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Meet Leonie
Leonie Lightfoot
Psychological Skills Mentor
About Leonie
Leonie is an experienced mentor with a strong track record of helping individuals and teams optimise performance by understanding and managing the mind. She applies her experience in elite sport to a variety of performance domains and environments, including business, education, and healthcare. Her work has spanned Olympic and professional sport, financial organisations, emergency services, and school leadership teams.
With a compassionate approach, Leonie values the connection between wellbeing and performance. She is an engaging and knowledgeable presenter who enjoys bringing The Chimp Model to life through keynote talks and workshops, making complex psychological concepts practical and accessible to a wide range of audiences.
Experience
- Full Member of British Psychological Society
- BASES Accredited Sport and Exercise Scientist
- PgDip Psychology
- MSc Sport and Exercise Psychology
- BSc Sport Science and Social Science
- 10 years experience with Chimp Management
- Performance Psychologist for British Equestrian Federation since 2017
- Volunteer Befriender at First Steps (Eating Disorders Charity)
- Previously worked as Coach Development Manager for England Athletics
From Leonie…
My fascination with the mind’s role in performance comes from my own experiences as a competitive athlete. This curiosity led me to study Sport Psychology at Loughborough University and gain accreditation with BASES to provide applied support to teams and individuals alongside a career in sport development.
I believe that wellbeing is an important foundation of high performance. I have been proud to work for Chimp Management since 2015, giving insight into how the mind works through the Chimp Model and supporting teams and individuals from sport, business, health, education to maximise enjoyment, wellbeing and performance outcomes. I have supported riders on the World Class Programme at British Equestrian through 2 successful Olympic and Paralympic cycles (Tokyo and Paris). I enjoy helping clients to understand that unhelpful thoughts and feelings which are often considered a problem for example pre performance anxiety, imposter syndrome, are a normal feature of the mind and working together to establish productive ways of responding to these.
Prior to Chimp Management, I spent 7 years working for England Athletics. This included 3 years as Coach Development Manager where I led a national coach mentoring programme and delivered initiatives to prepare female coaches for the high-performance environment and increase understanding and awareness of Eating Disorders in sport.
Nominated Charity
First Steps ED provides early intervention for young children with eating disorders. They offer counseling, support for families, and educational resources to help children and their families navigate these challenging conditions.
