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Case Studies
A look at what changes when a leader gets serious about the transition in front of them.
Every example is a real engagement.
Every example below is drawn from real coaching engagements. Names, companies, and identifying details have been changed or removed to protect client confidentiality.
Readiness as her skip-leader's successor
VP · Fortune 100 enterprise
She was running two organizations at once, triple-booked, with one inherited leader sending her seven to ten decisions a day.
RESULT
Her skip-leader presented her to the executive committee as a successor, with about a year to prepare, and it was approved. Over the same period her remit expanded and she was asked to take on a more externally visible role.
GOALS
Executive Presence
Enterprise-level contribution
Elevating out of operational fires to perform at altitude
PROCESS
Six months, twelve sessions. We opened with a time audit that laid bare how much of her week was disappearing into daily operating meetings. She handed those to her operations leader with clear decision rights, stood up quarterly strategy sessions for both businesses, and deliberately widened her relationships beyond her own vertical to build enterprise-level impact.
ASSESSMENTS & FRAMEWORKS
360 · Profile XT self-assessment · Sponsor goal alignment and mid-point check-in · Relationship stakeholder matrix · Time audit · CEO Excellence
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VP to SVP within nine months of finishing
VP of Engineering · Large public consumer technology company
He chaired every recurring meeting and fielded every escalation himself, and his technical brilliance wasn't translating in the executive rooms he was now in.
RESULT
He reported his delegation and team-building goals fully achieved, and went from sitting in listening mode at senior leadership offsites to leading a session one stakeholder called the most useful of the day. Nine months after the engagement closed, he was promoted to SVP, part of a leadership trajectory already forming during the coaching rather than a claim of direct causation.
"I feel like I know better how to solve bigger leadership problems. I think that by itself just made me elevate my game, elevate my executive presence."
GOALS
Executive Presence
Contributing at altitude
PROCESS
Six months, twelve sessions. A full time audit reset his week, with buffer time between meetings and delegation that carried real accountability. That finally gave his team room to step up and gave him room to think instead of react. Alongside it, we worked on translating his technical depth into language that landed in C-level rooms.
ASSESSMENTS & FRAMEWORKS
Verbal 360 · Profile XT self-assessment · Sponsor goal alignment and mid-point check-in · Time audit · CEO Excellence
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From a low-trust team to a high-trust one, standards intact
VP-level leader · Fortune 100 company
A demanding leader whose one-to-ones had become almost entirely about solving the next problem, on a team an engagement survey showed felt unsafe to speak up.
RESULT
A follow-up survey partway through the engagement showed solid psychological safety and a clear lift from the baseline. One report began naming his more question-based approach as psychological safety in action and started offering feedback in return; another, one of the harder relationships, began pushing back candidly, which he came to read as a sign of safety rather than a problem.
GOALS
A high-performing team with improved psychological safety
Enterprise visibility and presence
PROCESS
Six months, twelve sessions, anchored in psychological safety. He shifted from reacting fast to triaging with curiosity, which let him solve systemic causes instead of the same problems on repeat. We reshaped his feedback so the tone matched the size of the issue, led with strengths, and built a habit of inviting people to critique their own work before he weighed in.
ASSESSMENTS & FRAMEWORKS
360 · Hogan self-assessment · Sponsor goal alignment and mid-point check-in · Moving Motivators framework
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VP to SVP, reporting directly to the CEO
VP of Product · Late-stage tech company
A VP of Product two levels below the CEO, showing up to senior leadership with pitches instead of decisions, while AI adoption was raising hard questions about roles, workflows, and career paths across his org.
RESULT
Promoted to Senior VP of Product, with his reporting line moved directly to the CEO, who now routes ambiguous, high-stakes decisions to him personally.
"Of all the leaders at the company, I have the most confidence that you can handle the most ambiguous situations."
GOALS
Executive-level communication
Making decisions under ambiguity
Navigating a workforce transformation driven by AI
PROCESS
Six months, twelve sessions, on a bi-weekly cadence. We rebuilt how he showed up with senior leadership, pairing hard data with a clear narrative instead of a pitch, and trading hedged feedback for direct, plain-spoken communication with his own team.
ASSESSMENTS & FRAMEWORKS
Executive Presence Diagnostic · Relationship stakeholder matrix · Executive Presence (book) · Bi-weekly 1:1 coaching
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