About
Dominic Monkhouse - Scaling Up Coach | Business Coach for Founder-CEOs.

Most business coaching programmes start with a shiny promise about unlocking your potential. Mine usually starts with a sigh. Because the business owners I work with aren’t failing—they’re suffocating under their own success. The numbers look great. The growth curve’s solid. But behind the scenes? They’ve no idea how they got there, and even less idea how to do it again.

I’ve been there. Twice. I scaled two tech companies to £30m, helped lead one through a $635m exit, and made every classic mistake on the way: mistook momentum for a plan, confused busyness with progress, and kept using strategies that had long expired.

It was business coaching—practical, grounded in frameworks like Scaling Up and Rockefeller Habits—that snapped me out of it. Coaching didn’t just fix the business. It rewired how I thought about business.

What Business Coaching Actually Does -
Now, I coach founders and CEOs facing the same silent crisis: successful, but lost. They’ve got results but no repeatable strategy. They’ve hired exec coaches, bought the books, tried the hacks—and yet the business still feels one bad decision away from unraveling.

At The Management Lab in the New Forest, we tackle the uncomfortable bit most coaching programs won’t touch: the fact that most leaders don’t understand the actual mechanics of their own success.

This isn’t career coaching. It’s not about pep talks or vague mindset tweaks. It’s about building the leadership muscle to scale deliberately. Real-world tools. Strategic frameworks. Regular accountability.

Coaching is where clarity replaces chaos—and where momentum becomes something you build, not just hope for.

Ideal Clients -
I work with founder/CEOs who’ve had enough success to spot the cracks. Not because they’re struggling, but because they know their current approach has an expiration date.

Typically -
Companies scaling from £5m to £50m
Leadership teams whose growth has outpaced their management systems Founders starting to suspect their success is more accidental than engineered

These leaders don’t need more motivation—they need methodology. They want strategic rigor, honest feedback, and a coach who’s been through the fire. I help them push past plateaus, make smarter decisions faster, and create systems they can actually scale.

We’ll set big goals. Hit them. And know exactly how—so it’s not just a fluke.

The Management Lab gives us the breathing room to do the work properly. It’s built for what I call strategic archaeology—digging into whether your growth is solid architecture or just really expensive luck. With frameworks like Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up, we’ll make the invisible visible—and fix what no one’s had time to look at. Because the most dangerous moment in business isn’t failure. It’s winning without knowing why.

Professional Highlights
Before I found my stride, I dabbled. A bit of hospitality here, some retail there, pharma, even a flirtation with the luxury goods crowd. All interesting. None of it quite “me.” What I did discover along the way, though, was my actual superpower: spotting when a business’s success patterns quietly start turning into failure traps.

Because here’s the kicker—most strategic failures don’t happen when things are falling apart. They happen right when everything seems to be going brilliantly.

At Rackspace and Peer 1 Hosting, I scaled both from zero to £30m in five years flat. At Peer 1, we more than doubled global revenue—from $90m to $200m—before selling the business in a $635m deal. From the outside: perfect case studies in business growth. On the inside? A masterclass in what happens when momentum gets mistaken for a business strategy.

And that’s what drives my coaching work today. Sure, I’ve got the credentials: Scaling Up Certified Coach, Gallup Strengths Coach, Table Group facilitator. I’ve written a couple of books that make people slightly nervous to recommend on LinkedIn—“F**k Plan B”** and “Mind Your F**king Business.”** I host the Curious Leadership podcast. But I’m not here for trophies. Those aren’t status symbols—they’re tools. Pattern recognition tools, to be exact.

My clients aren’t looking for cheerleaders—they want a partner who’s lived it, scaled it, nearly broken it, and come back with the playbook. Whether you’re in the early stages of business success or battling through your next wave of growth, I help you develop the conscious competence to avoid driving your business off a cliff at 80mph with the music blaring.

That’s why The Management Lab exists. Strategic thinking needs the right environment—somewhere you can step back, zoom out, and actually think. We offer a full suite of business coaching services, helping entrepreneurs and business owners cut through the noise, improve performance, and navigate the messiness that comes with scaling up. My specialisation in Scaling Up and the Rockefeller Habits is about building real systems for growth—and recognising the forces that either scale a business or quietly undermine it. Unlike most business coaches, I’ve actually built companies. Hired the wrong people. Overspent. Overcorrected. Then done it better. That’s the difference. I don’t deal in theory. I deliver practical tools and honest feedback that help you move faster, smarter, and with a hell of a lot more confidence.

Whether you’re looking to achieve sustainable business growth, sharpen your leadership edge, or just stop waking up at 3am wondering what the hell’s gone wrong, I’m here for it. No fluff, no filters—just straight-up coaching for people who are ready to stop winging it and start building something that lasts.

Personal Highlights
When I’m not helping founders untangle their own success patterns, you’ll find me ankle-deep in mud on our New Forest farm, with my wife Geri, our daughters Allegra and Araminta, a bunch of rare breed pigs and cattle, some overly opinionated geese, and chickens that think they own the place.

The farm isn’t just home—it’s where The Management Lab was born. Yes, partly because I needed a dedicated space for serious strategic work. But also? Because dragging execs out of their glass boxes and into the countryside does something useful. It disrupts the pattern. It gets them out of performative leadership mode and into actual thinking.

The Lab’s location is intentional. Away from boardrooms, inboxes, and whiteboards, leaders tend to breathe a little deeper. And in that space—free from the buzz of daily operations—they can finally focus on what really matters: the big stuff. Strategy. Scaling. What’s working. What’s not. And what needs to change before the wheels fall off.

I spent too many years trying to solve strategic problems while neck-deep in operational noise. It’s like trying to write a novel in a nightclub—technically possible, but good luck making it coherent. So I built a place where real thinking could happen. Whether that’s visionary or just plain common sense, I’ll let my clients decide.

What I know is this: when you shift your environment, you shift your perspective. And sometimes, stepping away from the chaos is the first real strategic move you make.

Ready to escape the success trap and scale up your business?
Book a 30-minute Strategy Session where we'll discuss your specific scaling challenges.

Coaching Regions
Australia
Europe
Middle East

Industry of Expertise
Coaching/Business Consulting
Computer/IT/Software Development
Creative/Design
Customer Support
Food Services/Hospitality
Human Resources/Training/Development
Legal Services
Logistics/Transportation
Marketing
Medical/Health
Retail