About Angela Rixon
Founder of
The Centre for Meaningful Work
Angela Rixon is an executive coach, leadership consultant, and meaningful work expert with over 25 years of experience across technology, professional services, financial services, and consulting.
As the founder of The Centre for Meaningful Work – and author of the book Meaning Over Purpose – Angela combines academic insight with real-world leadership practice to help organizations create high-performing, human-cantered cultures. (She’s an MBA, holds an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology, and is an advanced Transactional Analysis practitioner.) This unique blend of credentials and practical know-how allows Angela to bridge the gap between evidence-based theory and the realities of modern leadership.
Known for her grounded, science-backed approach, Angela has led transformational change initiatives and coached leaders at all levels. She’s served in roles as an educator, culture strategist, and programme director, giving her a 360° perspective on what it takes to build thriving teams and workplaces. Drawing on her deep expertise in positive psychology and behavioural science, she partners with clients to create meaningful, values-aligned workplaces where both people and performance flourish.
After decades spent driving change from within organizations – and seeing the toll of burnout, disconnection, and misaligned leadership – Angela founded The Centre for Meaningful Work to help close the gap between organizational purpose and the lived experience of work. Despite working in purpose-driven companies, she often felt the discomfort of cultures that “talked the talk” of purpose but didn’t feel human-cantered in practice. The pressure to perform and “fit the mould” came at the cost of authenticity, inclusion, and personal well-being.
That dissonance became Angela’s catalyst. What began as a personal quest for more meaningful work turned into a professional mission to help others reclaim meaning in their leadership, culture, and lives. She delved deeper into coaching, psychology, and human systems, determined to find a better way. Today, through The Centre for Meaningful Work, Angela empowers leaders, coaches, and organizations to embed meaning at scale as a strategic advantage and cultural imperative.
Angela’s leadership philosophy is rooted in the idea that meaningful work is the key to sustainable success. Her methodology blends psychology, coaching science, systems thinking and behavioural design to embed meaning at scale. She developed the Meaning Over Purpose™ framework as a practical blueprint for aligning personal meaning with organizational purpose – proving that purpose and profit are not opposing forces, but partners in performance.
As a thought leader, Angela has created proprietary tools and models to make “meaning” tangible. She is the creator of the Meaningful Work Hexagon™ and the Five Pillars of Meaningful Work™, which together form an actionable model for measuring and amplifying meaning in everyday work. These frameworks, along with the Lead with Meaning™ leadership development series she designed, give leaders a structured way to improve engagement, resilience and results by focusing on what truly matters.
Angela’s leadership philosophy can be summed up in a few core beliefs:
- Meaningful work should support performance, ambition, and well-being – not compete with them.
- Legacy isn’t something you build at the end; it’s embedded in your daily actions and interactions.
- Meaning isn’t a luxury; it’s a leadership responsibility. When work works for people, people work better.
These guiding beliefs inform every aspect of Angela’s work. She helps leaders see that when work works for people, people work better – and that cultivating meaning isn’t just good for morale, it’s essential for the bottom line.
Our Mission & Methodology
Angela believes that when meaning is woven into the fabric of an organization, everyone benefits. Unlocking energy and resilience through meaningful work leads to:
- Clarity & confidence in leadership decision-making.
- Sustained high performance without burnout.
- Stronger, more engaged teams with a sense of purpose.
- Lower turnover and higher retention as people feel valued.
- Cultures of trust and growth where people and performance thrive.
On a personal note, Angela lives in London with her partner, Tony. She’s a lifelong learner, fitness enthusiast, and an advocate for meaningful work across the lifespan. She cares deeply about inclusion and dignity at work, striving to create career paths that honour both ambition and balance – especially for those who don’t fit the traditional “ideal worker” mould.
What people are saying about Angela
“Having collaborated with Angela for over 15 years, I’ve seen the remarkable impact her approach to meaningful work has on people and organizations. Her new book delivers the perfect blend of research-backed insights and practical frameworks that leaders can apply immediately. ‘Meaning Over Purpose’ captures what makes Angela’s work so valuable—it speaks to both the head and heart of leadership in today’s changing workplace.”
Helen Sussex
Head of Talent and Development, Access Partnership
Client of The Centre for Meaningful Work
Research Contributor to Meaning Over Purpose
“Angela Rixon has written a wonderfully useful and engaging book on meaning and its impact on individual lives, teams, organizations, and society. She expertly integrates research on positive psychology, positive leadership, and positive organizations to provide an informative, creative, and highly applicable book on meaning. It is well-known that employees prize meaning over money, but Angela shows how this priority can be managed and implemented to produce extraordinary results.”
Professor Kim S. Cameron
The Co-founder of the Center for Positive Organizations
William Russell Kelly Professor Emeritus of Management & Organizations,
Ross School of Business
Professor Emeritus of Higher Education, School of Education, University of Michigan
“It is my fundamental unshakable belief that you can only have a sustainable, growing business when you also have a highly engaged workforce. Angela Rixon’s strategic blueprint is grounded in authentic lived experience, research and practical examples. It is a very timely and highly important reminder that that engaging, developing and retaining your best people is key to business success. Every ethical leader should have this book as their ‘go to’ in their pursuit of leading with light, making a positive difference personally, in business, in leadership and in life as a whole.”
Samantha Toombs
Head of Public Sector UK, Insight.
“In an era of relentless transformation, today’s CEOs face mounting pressure to build workplaces where people don’t just survive—they thrive. As technology accelerates and the human core of companies risks being overshadowed, Angela offers a timely, necessary guide. With a rare blend of rigorous research and powerful lived experience, she crafts a compelling blueprint for leaders navigating this complex landscape. Framed through the lens of a fictional CEO, the book brings theory to life with empathy, realism, and clarity. It’s not just insightful, It’s actionable. Every leader should read this”.
Krista Griggs
Global Account Director, GFT Technologies.
FinTech Strategist and Growth Leader
Research Contributor to Meaning Over Purpose
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Ready to Lead with Meaning?
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If you’d like to explore working with Angela directly, book a discovery call or fill out our contact form to start the conversation. Angela would love to discuss how you can infuse more meaning into your leadership journey.