About Andrew
When Andrew was sixteen, his father died suddenly. A few months later, his girlfriend's father gave him a copy of Plato for his seventeenth birthday. It wasn't a casual gift. In the space left by his father's absence, those dialogues became a way of thinking about what it means to live well when life doesn't go as planned.
That early encounter with philosophy shaped everything that followed—from his career in sales and leadership, to coaching Team Great Britain Inline Hockey at the highest level, to formal training in coaching (ICF) and organisational psychology (Master's), to the work he does now.
In October 2017, Andrew's wife left him. He didn't see it coming—but he should have. Three kids. Living apart. Devastated. He realised he'd been lying to himself, obsessed with work, pretending it was "for them" when in truth it was an addiction.
The crisis surfaced patterns he'd been carrying since his father's death. For two years, he did the work he now asks of his clients—facing what he'd been defending against, examining the cost of holding it together.
Two years later, they reconciled. They moved to Prague. They began again.
In February 2022, Andrew's brother died suddenly—thirty years sober, the one who'd shown him that transformation was possible and given him The Road Less Travelled after his own decade-long battle with addiction. This time, Andrew didn't defend against the grief. He let himself feel it—the anger, the loss, the unfairness. The work became more urgent. Life is shorter than we pretend.
Andrew now works with founders and senior executives who are exhausted from holding it together. Leaders from all over the world travel to Prague to work with him.
Andrew's work centres on a simple recognition: most leaders are moving away from danger rather than toward anything meaningful. They've become so skilled at defence that they've forgotten what they're defending.
His approach integrates philosophy with neuroscience—particularly how the limbic system (our threat-detection system) creates defensive patterns under pressure. His role isn't to provide answers but to ask the questions that interrupt this pattern—questions that create space for you to discover what you already know but haven't yet admitted.
The "Stories from the Vltava" are philosophical dialogues between three voices: the Stag (you under pressure), the Rat (your defence mechanisms), and the Wren (Socratic inquiry). Heard clearly by the River.
The Vltava River runs through Prague as it has for millennia—constant change while remaining itself. Andrew walks alongside it with leaders who are ready to stop surviving and start leading.
Email me: andrew@andrewsillitoe.com