The founder
Céline Thomas
Executive coach & coach supervisor | Founder of Oxygen Coaching | Author | Systemic thinking, ethics and exacting standards for leaders and their teams | FR · EN · ES
What drives me
Reconciling performance with respect for each person’s humanity
I founded Oxygen Coaching, where I practise coaching as an act of conviction and commitment: helping individuals and organisations grow towards a more ethical, more human future, one in which economic performance and respect for people can coexist. I work with a team of highly experienced professionals who share that intent.
Over 30,000 hours of executive coaching and 30 team and transformation engagements across twenty years of practice. I am an international executive coach, known for developing reflective leaders who build high-performing, adaptive and innovative organisations that put people first.
I hold a few convictions:
1/ we have to reinvent our future;
2/ each of us carries a share of that responsibility;
3/ we need to rethink, radically, the place of people in the world, and grow companies that create economic value by creating value for society.
My approach brings together systemic thinking and a deeply humanist reading, with an unapologetic grounding in business, to support leaders and their teams through change — respectfully, and transformatively.
A certified supervisor since 2012 and ESIA (EMCC) accredited since 2021. For more than a decade I have supported coaches and supervisors: over 50 coaches supervised and more than 1,500 hours of supervision. My purpose: to help coaching professionals strengthen their practice, and to contribute actively to the professionalisation of our craft. To me, supervision is above all “a safe space for reflective dialogue”, serving the practice, development and wellbeing of the supervisee. I borrow that definition from the EMCC, and it sits very close to my own approach.
I have published three books with InterÉditions and VA Press, and a fourth is being written. Writing is how I pass on what the profession teaches me — and how I give something back to it.
Supervisor since 2012
A safe space for reflective dialogue
A certified supervisor since 2012 and ESIA (EMCC) accredited since 2021, I have put my expertise at the service of coaches and supervisors for more than a decade.
My purpose: to help coaching professionals strengthen their practice, and to contribute actively to the professionalisation of our craft.
To me, supervision is above all “a safe space for reflective dialogue, supporting the practice, development and wellbeing of the supervisee”. I like that definition, which I borrow from the EMCC.
Resolutely humanist and systemic, I draw on many supervision models in my practice, including the seven-eyed model, in its extended ten-eyed version.
Convinced that supervision is essential to becoming fully oneself as a coach, I offer a space that is both supportive and confronting, where each professional can deepen their questions of identity and enrich their practice. It is a place of genuine exploration. In supervision, to my mind, no subject is off limits: client cases, ethical and deontological dilemmas, technique, coaching strategy — and the business side of a coach’s activity too. Supervision is where you air your dirty linen, so it is entirely normal that the linen be dirty. Beyond an ethical obligation, it is quite simply the professional coach’s hygiene.
I work with independent professional coaches and with internal coaches inside organisations, whether full time or alongside other responsibilities. My expertise also covers the supervision of supervisors and the support of team coaches, answering the specific needs of those who work with collectives. I was trained for that work by Peter Hawkins. I offer individual and group supervision, in French and in English, remotely or in person.
Beyond having supervised more than 50 professional coaches, 5 group supervision cohorts and 5 internal coaching teams, I have published 3 books that place supervision at the heart of professional practice.
It is my way of contributing to the profession.
My approach rests on three key dimensions:
Reflective exploration
Deepening the understanding of complex situations, clarifying what is at stake, building fitting approaches by integrating shared learning.
Listening to what is felt
Sharpening the perception of one’s emotions and regulating them, encouraging creativity, using intuition, metaphor and imagery in an inspiring and structured way.
Relational adjustment
Adjusting one’s interactions, strengthening bonds, bringing emotion, reflection and communication into tune.
In supervision no subject is off limits. It is the place to air your linen — so it is normal that the linen be dirty.
Client cases, ethical and deontological dilemmas, technique, coaching strategy, and the business side of a coach’s activity: everything can be laid down there. Beyond a professional obligation, supervision is quite simply the professional coach’s hygiene.
With whom, and how
Independent coaches, internal coaches in organisations, full time or alongside other duties, supervisors seeking meta-supervision, team coaches. I was trained in supporting team coaches by Peter Hawkins.
Individual and group sessions, in French and in English, in person or remotely. In groups I always supervise as a pair: with Stéphane Vallée, with Isabelle Croo, with Belinda MJ Brown internationally. Two gazes, two energies, twice the protection for the group — and the possibility, for one of us, to step into meta while the other is engaged.
Grounds for trust
Evidence you can check.
20 years
of practice, since 2008
Over 30,000
hours of executive coaching
40
team and transformation engagements
Over 50
coaches supervised
Over 1,500
hours of supervision
5
group supervision cohorts
5
internal coaching teams supervised
3
books, plus contributions to collective works
20 years
of life abroad
3
working languages: French, English, Spanish
Author
Writing is how I contribute
Three published books, contributions to several collective works, and a fourth book in the writing. I write to pass on what the profession teaches me — and so that leaders and HR directors also know what they are entitled to expect from a coach.
- 2014 · Les tribulations d’un coach français en Inde, InterÉditions
- 2019 · Global Coaching for the Whole Being, VA Press (co-written with M. Giffard)
- 2022 · 15 cas de coaching expliqués, InterÉditions (editor)
- Since 2026 · Stories and tribulations on my blog
My commitment to the profession
Professionalising, and protecting clients
Coaching is an unregulated profession. That is both our luck and our problem: anyone can call themselves a coach. I believe those of us with experience owe the profession a debt.
So I commit to it, concretely:
- Founding. Founding member of the Fédération des Superviseurs Professionnels, in Paris.
- Teaching. Faculty at the HEC coaching school for ten years, until 2021. ICF certified mentor coach.
- Supervising. Supervision of supervisors, and support of internal coaching teams on their own stakes: conflicts of interest, legitimacy, the survival of the scheme inside the organisation.
- Advising. I support HR directors and talent teams in selecting, listing and assessing their coaches, including in drafting calls for tender.
- Opening. Adjusted fees for coaches starting out: under two years of practice, or under €30k of revenue. Money should never be the reason someone goes without supervision.
- Giving. A share of my practice pro bono.
- Writing. Three books and several collective contributions placing supervision and ethics at the heart of practice.
And I am supervised myself. Monthly in a group, two to three hours a month one to one. You cannot hold a frame you do not apply to yourself.
Multicultural
Three languages, and respect for what does not translate
Bangalore. A seminar room, forty-five degrees, a flip chart with no paper. Twelve Indian managers looking at me. And three minutes before starting I discover that in India the word “posture” refers to the postures of the Kama Sutra.
I made it my opening joke.
That day I understood something twenty years abroad have only confirmed: you only support well what you have first agreed not to understand.
I have lived more than twenty years abroad, including several years in Latin America and in Asia. Today I live alternately in France and elsewhere.
I work in French, English and Spanish, and so does my team. This is not a line on a CV: it is the possibility, for a leader or a coach, of thinking in their own language at the moment when it is hardest.
Intercultural work taught me patience. An Indian silence is not a French silence. A “yes” is not everywhere an agreement. I approach each culture and each system with the same rigour and the same respect — and with the awareness that my own frame is only a frame.
My frame
Ethics, confidentiality, no judgement
A clear contract, clean boundaries, confidentiality with no grey area. A space that is both supportive and confronting: I always separate a person’s worth from the quality of their interventions.
That means I say what I see, even when it is uncomfortable. And that I decline an assignment when the proposed frame does not allow honest work.
Background, training & accreditations
Degrees, accreditations and tools
Degrees
- 2012 · Supervisor certification, Undici / EMCC supervision diploma (ESQA)
- 2009 · Executive coaching, advanced practice, HEC
- 2008 · Executive coaching, fundamentals, HEC
- 1995 · MSc Strategy and Organisation, HEC
- 1994 · Engineering degree, Télécom Bretagne
Accreditations
- EMCC · ESIA accredited supervisor
- EMCC · Master Practitioner accredited coach (EIA M)
- ICF · PCC accredited coach
- ICF · Certified mentor coach
Continuing education
- 2026 . Polyvagal theory certification, Quantum Ways
- 2025-2027. AI for coaches, AI Advantage Institute
- 2024 · Team coach supervisor certification, Peter Hawkins
- 2023 · Narrative practices, Le Laboratoire Narratif
- 2022-2026 · Transmission, team coaching, L. Oddoux, Paris
- 2021 · ROC, Trauma in coaching, Trajectives, Paris
- 2019 · ROC, Optimal Coaching Relationship, Trajectives, Paris
- 2016-2022 · Paradoxical systemics, IGB, Paris
- 2015 · NLP master practitioner, Neoway, India
- 2011 · Dynamic systemic therapy and solution-focused coaching, Institut Monceau, Paris
- 2010 · Systemics, coaching and mediation, J.-A. Malarewicz, Paris
- 2009 · Nonviolent Communication, Paris
Certified tools
MBTI©, Belbin©, TMI©, Lumina©, HRS Institute©, 5 Conversations©, ECR 360° Roche Martin, LEA 360° MRG, Delphin Strategy©
In their words
What the people I work with say.
Celine is a rare coach and facilitator. She challenges and stretches you, demands more, but does it with real care and humanity underneath. You feel both supported and responsibly pushed, which is exactly what enables real growth.
Becky Davis · Consulting Director for AI, Sopra Steria Next UK
She is a great listener who took the time to understand my context and objectives, but at the same time was very skilled at nudging me with thought-provoking questions and on-point analogies. I felt challenged, even pushed, and reached total clarity on my strengths and development opportunities.
Olivier Maître · Product Director, International Consumer Bank, JP Morgan Chase
A very high acuity of listening, a dual culture and great discretion. Her maturity allows her to coach with real subtlety.
Franck Ginchelot · Essilor International
Listen
Parcours de coach.
Let’s find the right format.
A need for coaching, supervision or simply clarity? Let’s talk plainly about the context, the stakes and the best way forward.