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Coaches

Virginia Mansell

Virginia Mansell is an executive coach and the Founding Partner of Stephenson Mansell Group. She has over three decades of experience in business, HR, and executive development. She has built SMG into one of the APAC region’s leading firms for executive coaching, CEO mentoring, and senior leadership development.

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Virginia Mansell

Expertise

Trained
psychologist

30 years
experience

Industry
professional

Member of
APS

Experience and background

Virginia Mansell is one of the most experienced executive coaches in the region, having worked with CEOs, boards, and C-suite leaders across Australia and Asia for more than 25 years. She is known for her work in CEO mentoring, executive presence coaching, and guiding senior leaders through high-stakes leadership transitions. 

Virginia blends behavioural insight with commercial acumen, helping leaders navigate complexity, build clarity, and strengthen stakeholder confidence. She is frequently called upon to support leadership alignment during strategic transformation, succession events, and board transitions. 

As Founding Partner of Stephenson Mansell Group, Virginia has built the firm into one of the APAC region’s most respected providers of executive coaching and leadership development. Her work continues to influence leadership effectiveness across the business, government, and not-for-profit sectors. 

She is a graduate of INSEAD’s Organisational Leadership program and the Tavistock Institute’s program on Leadership and Authority in Organisations. Virginia is also the author of The Focused Executive: How to Maximise Your Leadership Effectiveness and has contributed to Company Director and The AFR. She designed SMG’s flagship programs, including Advanced Leader as Coach, Women’s Leadership Program, and Leadership at the Peak. 

Virginia's approach

First and foremost, Virginia believes working with people in a holistic way within their specific context is critical to their personal and professional development.
Working in the current context, understanding the business combined with a deep awareness of the psychodynamic-systemic approach at individual and organisational level, identifies challenges and issues which can then be addressed through appropriate interventions leading to significant long-term behavioural changes within the organisational system.

She is committed to providing genuine, evidence based though leadership, ensuring her clients have access to the best practice thinking on how to effect change.

Qualifications and memberships

  • Virginia has a BA in Psychology and Statistics and a Postgraduate Degree in Counselling Psychology
  • She trained with Dr Anthony Grant at the University of Sydney’s Coaching Psychology Unit, contributed to the inaugural Standards Australia guidelines on organisational coaching and has completed a “Leadership and Authority in Organisations” residential at the Tavistock Institute London and INSEAD’s “Leadership for Creativity” program, with Manfred Kets de Vries.
  • Virginia worked as an assessment psychologist whilst at the Cairnmillar institute and is accredited in the Centre for Creative Leadership Benchmarks®, LEA 360, TLCP and Kantor Structural Dynamics Assessments as well as many additional leadership development tools.
  • She is a Board Member of CoachLogix (San Diego) and Mentoring Officer, YPO Executive Committee (Sydney). Virginia is a Member Australian Psychological Society.

Personal insights

Virginia remains active in the business and professional community. She enjoys spending time with extended family and friends, physical fitness – swimming, yoga, golf, snow skiing – travelling, cooking & reading.

What our clients say

I started work with Virginia Mansell 18 months ago with a clear objective of working out how I could better fit into my new organisation and work more collaboratively with my peers.

Virginia challenged me on how I thought, what I valued and what I needed to do to make the change…. Have things changed……. absolutely…… Now I feel like a different person, happier, calmer and much more effective with my peers, my team and my Senior Executive relationships. This resulted from the supportive and challenging journey of personal self-discovery Virginia assisted me with. The ultimate feedback on the change I have made came from my wife…she recently said to me “I fell in love with you, but I love so much more as the person you have become… .

Managing Director, International Airline Company

I started work with Virginia Mansell 18 months ago with a clear objective of working out how I could better fit into my new organisation and work more collaboratively with my peers.

Virginia challenged me on how I thought, what I valued and what I needed to do to make the change…. Have things changed……. absolutely…… Now I feel like a different person, happier, calmer and much more effective with my peers, my team and my Senior Executive relationships. This resulted from the supportive and challenging journey of personal self-discovery Virginia assisted me with. The ultimate feedback on the change I have made came from my wife…she recently said to me “I fell in love with you, but I love so much more as the person you have become… .”

Managing Director,, International Airline Company

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