Vanessa King

Vanessa is passionate about bringing the best out of people and helping us get the most from our lives. She is a Board Member of the not-for-profit, Action for Happiness that was founded by the leading economist Professor Lord Richard Layard. She is their lead Positive Psychology expert and heads up their work with organisations.

Vanessa is the architect of the ‘10 Keys to Happier Living’ framework which is used around the world, she is the lead author of the psychological content of Action for Happiness’ extensive website. She designed and leads the Doing Well from the Inside Out Programme™ which applies the latest psychological research to increase employee engagement, build leadership capability and increase resilience and well-being, and she co-designed and delivered the Practical Ideas for Happier Living programme for communities. Vanessa is asked to speak around the world and she has been featured in the Sunday Telegraph, the Guardian and Psychologies magazine.

Vanessa completed a Masters degree in Applied Positive Psychology (including Appreciative Inquiry), under Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania, one of a small number worldwide to have done so and she is trained as a facilitator on the University of Pennsylvania’s Master Resilience Training programme.

She has an interest in the connection between design and wellbeing and has worked with students of service design at the RCA, Ravensbourne and TU Delft, and with architects at Birmingham City University.

Vanessa is an experienced leadership, talent and organisation development consultant. Her consulting experience spans a wide range of organisations in both the private and public sectors, across the UK, Europe, US and Asia. She is a member of the UK Taskforce on Employee Engagement and Well-being.

Earlier in her career Vanessa qualified as a chartered accountant, working at Arthur Andersen and Coopers & Lybrand (now PWC) and had a spell in human resources in investment banking. In addition to her Masters degree and ACA, Vanessa has a BSc (Joint Hons) in Psychology and Zoology. She loves food and wine – especially shared with friends, yoga, design and being outside by the sea.