Michaela Rees
Organisational Coherence Adviser
Helping leaders whose organisation is harder to run
than it should be
Twenty years leading inside complex organisations.
Now advising leaders navigating them.
Your strategy is clear.And yet decisions keep escalating.
Agreements dissolve outside the room.
Your strategy isn't turning into delivery.
The operating model has not kept pace.The problem is rarely the people.
It is how the organisation is operating.
And leaders rarely have the time or capacity to redesign it while running the work.I bring the capacity and judgement to do exactly that.
The leader remains accountable. The work is done in partnership.
And the standard is held as the change meets real conditions.
Redesigning the conditions that capable leaders are working around
Christchurch based · Available for remote engagements.Michaela Rees is the founding adviser at Coherence Co.
Copyright © 2026 Michaela Rees - All Rights Reserved.
Services
I work with leaders whose organisation is harder to run than it should be. It all runs through Coherence Co, the advisory practice I started after twenty years inside complex organisations, the last decade leading change in the public sector and before that delivering at a national sporting body. I've led the work from inside, not just advised on it from the outside.I kept seeing the same thing. Capable people. Genuine effort. And still the work was harder than it should have been. It was rarely the people. It was usually how the thing had been set up to operate. Coherence Co exists for exactly that.Come and see what I offer, and the ways we can work together, over at Coherence Co.
Experience Shaped From Within
Senior leadership work produces a particular kind of judgement when it is lived from the inside.For two decades I have held leadership accountability inside complex organisations where delivery mattered and the margin for error was real. Public sector systems. Community partnerships. Elite sport delivery.That experience builds the ability to see what is actually happening inside the system.
Holding GM-level accountability inside a large public organisation during significant transition
Leading delivery for three Cricket World Cups and 100+ international events annually at New Zealand Cricket
Establishing the conditions and capability for teams to redesign their own work in complex operating systems, including reducing a 700-step workflow to 25 steps
The first rūnanga–local council māhinga kai partnership model in the South Island, later replicated regionally.
I bring calm judgement, empathic authority, and decision discipline shaped by years of leading through uncertainty, complexity, and high-stakes delivery.
The common thread:
Moving organisations from overload and reaction
to clearer decisions, steadier leadership, and reliable delivery.
Built the conditions for real executive integration by clarifying roles, shared purpose, and decision rights, so the team could work across their areas and make decisions that held
Redesigned enterprise-level operating systems so organisational intent consistently translated into operational reality. Policy became practice. Strategy became delivery
Clarified where different leadership work belonged, so the CE could focus on strategy and governance while senior leadership worked at the organisation-wide level. Working patterns improved and continued to develop
Eliminated recurring problems that had been worked around rather than resolved by redesigning the underlying system producing them so they stopped reappearing.
This is the work. If it fits, the first step is a conversation via the link below.
Get In Touch
If something in what you have read describes your organisation, the first step is a short conversation to understand what is going on and where the work may need to focus.Because I work with a small number of clients at any one time, that conversation is also how we establish whether there is a genuine fit.From there, we determine the right way to proceed. Whether that begins with a standalone diagnostic, a 90-day advisory cycle, or a broader conversation about what the organisation needs.Share a brief outline of your situation below.
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Thank you
Thanks for getting in touch. I read enquiries personally and will be in touch.