Who Noesis Is For
I work with people and organisations navigating change, holding complexity, or questioning direction, often in settings where technical expertise is strong, but the real challenge lies in judgment, meaning, or orientation.
My work spans education and universities, alongside heritage and cultural organisations, including publicly funded, mission-driven, values-led and faith-adjacent bodies. I also work with individuals who are seeking renewed purpose or clarity in their work or lives.
This is not industry-specific work. It’s for those who value reflection, who are willing to pause before acting, and who sense that a different kind of conversation might help them move forward with integrity.
Insight often needs company.
Stephen Parker
Professor of Beliefs and Values, Stephen Parker is an educator, researcher and coach whose work sits at the intersection of leadership, insight and renewal.
After more than three decades in education, including in senior academic and leadership roles as a professor, and long experience mentoring researchers and emerging leaders, he founded Noesis Coaching & Consulting to create and facilitate space for purposeful thinking, especially at moments of complexity, transition and change.
His approach is shaped by deep experience in reflective scholarship and by a longstanding attentiveness to how people within institutions make sense of their work.
His academic research has focused on beliefs, values, education and policy — with particular interest in the cultural and ethical frameworks that shape organisational life, and in the often-unspoken visions of the good that guide decision-making beneath the surface.
Alongside this, Stephen has held long-standing editorial roles in the field of beliefs and values, contributing to national and international conversations about education, culture and public life.
“Clarity rarely comes from speed or strategy alone. It begins with attention.”
Across both scholarship and practice, he is known for cultivating what he calls a change in listening posture: slowing conversations just enough to hear what is already present, but not yet fully articulated.
He brings calm presence, conceptual clarity and disciplined attention to complexity, helping leaders, professionals and organisations name the real questions they are living with — rather than rushing to premature solutions.
Alongside his coaching practice, Stephen continues to teach, write and facilitate researcher and researcher development in higher education. He works with a range of organisations on developing aspects of their work or people.
His interests include leadership, values, belief, policy, and the narratives organisations — and the people within them — tell about themselves, and how those narratives shape culture, authority and possibility.
His work is grounded in a conviction that meaningful change rarely begins with urgency or force, but with attention: the willingness to pause, to listen more carefully, and to allow clearer judgment and wiser action to emerge.
How I work
My work is deliberately spacious. It doesn’t begin with fixed frameworks or off-the-shelf answers, but with thoughtful attention to the particular people, questions, and contexts involved.
Whether I’m working with a senior leader, a research team, an academic department or someone navigating personal transition, I aim to create a climate of reflective inquiry, one that supports clarity, coherence, and wise action.
This might take the form of structured dialogue, one-to-one accompaniment, facilitation, collaborative thinking, or slow problem-solving. In every case, I offer calm presence, conceptual depth, and disciplined attention to what is already emerging.
‘Stephen is a wise and values-infused thinker, with an eye for careful observation and a gift for asking the right questions to prompt deep reflection and discernment’.
Prof. Annalise Gordon, St Mary’s University, London
‘I would highly recommend Stephen’s approach to developing leadership thinking and practice. His wise and considered approach is affirming and supportive.’
Pat Murden, CEO of the Diocese of Westminster Academy Trust.
Contact me
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and I will be in touch shortly.