Maria James

Culture & Change Leader | Transforming culture through behaviour-led leadership and visible accountability | Creator of The Doughnut Principle™ | Veteran

United Kingdom

About

Transformation rarely fails because the strategy is wrong. More often, it slows when leadership behaviour becomes inconsistent under pressure. When leaders send mixed signals during uncertainty, people stop trusting. Alignment weakens, confidence drops, and execution slows long before performance data reflects the problem. Across military and corporate environments, including transformation affecting more than 27,000 people, I repeatedly observed the same pattern: change efforts struggle when leadership behaviour stops reinforcing what the organisation says matters. In an age of radical visibility, people pay close attention to what leaders tolerate, reinforce and model. Trust, accountability and execution depend far more on those signals than on the strategy narrative or internal messaging. That experience led me to develop The Doughnut Principle™ - a behavioural framework built around a simple observation: people trust what leaders repeatedly reinforce, not what they say. My work focuses on leadership consistency, behavioural accountability and organisational trust during transformation, HR change and uncertainty. If transformation is being slowed by mixed leadership signals, I'd love to hear from you. 📩 [email protected] 🌐 trust-bydesign.com

Experience

  • Member at Institute of Directors (IoD)
    Mar 2026 - Present · 4 mos

  • Founder / Behavioural Transformation Practitioner at Trust by Design
    Feb 2026 - Present · 5 mos

    Trust by Design works with CEOs and senior leadership teams to build the consistent standards of behaviour that earn followership during growth, significant change or merger. Using The Doughnut Principle™: Earn • Protect • Rebuild to support organisations to: - Define leadership standards explicit enough to measure - Build the conflict capability that prevents cultural fracture - Ensure transformation delivers consistently from the top to the frontline Work includes: - Executive advisory - Global keynotes - Behaviour-led leadership programmes

  • Deloitte (Greater London, England, United Kingdom)
    • Culture & People Experience Leader | People & Purpose Executive Group
      Feb 2023 - Feb 2026 · 3 yrs 1 mo

      Directed firmwide culture transformation across 27,000 employees, shifting ownership into the business and embedding leadership behaviours into day-to-day decision making. Held accountability for scaling a unified digital platform for inclusion and wellbeing, enabling real-time insight and accelerating adoption to 17% vs a 10% benchmark.

    • Inclusion & Wellbeing Change & Adoption Leader
      Jan 2022 - Feb 2023 · 1 yr 2 mos

      Led inclusion and wellbeing engagement across the firm, embedding behaviour-led approaches to strengthen team connection and increase visibility of employee experience. Focused on moving inclusion from a standalone initiative to a core firmwide behavioural standard.

  • Culture & Wellbeing Leader (Freelance) at Skipton Building Society
    Jul 2021 - Jan 2022 · 7 mos

  • Employee Experience & Inclusion Leader (Freelance) at Utility Warehouse
    Mar 2021 - Jul 2021 · 5 mos