
Soft spot
The sea in any season, and good coffee |
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Away from work, Pavlina’s curiosity about people and cultures continues. She once dreamed of becoming a cultural anthropologist, and travelling remains a way of discovering how people live, think and relate to one another. She enjoys learning from different traditions and bringing something from those encounters into her own life. Yoga and cycling are essential to her sense of balance and wellbeing.
Explore coaching, SUPERvision & development opportunities at beckett-mcinroy.com/shop, or email [email protected] to arrange a conversation.
