about esther walker
ROOTED IN WISDOM. SHAPED BY EXPERIENCE. COMMITTED TO CHANGE.
I’m Esther Walker, a former Fortune 500 senior global leader who spent over two decades inside some of the world’s most complex organisations — learning first-hand how systems succeed, and why they fail.
I climbed to the top of the ladder and discovered what many eventually do: the view from the top can be profoundly disconnected from the ground.
What I witnessed wasn’t bad leadership — it was unwell leadership. Cultures built on pressure, performance, and profit quietly eroded humanity that sustained them.
From that realisation, The Psychology of Being™ was born — a framework for restoring coherence to leadership by aligning purpose, ethics, and wellbeing.
FROM CORPORATE CONTROL TO CONSCIOUS COHERENCE
My leadership journey began in global CRM and loyalty strategy before I was headhunted into the oil and gas industry to lead a failing division. Within months, we turned it around — not through process, but through people.
That experience confirmed what I had always known intuitively: when you restore trust and connection, systems self-heal.
But the higher I rose, the more I saw how detached leadership had become from its emotional, ethical, and ecological roots.
The corporate machine had forgotten its heart.
My career didn’t end because I failed. It ended because I refused to conform to a definition of success that harms the human spirit.
That moment became the catalyst for everything that followed — a journey from burnout to breakthrough, from performance to presence, from leading others to remembering how to lead myself.
MY PERSPECTIVE
I held senior global operational and contract management role for a decade within a global oil and gas major - a place of great colleagues, complex responsibility, and immense learning. It was also where I witnessed the true cost of imbalance in leadership.
In the male-dominated world of commercial B2B fleet, I was a square peg in a round hole — striving to succeed in a system that was highly sales-driven, performance-focused, and profit-led. It was an environment charged with competition, fuelled by targets, and defined by constant comparison.
Beneath the success metrics, I could see what was missing: balance.
The same imbalance continues today.
Diversity has become a metric, not a transformation. Even when women reach the decision-making table, they are often expected to lead in the same way as their male peers. Feminine qualities — reflection, compassion, collaboration, intuition — are dismissed as weakness, while pressure, fear, and control are rewarded as strength.
I was once told to “stop being so nice.” and "to shout more".
What I know now is that kindness is not the absence of strength — it is its highest form.
That realisation marked the beginning of my awakening: the moment I understood that leadership has forgotten its heart, and I considered mine.
This is where my work began.
My consultancy exists to shine a light on leadership — not to criticise, but to illuminate. To show what becomes possible when leadership is re-rooted in wisdom, humanity, and higher awareness.
I’ve lived the imbalance. I’ve felt the pressure and the pain. And I’ve walked through it.
That lived experience has become my wisdom — and my mission:
to help leaders restore coherence between power and care, strategy and soul, the masculine and the feminine.
Because when leadership returns to balance, people thrive, organisations flourish, and the world itself begins to heal.
The Psychology of Being™
THE LIVING ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUS LEADERSHIP
The Psychology of Being is not another leadership programme. It is a philosophy of reconnection — between the human and the system, the inner and the outer, the mind and the matter.
It teaches leaders to move beyond management toward mastery — not mastery over others, but mastery of self.
Both personal and planetary in scope: it shows that the same principles that restore coherence within a leader also restore coherence within the world.
From this body of work grew The Oak Tree Leadership Ecosystem™, The I-ACE Method™, and The 144 Codex™— a new architecture for conscious enterprise, ethical governance, and systemic reform.
As my research deepened, I began to see that the fractures within leadership were mirrors of the fractures within our wider civilisation. The same imbalances I had witnessed in boardrooms existed in government, in economics, and even in the Earth.
Across the world, reformers in law, ecology, and education are reaching the same conclusion in different languages: leadership, ecology, and consciousness must be reunited.
That realisation led to The Covenant Trilogy — three global frameworks for restoring coherence to our planetary systems:
- The Environmental Integrity Framework – truth in land and law
- The Economic Equity Framework – reciprocity and right exchange
- The Planetary Stewardship Framework – leadership as sacred service
Together, these represent a living architecture for the restoration of wholeness — a modern-day Rosetta Stone for humanity’s renewal.
My purpose now is clear; I work with leaders, educators, and policymakers who are ready to evolve — those who understand that leadership is not about control but coherence.
Through consultancy, education, and research, I help them transform the culture of leadership from the inside out — aligning purpose with performance, and restoring the rhythm of wisdom in every decision.
Because when leaders return to wholeness, the systems they lead do too.
career & credentials
Former Senior Global Leader at Shell — where I led major B2B programmes with budgets exceeding €60m across 35 countries.
- Developed and implemented a global Operational Excellence Service Model for Shell, recognised by an independent external auditor as “Best in Class.” This model became the company’s global framework for service and supplier management, setting a new benchmark for performance and integrity.
- Appointed General Attorney for EuroShell B.V. - responsible for the legal and commercial governance of supplier contracts across Europe.
All supplier agreements were required to pass through my office for approval, ensuring global compliance, transparency, and operational alignment.
- Negotiated and managed Shell Retail's largest outsourcing project - single point accountability for contract valued at $350m, introducing the first Global Contract Framework recognised externally as a model of governance integrity.
- Delivered $2.2m in annual cost savings within 12 months through service delivery transformation and operational excellence.
- Oversaw a loyalty programme with 1.3 million cardholders, recognised as a global best-practice model for customer engagement and retention.
- Awarded seven consecutive global service recognition awards for outstanding performance and innovation in leadership.
- Experienced in building and leading multicultural global teams, managing operations, customer loyalty, marketing strategy, and organisational restructuring.
- Founder of The Psychology of Being™, and developer of The Oak Tree Leadership Ecosystem™ and The I-ACE Method™ — pioneering models that integrate conscious leadership, human coherence, and systemic transformation.
- Developer of The Covenant Trilogy: frameworks for environmental, economic, and planetary reform.
- Creator of The Seed Paper Library — a public commons of essays and frameworks for conscious governance, unity, and systemic change.
- Today, I partner with CEOs, boards, and leadership teams to deliver bespoke consultancy and education designed for lasting cultural and organisational change.