About Dr Joanna Martin

Dr Joanna Martin is a renowned ICF Accredited coach, strategist and guide for the women shaping our new global paradigm. Her message and mentoring have directly impacted hundreds of thousands of people around the world over the last 20 years.

She is the author of the best selling, Superwoman: Escaping the Myth, and an internationally acclaimed and award-winning speaker. With a first career in medicine, Jo enjoyed a brief stint at drama school before finding her calling in coaching and training. In 2014 she founded One of many®, a deeply supportive community of grassroots women leaders, which has since evolved into an international movement boasting over 500 Certified Coaches and Trainers in more than 20 countries around the world and a popular annual conference.

An award-winning CEO and entrepreneur, Jo has started and grown three successful small businesses. She is a highly sought after mentor to impact focussed business leaders looking to scale without personal sacrifice. Her private client list reads like a who’s who list of leaders, speakers and changemakers globally; with individuals from first-time speakers to CEOs; board members to MBEs; activists, TV personalities and celebrity speakers; many of whom choose to keep their work with Jo confidential.

She’s also committed philanthropist, co-chair of the Board of The Hunger Project UK, a diplomatic wife, a sometimes-too-tired mother, a protective sister, and a caring friend. She has a very cool head, but a very big heart.

Awards & Accreditations

“Like You I Am Just One Of Many Women And Together We Can Change The World.”

– Joanna Martin

“My mission is to equip a million women leaders with the tools to sustainably change their corner of the world.”

THE REAL STUFF

I have a bold belief.

I believe that the key to unlocking most, if not all of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is to have more women in positions of leadership. As the world faces unprecedented change, we need for a radical new approach to leadership, grounded in compassion, courage and connection. And women systematically demonstrate this type of leadership more commonly than men.

It’s not to say men can’t. They can. And some do. But it comes naturally to many women, and when we’re at the table, humanity benefits.

My wakeup call

Like most of us, I wasn’t born knowing this was what I was going to do with my life. I initially qualified as a medical doctor and spent a number of months in oncology where the death of a favourite patient provided me with a wakeup call to get my life “on purpose”. Within 6 months I changed careers, and was accepted to the prestigious Actors Centre Australia, where alumni include Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman (unfortunately not at the same time… who would not want to hang out with Hugh?)

It was while at drama school that I first came across the notion of “coaching”. A class that seemed to give names and frameworks to the sort of thing I had been doing as a sister and a friend since I was 6 years old. And as I explored human psychology, behaviour and growth more deeply, I knew I had found my calling.

Dr Joanna Martin looking through the window of a storefront

AMAZON BEST SELLING AUTHOR

Superwoman: Escaping the Myth by Dr Joanna Martin

I wanted to change the world

I spent the next 5 years coaching, training and developing an international reputation as one of the good ones… someone who deeply cared about people, knew her stuff, could teach it and facilitate deep transformation, all the while making people laugh (and sometimes cry).

But all of that deep care undid something in me. I had a big heart. I wanted to change the world. And I was making a difference. But I was still being fuelled by the cultural paradigm I grew up in… to be an overachiever, and to prioritise everyone’s needs before my own. So, while flying all around the world, delivering trainings for up to 3000 at a time: in London one weekend, LA, the next, Sydney the next… I managed to burn out by 30. I had been running on pure Superwoman energy. And I was exhausted.

I went to bed for 4 months, that turned into 9 and, in what I now refer to as my gestation period, I really started to learn. Not about how to achieve more, better, faster. But about alignment with my true self. I first discovered the power of understanding archetypes. And I completely reinvented how I lived and worked in the world.

And it worked.

a new chapter starts

In 2008 I launched my second company: Shift Speaker Training. And it was an overnight success. We supported thousands of business leaders to become more successful as speakers, to share their impact more widely and be rewarded for it. In that year I “achieved” more than I ever had before, made more money than I ever had before, but it felt graceful and in flow.

Then, when more of my female clients started asking me about “how to handle the juggle of work and life” than asking me “how to structure this presentation” I knew there was something else ready to be born.

But first I had to birth a baby. A little man called James.

And, in a great universal joke, it was while I was breastfeeding him in a dark room, six weeks old, that I realised what I was put on the planet for. To support women leaders, changemakers, and world-savers, to increase their impact, without burnout. But even though I could see the next chapter of my life so clearly, I had no time to do anything about it for another year, while I basically kept another human alive and tried to remember to eat myself. Oh, and sleep occasionally.

But, we made it to that first birthday, and then I moved my family back to the UK to launch One of many®. It was an idea that was launched initially with the help of my sister Kath Clarke, and my two content collaborators Susie Heath and Annie Stoker. And it feels like since then it has evolved into an organisation with a life of her own. My job as CEO feels like just to listen in closely to what she wants, and to do my utmost to serve what she is calling for.

Dr Joanna Martin sat at the dining table with her husband and young child.

I still love to geek out on business

I also run a small mastermind for impact-focussed women business leaders, Catalyst. I get great joy from mentoring, guiding and facilitating the growth of these courageous women. Together we support one another to scale our businesses, do good with our companies, and do more good with the profits we make.

I still relish the profundity of working 1-1 with leaders. So I always have a handful of private clients I serve. Often female business leaders who are stepping up dramatically in their leadership, and don’t want to burn out. Sometimes speakers who want to grow their impact. No matter what they look like, or through what vehicle their impact is made, what unites them is a desire to leave the world a little better than they found it.

Dr Joanna Martin brainstorming with an individual at a Catalyst Workshop.

The Hunger Project UK

The fourth quarter of my work in the world is as Co-Chair for The Hunger Project UK. THP is a global, non-profit organisation committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. A problem which makes no sense in today’s modern world, and is held in place by systems of inequity. Greg and I have been financial investors since 2009, and will continue to be so until hunger is ended. I love speaking on behalf of the organisation, love training our fundraisers and facilitators. So far we’ve trained over 85 facilitators in the USA, Australia, UK, Germany and Holland.

The Hunger Project UK

A Big Thank you!

But in the end, alongside all the writing, speaking and coaching I love to do, is the very grounding practice of homework, bedtime stories and worry-alleviation for small humans. There is nothing quite as brilliant and tough in equal measure as being a parent. Rose and James are the best teachers I have ever had.

And I’m forever grateful to the partnership of my husband Greg, without whom I would be able to achieve a mere fraction of what I do in the world.