Hi, I’m Suzi
I’M A LEADERSHIP COACH
I help leaders – like you – to become better leaders.
The Art of Leadership
I’m fascinated by leadership – what accomplished leadership looks like, what magic emerges when it’s present – and how leaders can get better at it.
I love learning about it, writing about it, teaching it, leading workshops on it – in fact, you could say I’m as obsessed with leadership as most of my friends are with Game of Thrones.
I’m on a plane most weeks, working with leaders up and down the country; and when I’m not, I’m hanging out with my family in a little town called Nelson (which happens to be the sunniest city in New Zealand – don’t hate me).
Let’s spark leadership… together
I’ve been a leader and senior executive myself and have the scars and badges of honour to prove it. I’ve worked alongside CEOs and executive teams for years and in lots of guises-from being a headhunter and practice leader for the world’s largest HR consulting firm, to an executive coach and company director of a cool little executive search firm.
Are you a numbers person? I’ll lead with these:
My Leadership Workshop scores an average rating of 97% participant satisfaction (from over 500 participants and counting).
Want those shifts to figure into your own leadership style? Let’s work together.
In addition to leadership geek, I’m an art lover, a hip-hop music junkie, and such a book addict, this is what my bedside table generally looks like. I’ve put a self-imposed ban on Amazon. No more till I’ve read what I’ve got.
Speaking of… itching to read about leadership? I wrote this for you:


“Leading others starts with self. We can’t expect to successfully lead teams of people to reach their full potential unless we are first willing lead ourselves. That’s the irony.
People think leadership is about getting others to do the work. It is. But the hardest yet most important first step of leadership is to get ourselves to do the work.”
A leadership coach, award-winning blogger and keynote speaker, Suzi works alongside CEOs, managers and executives to facilitate clarity, direction and optimal performance in the areas people need it most.
Suzi McAlpine is a Leadership Development Specialist and author of award-winning leadership blog, The Leader’s Digest. She writes and teaches about accomplished leadership, what magic emerges when it’s present, and how to ignite better leadership in individuals, teams and organisations.
Suzi has been a leader and senior executive herself, working alongside CEOs and executive teams in many guises. Her experience has included being a head-hunter and executive coach, and a practice leader for a division at the world’s largest HR consulting firm.
Suzi provides a range of services as a Leadership Development Specialist, including executive coaching, leadership workshops and leadership development programmes for CEOs, leadership teams and organisations throughout New Zealand. She has worked with IAG, Weta Workshop, The Department of Conservation, Contact Energy, Merchant (Overland) Footwear, BDO Accounting, and Nelson Airport to name a few.
In 2012, Suzi started The Leader’s Digest, now an internationally acclaimed blog, which provides tips and insights to CEOs and executives around the globe. The blog has been named in CMOE’s Top 100 Socially-Shared Leadership Blogs, Serve To Lead’s Best 21st Century Leadership Blogs, Charles Specht’s Top 50 Global Leadership Bloggers, Hubworks Global Top 25 Leadership and Management Blogs and MP Star Financials’ global Top 25 Leadership Blogs for Small Business.
In 2018, she launched an online leadership programme for emerging leaders, The Leader’s Map. The programme fills a void in the leadership arena, teaching leadership skills and providing support to people who are thrust into roles in which they must lead. The programme gives emerging leaders the necessary tools to succeed in their role.
Suzi is also using her expertise in the leadership space to write a book on burnout and how leaders can create environments in which people, as well as profits, thrive.
Suzi graduated from Massey University with a Bachelor of Business Studies (First Class Hons) in Management. She spent 10 years as an Associate Director and shareholder at OCG Consulting where she was part of the management team who led the business through double digit growth before selling the business to a multinational.
She then spent four years as a Managing Consultant at Futurestep, a division of Korn Ferry, partner to over 93% of Fortune 100 companies, before starting her own business, McAlpine Coaching, in 2011.
Suzi lives with her husband and three children in Nelson, New Zealand, which means she is on a plane most weeks, but she doesn’t mind because Nelson is the sunniest city in New Zealand!
Treena Pitham
Treena makes up the other half of the McAlpine Coaching team. She is Suzi’s ‘organiser extraordinaire’, cat herder of heroic proportions and generally all round awesome Executive Assistant.
Whereas Suzi isn’t much chop at all things administrative and process like, this is where Treena excels. She’s also a dab hand at presentations and whipping up great participant workbooks for Suzi’s workshops.
Although Suzi says she’d like to have Treena ALL TO HERSELF, she has to share her. Treena is a Virtual Assistant to other clients in a myriad of professions and the Owner of Octopus Admin. Suzi likes to think that she is Treena’s most important client, since they have been working together for over seven years now. But knowing Treena, and the phenomenal dedication and professionalism she brings to ALL her clients, you’ll know she gives them the same high quality experience that Suzi receives.
Treena has turned her hand to accounting, law, police, learning and development, and other small business operations (including yours truly).
Something she also has done (just casually) is win a National title for Latin American dancing. This woman is one talented cat.
Suzi waxes lyrical on a regular basis that she doesn’t know what she would do without her on the McAlpine Coaching team. Talk about girl crush.
You can connect with Treena on LinkedIn or via email [email protected].
And if it’s something to do with Suzi or McAlpine Coaching, you can connect with her via [email protected]
