Elliot
Elliot Awin
Kind · Calm · Intrepid · Grounding
Elliot Awin is an executive coach and the founder of Not a Noun. He works with senior leaders, founders, and teams operating under sustained pressure — helping them find clarity in their performance, their identity, their motivation, and their purpose.
The business years
Elliot graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2010 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Management, and went straight into the wine trade with an importing and distribution company. Within five years he had become company director, combining four decades of the company's trading experience with a fresh, adaptive approach, and building a team capable of responding to a fast-changing market. Over his career in wine he has founded and acquired businesses, led market expansions, and held full P&L responsibility. He currently sits on two boards as a non-executive director.
The turning point
In February 2020, Elliot had a pacemaker fitted, bringing a 27-year rugby career to an end. Rather than retreat, he founded Wave Wrangler, a charity supporting people living with heart arrhythmia. Believing in no limits, in December 2023 he rowed solo and unsupported across the Atlantic Ocean — 3,000 miles from La Gomera to Antigua, 44 days and 1 hour alone at sea — raising over £150,000 for the British Heart Foundation and shining a spotlight on heart health. He was the first person with a pacemaker to attempt the race. In 2024 he was named the British Heart Foundation's Heart Hero of the Year.
Coming to coaching
These experiences led Elliot to coaching. He has a foundation in psychotherapy, holds a Certificate in Humanistic Counselling from The Gestalt Centre, and completed the Advanced Executive Coaching programme at the Møller Institute, Churchill College, Cambridge. He is working towards accreditation as an Executive Coach with the Association for Coaching. His coaching combines lived experience, business acumen, academic study, and the Gestalt philosophy of lived experience.
The approach
Elliot's methodology sits at the intersection of performance, identity, motivation, and purpose. He draws on frameworks like the Gestalt Cycle of Experience, the Paradoxical Theory of Change, Total Motivation, Ikigai, and Resilient Performance — not as theories to memorise, but as maps for noticing experience. His style is human, direct, and quietly challenging; he creates a calm, grounding space from which to explore, evaluate, and evolve. Progress, in his view, is measured not by how good someone feels in the session, but by how they move through life afterwards.
Work with Elliot
Get in touch for a no-obligation conversation about what you're working on, and whether coaching is the right fit.