María Marshall-ClarkeSociology · Leadership · Human-centred AI
Leadership begins with how people experience a system.
I am María Marshall-Clarke, a sociologist, executive coach and human systems architect. I help leaders build organisations where people matter, so that performance and wellbeing stop competing.
What I do is connect the dots: between data and behaviour, culture and leadership, AI and the human questions it raises.
I create a space of trust where people can speak about what is difficult to say, understand what each person needs and find how the pieces of a team fit together, so that change can happen with less friction.
When to call me
The moments when a sociological, human-systems reading makes the difference.
The data speaks, nothing changes.
You run engagement or pulse surveys, and the results never turn into different conversations or decisions.
Wellbeing that does not hold.
The programmes exist and people attend, and the culture stays where it was.
A leadership team at a turning point.
A new stage asks the team to communicate, trust and decide differently, and the old habits keep running.
AI arrives faster than people.
The tools are in place, and roles, judgement and responsibility have not caught up.
Good people go quiet.
Fewer voices in meetings, more in the corridor, and the best ideas never reach the table.
Careers without a path.
People cannot see where they can grow, or your career offer is not held to a professional standard.
My perspective
Where everyday experience meets organisational life.
An organisation has a formal structure and a life that unfolds between people. I am interested in how those worlds meet: how decisions are made, how participation becomes possible and how someone comes to feel that their presence matters.
My perspective brings together sociology, conscious leadership and transpersonal, systemic, ontological and relational coaching. I look at a person within the relationships, expectations and conditions that shape their experience.
Mattering runs through this work: the experience of being valued and being able to contribute. MAPPA is a framework I am developing to explore these questions and bring them into organisational practice.
Why mattering matters
People grow when they know they matter.
Mattering is the experience of being valued and being able to contribute. It shapes whether people speak up, how teams decide, how change lands and how much energy people bring to their work.
When it is present, wellbeing and performance grow together. Most organisations already hold the signals: engagement data, pulse surveys, the conversations that happen and the ones that never happen.
My work brings them into one conversation, so leaders can see the system the way their people live it, and act on what they see. That is how I work everywhere: listening to the system, connecting what is scattered and embedding change so it holds.
My method
Listen · Connect · Embed
Listen. Read the system.
With DECODE, an integrated diagnostic, I bring together what the data says, how people behave, what the culture allows and how leadership is exercised. Most organisations already hold these signals; they rarely sit in the same room.
Connect. Bring the data close to people's experience.
MAPPA orients where to look: Mattering, Awareness, Purpose, Participation and Alignment. It shows where people feel their presence matters, and where it does not yet.
Embed. Build what makes change hold.
The work develops the human capacities that let change last: metacognition, self-awareness, positive accountability, agility and mindset.
Services
Every engagement is designed from a concrete situation. These are the usual shapes it takes.
Executive coaching
Leadership habits run on autopilot, and few spaces exist to examine them.
Tell me more
A space to examine how you lead, what shapes your decisions and how you relate to the people around you.
One-to-one processes for leaders, online or in person, in blocks of sessions. Coaching since 2011, over 1,000 hours.
What it enables: change that does not depend on willpower.
Human systems consulting
Strain and friction rarely appear on the org chart.
Tell me more
I explore how structures, working relationships and everyday decisions shape belonging and participation.
Leadership team programmes. Work with a leadership team: individual and team coaching, with continuous climate measurement so progress is visible.
What it enables: leaders see the system the way their people live it, and decisions land better.
Organisational wellbeing and learning
Wellbeing programmes that do not touch leadership, culture or learning do not hold.
Tell me more
I connect wellbeing with leadership, culture and learning. Listening to how people experience their working lives helps frame the questions an organisation needs to address.
Listening-to-action programmes. For organisations that already measure engagement: continuous listening, working groups and coaching for the teams most at risk of strain, so data becomes practice.
What it enables: wellbeing stops being a benefit and becomes architecture.
Senior advisory
Culture and wellbeing decisions are often made without a human systems lens at the table.
Tell me more
I work alongside senior leaders considering decisions about culture, leadership and organisational wellbeing, bringing a sociological perspective to the human systems around them.
Ongoing support for senior leaders on culture, leadership and wellbeing decisions, at an agreed cadence. Talks and keynotes in English or Spanish.
What it enables: better-framed questions before big decisions.
Human-centred AI integration and team learning
AI adoption moves faster than the people asked to use it.
Tell me more
I accompany leaders and teams through AI implementation and everyday use, connecting practical adoption with the human questions it raises: how people learn, how decisions are made, how roles change and how responsibility is shared.
As a sociologist, executive coach and educator with a background in teaching, I help teams test, reflect and adapt, keeping human judgement, relationships and organisational wellbeing at the centre.
What it enables: teams adopt AI without losing the human side.
The first step
A brief first conversation, to tell me what you are working on and hear where I would start.
Book a first conversationCases
Selected work
Pharma.
I worked for a year with its leadership committee on internal communication, trust, agility and focus, combining individual and team coaching with continuous climate measurement. The committee's indicators for alignment, recognition and relationships improved measurably during the process. I now co-direct the wellbeing programme that grew out of this work.
Banking and Finance.
I lead a continuous listening programme, moving from data to action through regular pulse surveys and ongoing measurement. The work combines working groups that turn insight into change with coaching for the teams most at risk of strain.
An educational group.
My work brings together design thinking, leadership, strategy and expansion, connecting the development of ideas with the group's direction and plans for growth.
Startups and newly formed organisations.
I work with multinational startups and newly formed organisations on complex systems thinking, agile and lean strategy, leadership and culture, and expansion.
C-Suite and boards.
I work alongside CEOs and boards through non-executive director roles, bringing together strategy, executive coaching, systems thinking and innovation.
In numbers
hours of coaching since 2011
organisations accompanied
entrepreneurs accompanied
years of university teaching
Experience
A perspective shaped across research, learning and organisational life.
My work draws on more than twenty years of professional experience, more than fifteen of them in manager training, HR and learning and development. I have worked across banking, pharma, hospitals, automotive, technology, startups, education and the public sector, alongside earlier research at the University of Liverpool.
Recognition
- Named one of the Top 15 Coaches in Liverpool by Influence Digest (2025).
- Recognised for my contribution as a coach in the Teachers of Happiness Program at Royal Thimphu College (World Happiness Foundation).
Current roles
- Global Executive Director · World Happiness Foundation, with Special Consultative Status at the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 2025
- Co-founder · HAANA Business School for Human Flourishing
- Partner · Happyforce
- Non-Executive Director and Deputy to the CEO · TheGradStory
- Director · CBL, Certificación de Bienestar Laboral
- Co-founder · Vivir+, a community health initiative working with municipalities
- Co-builder · Mindful Diving Institute
I am also a career development practitioner: a member of the Career Development Institute (CDI), the UK professional body for career development, and Level 6 qualified in Career Leads and Career Guidance. Across these roles, I return to the relationship between leadership and the conditions in which people live, learn and work.
Earlier on, four years working with refugees at the British Red Cross, and research for Age UK with people over 80.
Ethics and professional standards
Career development held to a professional standard.
My career development work is aligned with the standards of the Career Development Institute: the CDI Code of Ethics (2024) and the CDI Career Development Framework (2021). In practice: impartial guidance, confidentiality and respect for each client's autonomy. Your story is yours, and my job is to help you author your career, not to prescribe one.
I integrate career guidance, coaching and wellbeing as one continuous offer, because that is how career decisions actually happen.
Training and accreditations
- MA in Research Methodology (2012–2015).
- Doctoral research in sociology, University of Liverpool (in progress).
- Level 6 in Career Leads and Career Guidance, Career Development Institute (CDI).
- Animas Accredited Transformative Coach
Accredited Diploma in Transformative Coaching, Animas Centre for Coaching (2026).
- Certified Chief Wellbeing Officer, World Happiness Academy (2026).
- Discover Asset-Based Community Development (Part 1), Nurture Development (2026).
- Official Consultant, Certificación de Bienestar Laboral (CBL), World Happiness Foundation (2025).
Komorebi Notes
Slow reflections on human systems, belonging and leadership.
Writing gives me room to stay with a question. In Komorebi Notes, I explore how organisations, cities and communities shape our lives, and how we find our place within them.
Longer essays live on Substack, including New Human Dawn, on what we ask AI to amplify, and the series How to Think, on futures thinking.
Gallery
Moments along the way.
References
What people who have worked with me say.
"Maria es talento, humanidad y capacidad fuera de lo común. Siempre la verás, ofreciendo ayuda y nunca la verás en un conflicto salvo que sea ajeno y esté intercediendo para mejorarlo o resolverlo. Es un tesoro conocerla y un privilegio (y además muy divertido), tener proyectos conjuntos con ella."
Carlos Jordana · Employee Experience · Leadership · High Impact Training · Coaching
"Maria is an outstanding professional: personable, she can win anyone over, intelligent, completely bilingual, with a skill-set that is a true rare find. She has a wealth of experience in various locations yet always brings the same skills with her to any team or experience. She would be an asset to any organization."
Joy MacFarland · Partnerships & Advocacy · Connecting People, Ideas, and Organizations · 20+ years in English Language Education
Let's begin with a conversation.
If you are thinking about leadership, organisational wellbeing or change, tell me what you are working on and what you would like to understand. We can explore whether my perspective is a good fit for the work ahead.
Get in touchmaria.marshallclarke@myhappyforce.com
María Marshall-Clarke
Sociologist · Human Systems Architect · Executive Coach
Matter · Align · Flourish
Based in the UK, working worldwide · © 2026 María Marshall-Clarke