I’ve just completed my coaching training. This wasn’t an obvious next step in my career — it was a deliberate choice, slightly off the beaten path.
Over the years, working across cultural heritage and cultural resources management projects, I’ve come to realise something that rarely gets addressed openly. Cultural heritage professionals are not trained to lead. Or very rarely.
- Not in universities.
- Not in professional pathways.
- Not within most cultural institutions.
We are trained to research, document, preserve. But rarely to manage teams, navigate complexity, handle clients, or lead people through demanding, real-world projects. And, in many cases, we are not even encouraged to step into those roles — as if culture required less leadership, less structure, or less accountability than other fields.
Where the gap shows up
The gap shows in the cultural sector more than in most other fields:
- In projects that struggle to move forward.
- In organisations that rely on improvisation.
- In professionals left alone inside roles that require much more than their technical expertise.
- In insufficient operational budgets.
This is why I chose to invest in this path.
I am increasingly convinced that more grounded, experienced leadership is one of the next real frontiers for the cultural sector.
What this changes in the work
I now find myself reflecting very intentionally on the next steps of my consulting work — not as a change of direction, but as a deepening of my approach. Project management remains the spine of what 58th does. Coaching sits alongside it, offering a different kind of space: not operational, but reflective. A way for professionals and teams in cultural projects to pause and observe how they are working — not only how much they are doing.
More on this very soon.
The programme
- Issuing body: Life Coach Italy · Advanced Coach Academy
- Accreditation: ICF Level 2 — International Coach Federation
- Dates: 7 Nov 2025 – 8 Mar 2026
- Hours: 158 hours of training, observed sessions, and final assessment
- Director: Giovanna Giuffredi, CEO Life Coach Italy
- Conferred: Rome, 8 March 2026
With thanks
To Giovanna Giuffredi and her outstanding team at Life Coach Italy, and to the incredible group of peers I had the privilege to learn alongside.
And the biggest thank you to my husband Michael Ashley — for the love, patience, and for making space for this journey to happen.
Coaching at 58th is offered to professionals and teams in the cultural sector — individual paths and team sessions. If something here resonates, write.
