North Wales founder brings 20 years of coaching expertise to a platform that makes world-class career and business guidance accessible at £295 a year
A Welsh entrepreneur and former engineer has launched an AI-powered coaching platform designed to help professionals and business owners turn their potential into meaningful career progression and business growth.
Holly McLoughlin founded ShinyMe after repeatedly seeing talented professionals overqualified for their roles and local business owners struggling to grow their income, all of whom lacked access to structured, expert-led guidance that leads to genuine progression.
“The people I coached weren’t stuck because they lacked potential,” says Holly. “They were stuck because nobody had ever helped them identify their purpose, articulate it, or act on it. That’s the gap ShinyMe fills.”
The platform launches amid significant workforce challenges. Nearly two in five workers in the UK are overqualified for their current job. Meanwhile, the Phoenix Group estimates that better professional guidance could increase UK GDP by up to £2.5 billion by supporting people to find more suitable roles.
“The UK has an enormous, untapped productivity issue that is fundamentally about people being a poor fit for the roles they’re in,” says Holly. “That misalignment is exactly what ShinyMe is built to address for people who are already in work or business.”
The platform targets professionals, founders and leaders who want to do meaningful work that pays well but have been unable to access the kind of structured coaching that leads to increased lifetime earnings, better wellbeing and genuine progression.
At £295 for 12 months’ access – approximately 80p a day – ShinyMe represents a significant shift in the economics of career and business coaching. Traditional coaching engagements typically cost between £2,000 and £5,000 for three months.
“This is a fast-growing sector that has long been ripe for technological innovation,” says Holly. “ShinyMe makes expert-level support available at a fraction of traditional costs, and it’s available 24/7. This opens up high-quality personal development to an entirely new market segment.”
ShinyMe’s core product, The Mission Map, is a self-paced course paired with an AI guide trained in Holly’s evidence-based methods. It draws on narrative coaching, motivational theory and positive psychology to help users define their direction, articulate their value and take deliberate action.
Users receive a ShinyMe Public Profile, a shareable document that captures their mission, values, strengths and philosophy to complement a CV or LinkedIn profile.
Early users have described an experience that goes beyond what generic AI tools do. One said: “I found myself opening up and telling it things I would not tell a human coach for fear of judgment.”
Another noted: “I gained a deep understanding of what motivates my choices by recognising my values. When you understand what actually drives you, and what is a great match for your skills and interests, you start building a work life around success you can actually enjoy.”
Holly McLoughlin’s career has taken her from British gymnastics squad member to qualified engineer, through leadership roles and training academy startups, to 20 years of coaching and now tech founder. Her path reflects what research shows is increasingly normal: the average professional makes between six and nine significant career pivots over their working lifetime.
As a woman from a low-income, single-parent background, Holly navigated multiple structural barriers in her own life and career.
“I was lucky enough to access world-class coaching through scholarships and a graduate training scheme, and it genuinely changed my trajectory,” says Holly. “I built ShinyMe because that kind of support should not depend on having the right connections or bank balance.”
After two decades of mentoring and coaching professionals through pivotal career and business decisions, Holly completed a master’s in career development at Nottingham Trent University and qualified as a career guidance practitioner.
“Research shows that people from lower-income backgrounds often focus purely on stability when making career decisions,” she says. “But financial security and meaningful work are not mutually exclusive. Everyone deserves work that fulfils them and allows them to make a positive difference.”
The platform launches amid intensifying job market pressures. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report highlights accelerating shifts and growing pressure on workers at every level to reposition, retrain and pivot.
The UK Social Mobility Commission in 2025 specifically noted the persistent barriers facing workers in rural Welsh communities and former coal-mining areas seeking decent, meaningful work. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 found that work disengagement is growing globally, a problem that is expensive for organisations, deeply corrosive for individuals, and damaging to the economy.
“Career guidance can directly provide a supportive, reflective space that helps people develop self-conception, motivation and confidence,” says Holly. “Even without changes in employment outcomes, such attitudinal shifts translate into improved well-being.”
Holly developed ShinyMe through the Business Wales Accelerated Growth Programme (AGP) Start-Up Accelerator, using no-code development tools to build and launch the platform.
A hybrid coaching model integrating human expertise alongside the AI guide is in development and expected to launch later in 2026.
www.shinyme.com is now live, where users can access a free taster tool designed to identify why they’re feeling stuck or unfulfilled in work or business, and consider what to do about it.
“I was lucky enough to have mentors who helped me see what I was capable of and find the courage to act on it,” says Holly. “Most people aren’t that lucky. ShinyMe exists so luck doesn’t have to be part of the equation anymore.”