Coaching & Advisory

We elevate leadership and succession capability to help businesses thrive.

For business owners and CEOs, strong performance and continuity relies on the capability of your leaders and your ability to provide the right environment for them to thrive.

Great leadership shows up as clear communication and accountability combined with sound commercial decision making. It requires energy management, strategic thinking and a desire to help team members reach their full potential.

Succession planning shines a particularly bright light on leadership. Management succession asks you to trade control for trust and cultivation to shape the business to endure without you (or to maximise value at exit). And this can get more complicated if your successors are family members.

It requires time and care to enable your team with the structure, confidence and coaching skills to drive your business forward. This is where Sidelight shines.

Our Services

About Us

Chris Bates (Founder)

I am passionate about helping mid-market business owners, leaders and successors develop capability and clarity. The numbers, your people, family and legacy all matter. Success comes from making sure all these things are consistently considered and cared for.

After an initial career in insurance and financial services and observing both of my parent's farming families take different succession pathways, I founded a successful strategy and leadership advisory firm (Checkside) that I sold via a partner buyout after 17 ½ years. I transitioned into a CEO role for a diversified mid-market family business (Waringa) for 4 ½ years, stepping back to an advisor role in early 2026.

My experience as a business owner, CEO and advisor helps me relate to what is most important to clients, as well as their boards, accountants and other advisors. I have helped well over a hundred businesses across Australia with their strategy, leadership and succession plans over the years and enjoyed playing a part in their success.

My qualifications include a Bachelor of Business (Curtin University), Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors Course (GAICD) and Certified Chair with The Advisory Board Centre. I also maintain a strong understanding of business psychology and behavioural economics principles.

Outside of work my family is actively involved in sport, primarily football, basketball and golf. My love of coaching started at age 17 and I have coached football and basketball teams ever since.

Our Services

Coaching

We never lose sight of the importance of business performance and the need to cut through noise.

The aim is to help leaders consistently improve energy management, communication and accountability, think and act clearly under pressure, build trust within teams and develop coaching skills to drive performance and enable succession.

Our coaching process includes the following steps:

1) BUSINESS ANALYSIS.

To ensure relevant impact we need to understand your business model, structure, culture, strengths, challenges and performance metrics. We use RFI forms, meetings and walkarounds to do this and develop a concise executive summary to confirm our understanding with you.

2) DESIGN.

We tailor our coaching approach and delivery cadence to match your business needs. This typically involves a staged approach to build buy-in and trust.

3) BUY-IN.
Our initial sessions with owners and leaders include a proprietary pre-coaching questionnaire and one-to-one meetings to discuss expectations, desired outcomes and 'readiness' for future sessions. If leaders have previously completed awareness profiles we review those, or arrange assessments as required.

4) ONE-TO-ONE COACHING (121).

Because everyone is different and focus is important, 121s are the highest impact method of leadership development. These confidential coaching discussions include pre-meeting question forms and post-meeting 'coaching actions' to build consistent thinking > deciding > acting habits. It's where noise is distilled and the most growth and change happens.

5) TEAM COACHING (ALIGNMENT).

As trust and coaching habits are built, alignment sessions include curating and applying the right core leadership models to suit your team and working with them to build understanding, (re)set objectives and hold each other accountable to agreed standards.

Succession & Exit Planning Advice

Coaching helps prepare businesses for management succession (and exit readiness). We provide additional advice to business owners who are exploring their succession and exit options and/or are navigating these challenges in a family business environment.

We are often referred by accountants and other advisors in these cases and work alongside them to get the best outcomes for clients. Our services include:

1) ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN
We review your structure in the context of your strategy, business model, capacity and succession plans and help design changes to roles, responsibilities and/or reporting lines as required.

2) SUCCESSOR IDENTIFICATION AND SELECTION

With hands-on experience helping businesses plan for the appointment of internal or external successors, we help guide the process from setting expectations through to onboarding.

3) OWNER TRANSITION

Transition out of a business is a daunting prospect for most owners. We act as a sounding board and help owners prepare for and successfully navigate the steps.

4) FACILITATION AND MEDIATION
For families keen to ensure all family members views are considered and understood we facilitate one-to-one and family meetings to progress succession or exit discussions. When there are roadblocks, sometimes the only way to unlock issues is mediation.

5) ADVISORY BOARDS AND FAMILY COUNCILS
We provide independent chair or advisor role expertise to private and family businesses with (or developing) these governance structures.

Testimonials

"I've worked with Chris for over 20 years across my own businesses and have also referred him to other business owners.

What differentiates Chris from other coaches is that his advice is grounded in real commercial experience. He understands first-hand the realities of running, growing and exiting a business and that comes through in the quality and practicality of his guidance."

Eric Cain

CEO - QPR Premium Funding

"Chris worked with me and my leadership team at Fleet Network over a 3 year period. He brings a commercially astute lens to coaching and it was always clear that he believed in and cared about our team reaching our full potential.

His work helped prepare us for our next stage of growth and has endured, including our brand promise that remains core to the way we work at Paywise today."

Frank Agostino

CEO - Paywise

"Chris helped EBM with a review of our organisational structure to support our growth and provided coaching support for our leadership team as we prepared for and implemented those changes.

He has a strong understanding of what is important to a professional services firm like ours and has always provided me and our leaders with valuable insights and advice."

Ward Dedman

Director / Former CEO - EBM

“As CEO and as an adviser to us, Chris has helped us grow all three of our business in terms of structuring, process improvement, acquisitions, succession planning and the development of our teams.

Chris has a strong business skill-set and also cares a lot about coaching people to build their capabilities and achieve their potential."

John Warr

Managing Director - Waringa