Understand where you are
- Your strengths and how you like to lead
- How you come across, and how direct you are
- The unwritten rules of Western tech companies
- Influencing stakeholders and managing up
Leadership & executive coaching
Lead in a way people understand and follow
I coach managers, senior professionals and executives who need to make things clear, move decisions forward and handle the harder conversations that come with the job.
Book a free consultationFrom €750 for 5 sessions · Down to €125 per session in the full program · The 30-minute consultation is free · The full program is 25 sessions over about 12 weeks
Previous roles
Clients’ subsequent employers
- Cloudflare
- Microsoft
The first group refers to my own work history; the second to clients’ hiring outcomes. These companies do not endorse this coaching practice. My work history · Client accounts.
01 / The problem
Very good at the work, and stuck anyway
At a senior level, the problem is rarely skill. It’s being heard, believed and remembered in rooms full of senior people, often in a second language and a corporate culture that isn’t yours.
- You’re a manager or above in tech, product, data or operations
- You’ve been passed over for promotion despite strong performance
- You find it hard to be heard or taken seriously in senior meetings
- You’re preparing for a Director, VP or C-level role
- You lead across cultures in a US, UK or European company
- You need to explain complex ideas simply to executives, boards or clients
- High-stakes negotiations and client calls feel harder in English
What we work on
Influence without putting on an act
A lot of leadership is making the right thing easy to understand and act on, for your team, your peers and the people above you. We work on the actual meetings, relationships and decisions in front of you.
- Executive presence and strategic communication
- Managing stakeholders and influencing without authority
- Managing up and speaking for yourself in performance reviews
- Difficult conversations, feedback and conflict
- Presenting to senior leadership and boards
- Leading multicultural and cross-functional teams
Developing several leaders? Have a look at my corporate programs.
Your company can pay. I invoice your company directly and sign a contract if you need one, for any bundle: from €750 for 5 sessions to €3,125 for the full program (25 sessions). Self-employed or on a contract? I can invoice your business instead.
Price
Leadership & Executive Coaching
€750 / 5 sessions
- 5 sessions€750€150/session
- 10 sessions€1,450€145/session · save €50
- 15 sessions€2,025€135/session · save €225
- Full program€3,12525 sessions · €125/session · save €625
The bigger the bundle, the less you pay per session. 25 sessions is the full program: two a week for about 12 weeks.
We plan the sessions around what you’re facing: a new role, a communication problem or one meeting that really matters. It starts with a free 30-minute consultation so I can understand the situation.
Book a free consultation
02 / How we work together
Three phases, adjusted to you
In the first session we assess where you are, set clear goals and build a plan with results you can measure, and every month we check progress against it. Some clients go through all three phases over 10 to 12 weeks. Others come to me for one transition or one important meeting.
Practice under pressure
- Presence when the stakes are high
- Handling pushback and hostile questions
- Leading multicultural teams
- Your career plan and how visible you are
Use it for real
- A real project, with me coaching you as it happens
- Your own principles as a leader
- A 90-day plan for what comes next
How a session works
We take the conversation apart and build a better one
What’s at stake
Who’s in the room, what they need to decide, what each of them wants, and what you need to walk out with.
What you’ll say
A clear story, your recommendation first, and answers ready for the pushback you expect.
Practice and feedback
You rehearse it, I tell you what worked and what didn’t, and you do it again.
“Your accent isn’t a barrier. It shows how far you’ve come to get here. Let’s make sure everyone in the room sees that too.”
When you sign up
More than sessions: the tools I set up for you
When you sign up for a full program in communication, interview or leadership coaching, I personally set these up for you, so you can practice and apply between sessions.
- Your AI practice partner in ChatGPT, set up for your role and your interviews
- Your AI resume customizer as a Claude project, ready to tailor your resume to each job
- The job tracker I use myself, for every application, contact and next step
- My job search system on GitHub: applications, contacts and reminders in one place, plus tracking of jobs just posted on company career pages (US for now, with EU and global coverage planned)
- Follow-up by email and messenger between sessions, when a question can’t wait
With you from interview prep to promotion
English for interviews
If your English isn’t ready for interviews yet, I guide you until it is: clear answers under pressure, at your pace.
Job search and networking
A strategy for where to apply, who to talk to and how to get referrals, built around your market.
Every interview round
From the recruiter screen to the final round, we prepare for each one as it comes.
Settling in
Your first months in the new role: meetings, updates and building trust with your manager.
Thriving and getting promoted
Visibility, senior stakeholders and the conversations that lead to a promotion.
Being heard at the top
A leadership session for when you want management and executives to listen: visibility, executive presence and commanding the room.
For directors, VPs and the C-level
Bring me what’s on your calendar
The higher you go, the less your work speaks for itself. A board presentation next month, a conflict with a stakeholder, a decision meeting, a step up into a bigger role. We prepare for it together, and I’ll be honest with you about what’s working.
- Presence: pace, pauses, emphasis and fewer qualifiers
- Bottom line first: short updates and clear recommendations
- Presenting to boards and the C-level, and handling hostile questions
- Disagreeing without losing authority
- Panel interviews for Director and VP roles
- Negotiating senior pay and offers
Find out where you’re losing ground
In the first session I can put you through six realistic situations, then score how you did on clarity, conciseness, authority, structure, persuasion, diplomacy, thinking on your feet and cultural awareness.
- Introduce yourself in 90 seconds
- Explain a complex project
- Make a recommendation to leadership
- Disagree with a senior stakeholder
- Answer a question you didn’t expect
- Negotiate a deadline
03 / Results
From leaders I’ve coached
Clients have landed six-figure senior roles, closed higher-value deals and now lead meetings with confidence.
VP of HR at NielsenIQ
Chicago, United States
- Starting point
- Already a senior HR leader with exceptional credentials, but struggling to be heard in panel interviews.
- What we did
- Tone, pacing, PAR stories and staying calm and clear in front of a panel.
- Outcome
- Promoted to an executive role: VP of HR at NielsenIQ.
★★★★★“I highly recommend this teacher! He is a true professional with a unique and well-structured teaching method. Every lesson is tailored to the student's individual needs, and you can feel how carefully and thoughtfully he guides each person through their learning journey.”
★★★★★“Mark prepares classes very thoroughly and has a great method for practicing public speaking, new vocabulary, and mock interviews. He follows up on the agreed lesson plan, but is also flexible enough if you wanna practice something specific and provides great resources for homework.”
★★★★★“Mark is a great professional. I would strongly recommend him, especially if you want to improve your business English, fine-tune your CV, or simply improve your speaking skills.”
Questions
Leadership coaching questions
I am seen as the person who keeps things running. How do I move into a more strategic role?
Show how your operational experience informs decisions about cost, risk, customers and priorities. Prepare examples where you diagnosed a business problem, considered alternatives, influenced people and changed an outcome. I help you build that narrative for senior interviews and stakeholder conversations. If the target role also requires experience you have not yet gained, we identify that gap rather than disguising it with executive vocabulary.
How do I explain my team’s impact in a performance review and handle difficult follow-up questions?
Link each contribution to a result, explain the person’s responsibility and distinguish evidence from opinion. Prepare for questions about the baseline, the difficulty of the work, collaboration and what changed. Where results are not numerical, use specific observable outcomes without inventing metrics. We role-play the review so you can advocate for the team calmly and answer challenges with evidence.
I’m a senior tech leader and haven’t interviewed in years, because roles always came to me. How do I prepare for executive interviews now?
What has changed is the process, not your ability. Senior interviews usually mean several rounds: a first screen with a headhunter or recruiter, conversations with the CEO or the board, a panel, and sometimes a case or a plan for your first 90 days. We prepare each one: a two-minute story of your career that leads to this role, five or six leadership stories in PAR with real numbers, your answer to “why now?”, and questions that show how you think about their business. Then we run mock panels until it feels like a conversation between peers, not a test.
My English has worked for my job for years. Is it good enough for an executive interview?
For the content, probably yes. What changes in an interview is the pressure: short answers to broad questions, follow-ups that push on your decisions, and nobody in the room who already knows your track record. We check it in the first session: I ask the questions a board or CEO would ask and tell you honestly what works and what to sharpen. Usually it’s a handful of phrases and a tighter structure, not your grammar.
How is this different from communication coaching?
Communication coaching is about language and delivery. Leadership coaching is about influence, presence, stakeholders and difficult conversations. Communication is still the main tool, but the goal is bigger. If you mainly want advanced English (C1 to C2) that sounds more concise and authoritative, have a look at my communication coaching.
What level of English do I need?
Confident professional English, around B2 or above, gets the most out of it. Most of my leadership clients already speak English well.
Do you use assessments?
When they help. I start with a communication diagnostic, and if you want, we can add a cultural-values assessment and 360-degree feedback to see how other people experience your leadership.
Can my company pay for this?
Yes. I can send invoices, and companies can also book my corporate programs, including paired and small-group programs for two to four people.
What do I get between sessions?
After every session you get a transcript and a summary of the main points. You also get the AI practice partner I built for my clients, which runs in your own ChatGPT account. Its tough mode plays a skeptical stakeholder or investor, so you can rehearse before the real meeting. See how it works.
Are sessions online?
Yes, on Google Meet. My calendar shows times in your own time zone. Sessions usually last 60 to 75 minutes.
Program guides
See the full programs
Read the week-by-week plan below, or download the full program guide with the method and the prices as a PDF. They’re free.
Leadership program
My leadership program: twelve weeks for managers, directors and VPs on presence, influence and cross-cultural leadership, with a capstone project or senior interviews and negotiation.
Download PDF: Leadership programRead it online: Leadership programLeadership group program
Corporate cohort: five biweekly group sessions on presence, managing up, feedback, leading across cultures and peer case clinics. €600 per participant. New groups start on the 1st of every month.
Download PDF: Leadership group programRead it online: Leadership group programWeek by weekLeadership program25-session full program · Flexible schedule · 60–75 minutes
The curriculumThree phases. Every session has a deliverable.
Phase 1 · Foundation: diagnose and defineWeeks 1–4
| Week | Session | Focus | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| WK 1 | Diagnostic & leadership audit | Where you’re losing ground: communication audit, career gap analysis, cultural values and identity mapping, a strengths inventory of what you bring that others don’t, your leadership brand | Written leadership audit and 12-week plan |
| WK 2 | Communication power & presence | Video analysis of your style; PAR for executive storytelling; directness, cadence and pacing; imposter syndrome tied to accent | A recorded 3-minute executive introduction, reviewed live |
| WK 3 | Western corporate culture | Flat hierarchies, candid feedback, meeting dynamics, humor and small talk as tools | A map of your organization’s informal power structure |
| WK 4 | Influence & stakeholders | Influence without authority, managing up, self-advocacy in reviews, finding sponsors as well as mentors | Stakeholder influence map and self-advocacy talking points |
Phase 2 · Amplification: build and performWeeks 5–8
| Week | Session | Focus | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| WK 5 | High-stakes communication | Presenting to boards and the C-suite, hostile questions, pitching your ideas, body language under pressure | A recorded 5-minute executive update with feedback |
| WK 6 | Panel interviews | Tone, cadence and structure with several interviewers; VP and Director behavioral questions | Five executive-level PAR stories and a mock panel segment |
| WK 7 | Career architecture & visibility | A 1-, 3- and 5-year roadmap, LinkedIn for senior leaders, thought leadership, navigating bias | A one-page career vision and a senior LinkedIn rewrite |
| WK 8 | Resilience & sustainable leadership | Code-switching fatigue, belonging, your personal board of directors, leading authentically across cultures | Energy audit and a personal board of directors (3–5 names) |
Phase 3 · Integration: apply and landWeeks 9–12
| Week | Session | Focus | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| WK 9 | Executive job search | Headhunters, executive recruiters, board networks, warm introductions, executive job boards by market | Target company list and recruiter outreach strategy |
| WK 10 | Mock panel interview | A full simulated panel for a Director or VP role, recorded, with coaching on every answer | Recording and written debrief |
| WK 11 | Senior negotiation | Total compensation, equity conversations, counter-offers, what to ask before you sign | Negotiation playbook and counter-offer script |
| WK 12 | Integration & 90-day launch | Your leadership principles, a 90-day plan for the new role, accountability after the program | Leadership manifesto and 90-day onboarding plan |
Leading where you areNot changing jobs? The capstone track.
If you’re growing in your current role rather than looking for a new one, weeks 9 to 11 become a real leadership project and cross-cultural team leadership instead of the job search, the mock panel and negotiation:
| Week | Session | Focus | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| WK 9–10 | Capstone leadership project | Define a real business challenge; weekly coaching on execution and stakeholders; a mid-point review of progress and pivots | A completed project, documented decisions and a final presentation |
| WK 11 | Cross-cultural team leadership | Cultural intelligence assessment; conflict role-plays; psychological safety; inclusive meeting facilitation | One new inclusive practice, tried with your team |
Week 12 stays the same for both tracks: your leadership manifesto, a short 360° feedback loop and a 90-day plan.
Next step
What happens in the free consultation
You tell me what’s coming up
Your goal, your deadline and the situations you want to handle better. About 30 minutes.
I tell you what I’d work on
You get my honest view of where you are now, and a plan with the number of sessions and the price.
You decide
There’s no obligation. You decide afterwards whether you want to go ahead.
Get better at the conversations that come with leading people
Book a free consultationCommunication coaching →Corporate programs →Starting with me? Before your first session →