Vanessa King is a board member at Action for
Happiness and author of our Ten Keys to Happier
Living book. She plays an active role, speaking
nationally and internationally and translating the latest
psychological research into practical action to help individuals,
organisations and communities enhance their wellbeing and
resilience.
Vanessa has a background in professional services, with
expertise in leadership, talent and organisational development. She
has worked with a wide range of different clients, including: Astra
Zeneca, Boots, British Gas, British Library, British
Telecom, DHL, DTI, Genzyme, KPMG, Lloyds, Marks
and Spencer, National Audit Office, News Corporation,
Philips, Radio Authority, RBS, Roche, Sainsburys, Sekisui Enzymes,
Sony Ericsson, TNT, UK Healthcare Commission, UK Office of Science
and Technology, UNHCR, University of Bradford, and Wolff Olins.
She is one of a small group people globally to have completed a
Masters in Applied Positive Psychology at the
University of Pennsylvania, studying under Martin Seligman and many
of the other leaders in the field including David Cooperrider
(Appreciative Inquiry), Barbara Fredrickson, Ed Diener, Chris
Peterson, Mihalyi Csikzentmihalyi, Karen Reivich and Angela
Duckworth.
Vanessa combines in-depth knowledge of the science of well-being
with her client experience to help people get the most from work
and for organisations to get the best from its people. She delivers
a range of workshops focused on well-being, resilience and
workplace creativity as well as working alongside organisations to
design bespoke solutions. Vanessa is the architect of the 10 Keys to Happier
Living framework and developed the Doing Well from the Inside
Out programme for organisations, leading its successful pilot
and roll-out with a global FTSE 100 organisation. She also authored
the extensive psychological content on the Action for Happiness
website.
She is trained as a facilitator on the University of
Pennsylvania's Master Resilience Training programme for the US
Army, she is a master practitioner of the Happiness at Work survey and a member of
the UK Government's employee engagement taskforce, Engage for
Success.
Prior to consulting Vanessa qualified as a chartered accountant,
working in Corporate Tax at Arthur Andersen (where she also played
an active role in graduate recruitment) and PWC where she became a
business analyst, which fuelled her interest in the potential of
people and organisations and led her to move into HR with two
global banks, Morgan Stanley and Bankers Trust. She has a BSc
(Joint Hons) in Psychology and Zoology, is a member of the
International Positive Psychology Association and an affiliate
member of the CIPD.