Cici Coleman

Resilience // Confidence // Boundaries // Adversity // Dating Workshop // Presenter/Host.

Cici Coleman is a presenter, actress, and dating confidence coach, best known as the beloved waitress on Channel 4’s BAFTA award-winning series, First Dates, where she has spent over 12 years witnessing thousands of real first encounters unfold.  

However, the woman behind the UK’s most famous waitress has led a life marked by resilience, reinvention, and radical self-honesty.  

At 14, Cici faced a devastating loss that triggered several turbulent years of grief, risk-taking, and a quest for meaning. She made a bold and unconventional leap into banking at HSBC, working four jobs to fund her move to New York at 23, where she earned a full scholarship to the New York Film Academy and began pursuing her passion for acting.  

What followed were dramatic highs and lows: life in New York, a toxic relationship, declining mental health, visa struggles, and ultimately moving back home to rebuild from scratch. She even worked as a builder with her father before returning to waitressing in London, serving some of her former banking clients.  

Then came the opportunity that would change everything: First Dates. Over the next decade, Cici became a familiar and comforting presence on British television while quietly developing a profound understanding of human behavior, confidence, vulnerability, and emotional intelligence.  

These insights, combined with her own personal journey, inspired her to create The Dating Reset: a series of women’s confidence workshops focused on self-worth, boundaries, and empowered decision-making. Cici's resilience workshops emphasize that rock bottom isn’t the end of the story; often, it’s simply the place where rebuilding begins.  

Today, Cici speaks passionately about empowerment, resilience, and reinvention, showing audiences how emotional awareness, clear boundaries, and courageous decision-making can transform not only relationships but also leadership, careers, and the way we live our lives.

Cici’s story is proof that life rarely moves in a straight line. As a dating confidence coach and the First Dates presenter, she has experienced personal loss, toxic relationships, and career rejection, ultimately rebuilding from scratch. Cici shares how moments that feel like failure often become the foundation for reinvention.  

Drawing on her own experiences, along with thousands of real-life interactions witnessed on First Dates, Cici illustrates how resilience is built through these challenges, how identity can evolve, and why it’s never too late to change direction.  

Audience takeaway: Learn how to reframe setbacks, rebuild confidence, and create momentum after difficult chapters in life or career, inspired by her resilience workshops.

A self-confessed recovering people-pleaser, Cici spent years prioritizing everyone else’s needs over her own, a pattern shaped by growing up in a family struggling with mental health challenges. It wasn’t until she left a toxic relationship and set a simple boundary of 'no contact' that everything began to shift. As she learned to set boundaries in friendships, work, and relationships, her confidence grew, paving the way for new opportunities. Now, as a dating confidence coach and a presenter for First Dates, she teaches audiences that boundaries are not about pushing people away, but about recognizing that your needs matter too. Through her resilience workshops, she empowers individuals to communicate boundaries with confidence, fostering healthier relationships, stronger leadership, and greater self-respect.