

Dr. Iris Palmer, PhD and 15+ years of global corporate leadership experience.
Former Director of Strategy and Execution.
Former hiring manager and line manager to Managers/Senior Managers and Associate Directors.
Creator of The 5P Magnetic Strategic Leadership Framework that Powers The Magnetic Strategic Leadership Accelerator.
Built for overlooked, passed over and stuck high performers.
Dr. Iris Palmer, PhD and 15+ years of global corporate leadership experience.
Former Director of Strategy and Execution.
Former hiring manager and line manager to Managers/Senior Managers and Associate Directors.
Creator of The 5P Magnetic Strategic Leadership Framework that Powers The Magnetic Strategic Leadership Accelerator.
Built for overlooked, passed over and stuck high performers.
Dr. Iris Palmer, PhD is a former corporate director with 15+ years of global corporate experience, 6-8 of those years spent inside calibration and promotion rooms. Her career moved across top 10 global Pharma, CRO and Biotech such as Johnson & Johnson, Amgen, Syneos Health (formerly INC Research), and Worldwide Clinical Trials.
Inside Syneos Health and Worldwide Clinical Trials, she was not an observer of promotion decisions. She managed 16-22 direct reports across global teams, sat on calibration panels, watched the names that get called and those that get passed over or overlooked, and understood exactly why.
She also served on the hiring committee and knows exactly what a hiring manager is assessing for a senior manager or associate director who desires to transition into an associate director or director role.
During her 15+ cumulative years in corporate, she worked on high stake large global projects, led, co-led, managed directly and indirectly 100-120 multifunctional global teams.
For 8.5 years in one of her tenures, she was frequently the person everyone relied on, delivering consistently 2 levels above her roles, yet her contribution and strategic value were invisible to the right decision makers before she decoded the system that changed everything.
The turning point came during 2018-2019. In addition to her line management duties, stabilising 16 direct reports absorbed post-merger in 2017, she stepped in and delivered high-value, high-stakes client solutions work as was allocated, but her official transition into that function did not follow. The work was real, but it did not automatically grant her the role in the strategic client solutions space, and the gap between doing a function and being named to it is where her method was born.
The through line is the one she learned the hard way. The leaders who move up are not the ones working hardest in the role they already hold. They are the ones already standing where the next one gets decided.
She tested the same method externally two years later. In May 2021, she was an associate director (strategic/client solutions), in June she applied for a director role and ran the framework through the entire process. By October 2021 she held a director offer.
Today, Palmer runs the Magnetic Strategic Leadership Accelerator™, built on the 5P Magnetic Strategic Leadership Framework™ — a 3-6 month executive career coaching and mentoring programme for overlooked senior managers, over-extended associate directors and high performers in Pharma, Biotech, CRO and other global corporate settings ready to step into director-level positions, to be rewarded with the salary, title, and respect they deserve, in 6-9 months.
Five pillars. Each one builds on the last. Skip one and the rest collapses.
Before tactics, before strategy, there is identity. If you still see yourself as the best executor in the room, everyone else will too. This is where we reset that, so everything you do from this point forward signals the level you're moving into, before you're officially there.
Strategic visibility to the specific people who control your career. Not self-promotion. A deliberate, consistent rhythm of presence that makes your value impossible to ignore by the decision-makers who need to see it.
The language of the leadership table. Financial fluency. Business impact framing. The ability to communicate your work in terms that executives respond to and hiring committees remember. This is the gap most high-performers don't know they have until it costs them another cycle.
Corporate political capital. The real currency of corporate promotion. Who your sponsors are, how decisions actually form, and the unwritten rules everyone at the top already knows and nobody at your level has been taught. We build your promotion case until it's airtight.
What happens after the promotion. Your first 90 days in the new role determine your next promotion. This is a system for your entire career, not a one-time fix.
Before you can build a case, you need to know exactly what's being evaluated.
Does this person lead themselves like a leader at the next level? Not manage tasks, lead. Do they carry themselves in meetings, in how they communicate, in how they show up under pressure, like someone who already belongs up here?
Do we actually see them? Not just know of them. See them. Can the decision-makers picture this person in the role, because they've witnessed them operating at that altitude, even informally?
Can they speak our language? Can they talk about their work in terms of business impact, financial consequence, strategic risk? Or do they speak in tasks and deliverables?
Who is advocating for them? Not who likes them. Who is willing to put their own credibility on the line and say "this person is ready"?
Are they already operating there? The strongest promotion cases aren't built in the conversation. They're built in the preceding six to twelve months of deliberate, strategic presence.
Senior managers, new managers, team leaders, aspiring leaders and mid level professionals preparing for leadership promotion or waiting to lead with more confidence and influence.
Yes. This is a live, online, interactive workshop with iris, not a pre-recorded course.
You'll participate in real time.
Between 4 and 6 hours, delivered on Saturday so it fits around your work week.
No, It's designed for both new and experienced leaders, including professionals preparing for their first leadership role.
Yes, waitlist members are notified first about every new workshop and program.
Absolutely. The workshop builds the executive presence, communication and strategic thinking that decision-makers look for when promoting into leadership.
Senior managers, new managers, team leaders, aspiring leaders and mid level professionals preparing for leadership promotion or waiting to lead with more confidence and influence.
Yes. This is a live, online, interactive workshop with iris, not a pre-recorded course.
You'll participate in real time.
Between 4 and 6 hours, delivered on Saturday so it fits around your work week.
No, It's designed for both new and experienced leaders, including professionals preparing for their first leadership role.
Yes, waitlist members are notified first about every new workshop and program.
Absolutely. The workshop builds the executive presence, communication and strategic thinking that decision-makers look for when promoting into leadership.