Dawn Stallwood

For nearly three decades, Dawn Stallwood has sat at the intersection of power, principle, and people. She is a corporate and commercial lawyer turned Leadership Counsel and Chief Integrity Officer, and one of only 770 Notary Public’s in the UK. Her practice environment has evolved – in-house, private practice, UK Top 100 Law firm partner, business owner and independent consultant. Dawn has supported owners, boards, senior leaders, and teams across sectors and geographies in deals, collaborations, growth, business as usual and crisis response. Her practitioner life has shown that deals collapse, value is lost, teams fracture and reputations fail, not because of bad strategy, but because we fail to prioritise the human side of leadership.

As a Notary Public, Dawn is the quiet witness in rooms where signatures and transactions decide futures. What she saw behind the paperwork, especially during the Global Financial Crisis, changed her course. In 2010, she founded Floodlight Business, an integrity and impact platform supporting business owners, founders and leadership teams as they navigate value creation, professional relationships,collaboration and legacy.

Turning 50 in 2024, Dawn marked her ‘half-time’ by pouring her experience into a proprietary framework built on Nine Beautiful Qualities and Ten Leadership Practices that make leadership truly attractive, authentic and impacting. Her new book, Beautiful Leadership – Your Personal Framework for Authentic Impact, reframes leadership as an act of intention, integrity, and service rather than power or control.

Not afraid to speak truth to power, Dawn is convinced of these two things: ‘We need an Army of Beautiful Leaders’ and ‘Human Centred Leadership and Professional competence is a vital tool in an AI age.’

Today, she speaks about the future of work, what deals and collaboration teach us about ourselves and the meaning of success, the ethical limits of AI, the importance of professional service with empathy, and the kind of leadership that enables human flourishing in uncertain times. Dawn brings candour, humour, and lived experience, bridging the boardroom, the deal room, advisor role and, consortium office and the deeply human space in between.