About Milan
Hi, my name is Milan. I help people to meaningfully grow by helping with emotional, personal and professional development.
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I grew up in Leicester, UK before studying Engineering at Cambridge University. My curiosity and love for learning led to roles in supply chain and consulting. After 6 years, I decided to be purpose-led and focus on socially impactful work.
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I love deeply understanding our world and human nature and the frontier of personal development, psychology and philosophy fascinate me. My aim as a Meaningful Growth coach is to help others to be more fulfilled, impactful and ultimately thrive in life.
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Clients come to me to process heavy emotions, navigate difficult relationships, get out of mental ruts, build virtuous habits and systems, uncover purpose and values, and 'level up' in life.
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I simply want to help with the things that really matter to you, so you can meaningfully grow.
One of my core values is the pursuit of purpose through social impact
My Journey to Coaching
A Growth Mindset
Lori Shookvensen was the first emotional intelligence coach I had, but my personal developmental arc began after graduating at 22 when I became an operations manager on General Electric's leadership development programme. Moving to Aberdeen, Scotland was both a culture shock and very isolating. I turned to Dale Carnigie's How to Win Friends & Influence People, but quickly found that my richest lessons were personal development - I began practising mindfulness meditation, and reading popular self-help books such as Simon Sinek's Leaders Eat Last. I grew into a young adult who embraced new experiences through curiosity. This was my first experience taking accountability for my growth and joy.
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At 25, I had to dig deep at A.T Kearney, a strategy consultancy, that demanded 15-hour work days under high-stakes pressure and pace. It was gruelling and, in hindsight, unnecessarily miserable. A work friend helped me realise how my boundaries were majorly overstepped and they encouraged me to leave. Despite being a wellbeing representative externally in the company, internally I had difficulty listening to my core needs and values. I could only let go of pursuing meaningless status and materialistic markers of society with a trusted advisor's help. My body dumped the stress, and the sheer physical sensation of relaxation was when I took somatic information much more seriously. We're not floating brains or corporate productivity machines!
By 26, I joined Clarasys, a technology consultancy well known for its progressive and people-oriented culture, where there were coaches instead of managers. It was refreshing to experience healthy organisational values that fostered psychological safety, joy and sustained high performance at work. I flourished and embraced positions of increasing responsibility, including as a Product Manager on the C-19 Test & Trace programme. My first taste of coaching training was here under Lori.
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Personal, emotional and professional development have been large formative parts of my adult development. A growth mindset largely helped as well as rejecting suffering. A core component was regular reflection practises, and making my experiential patterns and values more explicit. I was clear on what really mattered to me: Connection and purpose.
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At 29, I took a sabbatical to explore ways to be more purposeful through social impact. I explored EA (Effective Altruism) and met one of my coaching teachers, Tee Barnett, at an EA conference in Prague. I piloted his coaching training and matchmaking programme TBCT which aimed at boosting the total number of deeply skilled coaching practitioners.
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Emily Crotteau, my second coaching teacher, and Tee's work on TBCT were deeply influential on my personal development and coaching craft. Thank you, Emily and Tee for sharing so much of your wisdom, kindness and support, and to my coaching cohort.
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Read Tee’s findings on the impact of coaching leaders doing transformational social good in the world
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Listen to Tee's podcast, Any Thoughts On, with Emily, to hear skilled advisors, mentors and practitioners discuss their craft
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Check out Tee and Emily's next evolution of a coaching, personal and professional development programme - Supercycle.org
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My grounding mantras
Temet Nosce:
Know Yourself
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Memento Mori:
Remember your Death
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Memento Vivere:
Remember to Live
My Professional Experience
General Electric - Supply Chain & Operations Management (Oil & Gas)
A.T Kearney - Strategy Consulting (Private Equity, Oil & Gas, Transportation and Logistics clients)
Clarasys - Technology Consulting & Product Management (Healthcare, Government, Charity clients)
In my career I've valued curiosity and learning. After graduating with a degree in Manufacturing Engineering from Cambridge University, I moved through supply chain, then consulting roles and worked with more than 20 companies in different sectors. The projects were diverse and hard, but the experience helped me to understand different people and work cultures. The range of my experiences helps my coaching when looking at professional and personal challenges for coachees. It allows me to relate to and offer support for several different professional contexts.​
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I also strongly care about mental health and wellbeing and took positions to help:
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As the London Wellbeing Lead at A.T Kearney, I introduced mindfulness practices, a Health Awareness week, and invited keynote speakers on mental health and sleep hygiene, and improved the nutritional options available in the office.
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As a Not-For-Profit community co-lead at Clarasys, I created our social impact goals, set up charity fundraising events, and grew the team from 4 to over 15. We had achieved a shared vision of social impact and clear outcomes to get there.​