About Lindsay Brady, ACC-accredited life and career coach based in Dublin
I didn’t leave corporate because I couldn’t do it. I left because I could, and it still wasn’t enough.
On paper, everything worked. I had built a strong career. Led large teams and departments. Delivered results. Worked in fast-paced, high-performing environments — most of it at LinkedIn, where I was Global Director of Analytics over 10 years.
From the outside, it looked like progress, people were impressed, said I was successful.
But internally, it felt different. The pace was relentless. The work I love started to feel transactional. And there was no space to stop, think, or grow in a meaningful way.
I’ve always felt like the lucky one
The job, the company, the family, the husband ready to take on primary care so my career could flourish. Incredible managers, mentors, friends. Three gorgeous, healthy children.
Until, gradually, it didn’t feel right anymore.
My professional story
For 20+ years, I worked on the leading edge of data and analytics. I started as an analyst and worked my way to Global Director of Analytics at LinkedIn over 12 years.
Whatever the challenge, if it was scary I always said yes and figured out how to do it later.
I’m known professionally for hiring and growing thriving teams. For getting straight to the heart of a challenge to drive impact. For being the no-nonsense voice at leadership tables. For coaching and mentoring hundreds of people to shine in their careers. And for speaking at company and client events, with audiences of up to 3,000, to demystify the power of analytics.
Everything in my career was driven by one belief: every person has value to add, and every leader is a human, no matter the title. When you bring teams together to appreciate the unique value each person brings, people feel respected, decisions flow, and amazing things happen.
Business booms. Teams thrive. That’s the dynamic I’m best known for creating.
The Turning Point
Like many of the people I work with now, I reached a point where I had to ask:
“Is this actually what I want, or just what I’ve been working towards?”
That question isn’t easy to sit with — especially when you’ve built a life and career around being capable, reliable, and successful. But avoiding it has a cost too.
In 2023, after years of climbing the ladder, building a family, surviving a pandemic and all the rest, I realised I was surviving, not thriving. Constantly exhausted. Always juggling. Never really present anywhere. Everyone I spoke to reminded me how much opportunity was still ahead. I didn’t need opportunity. I needed a break and a reset.
So I left my dream job. No plan. No vision. Some fear, some excitement, and a strong sense that it was the right thing.
My coaching story
Throughout my career, my real passion was always people. I believe everyone has a story, and I’ve been privileged to play a part in hundreds of professional stories.
Looking back, I realised my success had always been built on a foundation of deep connections and supporting people to thrive — whether that was navigating a career change, having a tough performance conversation, or pushing someone towards their growth edge.
In 2024, after stepping away from my corporate career, I took the leap and turned that passion into my work. The goal: to reach as many people as possible with the tools and fuel to take control of their own lives.
As a coach, I pride myself in always learning, always developing, so I can be the best coach possible to my clients.
My personal story
This is the one I’m most proud of. I like to think of it as a mid-life uplevel, not a crisis.
I emerged from the baby years and the demanding career and went on a quest to find who I was now. What could a mid-life uplevel look like? Quite exciting, when you frame it that way, a fresh sheet of paper.
I took an approach of play and curiosity. I kept judgement — my own and others’ — at bay. I tried new ways of living, new hobbies, new structures.
I now spend real, unhurried time with friends and family.
I sing in a 200-person choir every Wednesday.
I’m an eternal yoga beginner.
And I enjoy a quiet cappuccino after school drop-off.
I also discovered something: I’m only happy when I’m being challenged.
So The Big Life Project was founded — to create meaningful impact at scale, and to prove the thing I now believe most: no matter how messy life gets, you always have a choice.
What’s the next stage of your story going to be?
My Values
The five things this work is built on
These aren’t decorative. They’re the filters I run every session, every workshop, and every keynote through. If they sound like the kind of person you want in your corner, we’ll probably work well together.
-
Empowerment
My job is to make myself unnecessary. Success isn’t you leaving a coaching package feeling great — it’s you going back to the tools on your own, six months later, when the next big decision lands, and knowing what to do with it.
I want you to take up the space you deserve, feel worthy of more, and ask for what you want. Long after we stop working together.
-
Fairness
I get triggered by things that aren’t fair. Companies promote brilliant people into manager roles and then leave them to figure it out alone.
Professionals are expected to navigate the biggest transitions of their careers with no map and no permission to slow down. None of that is reasonable. A lot of what I do is making the unreasonable visible — and then giving you the tools to do something about it.
-
Authenticity
I have no hierarchy ranking in my head. I’ll talk to a CEO the same way I talk to an intern. The version of me you meet on a discovery call is the version you’ll meet in a boardroom, and the same one my kids see on a Saturday.
I built my career by showing up as myself before I had a name for it. Now that’s the thing I most want to help other people do.
-
Practical impact
The emotional work matters. And it leads somewhere.
This isn’t a space for sitting with feelings indefinitely. It’s a space for understanding what the feelings are telling you, and then doing something with that. Every session, every workshop, every keynote ends with something actionable. You will leave with a next step.
-
Connection
The group dynamic isn’t a scalable version of 1:1 — it’s its own thing, and it’s one of the most powerful experiences I get to create.
People realising they aren’t the only one having the quiet thought, the secret doubt, the radical question — that changes things on a level no individual session can reach.
Accreditations
The credentials behind the warmth.
I get described as warm a lot. I am. I’m also rigorous. The training and methodology I bring into the room are real, and they matter — because the conversations you’ll have here are too important to be held by feel alone.
ACC-credentialed coach with the International Coaching Federation
Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential, awarded by the ICF — the global gold-standard accreditation body for the coaching profession. The credential is renewed every three years. To successfully renew, you must complete 40 hours of Continuing Coach Education (CCE) units (including at least 24 hours in Core Competencies and 3 hours in Coaching Ethics) and 10 hours of Mentor Coaching during that three-year window.
Other credentials:
350+ hours of certified coaching
Certified Co-Active coach — CTI
Certified group coach — Potentials Realised
Certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator
20+ years of senior corporate leadership