The Hewsons Story

As early as the late 1950’s, academics and researchers in the US were documenting the negative effects of autocratic leadership in modern organisations and the need for leadership development.

Less than 20 years later, in 1973, a pioneering and entrepreneurial pair of Australians began an executive coaching practice in San Jose, California, working with the high tech and advanced technologies industry.

They were the forefathers of Hewsons Executive Coaching.

After 10 years of solid practice in the US, the business was brought to Australia and its coaches worked with some of the most well known Australian companies and their leaders throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s.

A unique methodology, comprised of a blend of disciplines, was developed and refined. It focused on giving leaders the opportunity to bring awareness and responsibility to their behaviours, and making choices and taking actions that positively impacted their personal future and the future of their businesses.

The fundamental principal of the methodology was integrity - doing the right thing gets the right results.



As the business expanded around Australia it added to its core one-on-one executive coaching service offerings such as attitudinal testing, group facilitation, strategy development and recruitment.

The core driver behind the business was always significantly impacting the ability of company leaders to play the game of business and through that improve society as a whole. That ethos laid the foundation for a successful long term future by attracting a young man new to the executive coaching business at that time, Richard Hewson.

Richard Hewson trained and worked with the business from 1994. He liked it so much that in 1995 he bought the company. Hewsons Executive Coaching was born, and in a short period of time was serving clients both in Australia and around the world.

Richard’s vision for Hewsons Executive Coaching was people and organisations behaving ethically. For Richard, values such as responsibility, integrity, compassion, courage and respect were the foundations of an ethical view of life and over a period of 16 years he rapidly expanded the business and significantly deepened its expertise.

40 years later and the torch was passed to Joe Watkins, now Managing Partner of Hewsons Executive Coaching. Joe’s experience both in senior management roles and 15 years of delivering people development programmes in Australia and the US had him recognise that Hewsons Executive Coaching was a business that is unrivalled in the Australian market in terms of its history, its experience, its methodology, and its core ethos.

Joe’s vision is for an Australia that has businesses lead by authentic leaders skilled at creating empowered workplaces where extraordinary business results get produced because people can fully express themselves, contribute their ideas, their passion and their inspiration.

The intention of the journey that began 40 years ago is thriving and expanding.


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