Coaching for CEOs

The higher you go, the fewer people tell you the truth — and the more the company quietly becomes a machine that runs on you. I coach CEOs on both problems at once: the structure of the company, and the person everyone is depending on.

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2,000+ retail stores26 countries1M+ customers

Who this is for

The truth is getting expensive

Everyone in the room reports to you, wants something from you, or both. Honest counsel gets rare exactly when the decisions get big.

The company runs on you

Strategy, conflict, the calls nobody else will make — it all lands on your desk, on top of a calendar you no longer control.

The role is eating the life

You've built something real. The question is whether the next five years have to cost what the last five did.

What most CEO coaching gets wrong

Most CEO coaching is either a thinking partner with no operating scars — smart questions, no lived answers — or a former executive selling you the playbook of a company that isn't yours. Both work on you in isolation, as if the CEO were a performance problem to be optimized, while the machine that's actually generating the pressure goes untouched.

I've sat in the seat. I built Puj from a product sketch into 2,000+ retail stores across 26 countries — through a recession, cash-flow crises and investor conflict — and I carried every cost of being the person the whole company depended on. The way through wasn't becoming a tougher CEO. It was rebuilding the machine: decision rights, a leadership team with real authority, an operating rhythm that didn't need me in every room.

So this is ceo coaching with an operating core. We work on your company — structure, team, rhythm, plan — and on you: judgment under pressure, the conversations you're avoiding, what you actually want the next five years to look like. Both at once, because in your company they are the same system.

What's different in 90 days

01A three-year picture of the company — and your life — specific enough to build against.

02Eight to twelve hours a week back — tracked, not estimated — pulled out of work your team should own.

03A leadership team with real decision rights, so the company stops routing everything through you.

04The avoided conversations had — the underperformer, the board, the partner — prepared and done.

05A twelve-month plan with quarterly targets, and one person in your corner with no agenda but yours.

CEO leadership coaching, run on the Vital Framework

Five parts, run in order. It's the same system I use with every founder and executive — pointed at the company you run and the life you run it from.

Vision

A specific picture of the company in three years that serves your judgment, not just your board deck.

Inspiration

Why the company matters — said plainly enough that your team repeats it without you in the room.

Team

The right people in the right seats with real authority, and the honest conversation about who isn't.

Alignment

Your calendar, your commitments and your strategy pointed at the same quarter.

Leadership Systems

The meetings, metrics and decision rights that let the company run without consuming its CEO.

Leaders, real results

“I can't even believe the results. She 10X'd my revenue! So anything this woman says, I'm going to listen to because I've seen the difference in my bank account.”

Kathryn Jones Lish

“Katie helped me align with my partner who is like a brother to me, but we struggled to agree for 18 months. With Katie's coaching, we had alignment in 3 weeks.”
Frank Fiori

“Katie's strategy helped us grow the fund exponentially in a more efficient manner, while navigating difficult investor conversations.”
Liam Leonard

“Every entrepreneur needs to work with Katie.”
Alison Prince

2,000+

US retail stores

Countries

1M+

Customers served

About Katie

I trained as an industrial designer on a General Motors scholarship, then launched a baby products company called Puj in 2008 — into the worst consumer market in a generation. It worked. We reached 2,000+ US retail stores, 26 countries and more than a million customers.

It also nearly took me apart. Investor conflict, cash-flow crises, and a version of me who was only worth what the company had produced that quarter. The rebuild that followed is the reason I coach the way I do — I don't separate the CEO from how the company is built.

Now I coach founders and executives through the Vital Framework, and I host the podcast What's Working Now.

Read the longer story

How it works

STEP 01

Book a call

Pick a time on my calendar. Five minutes, no payment, no funnel.

STEP 02

The diagnostic call

We map the real constraint — in the company and underneath it. You leave with something useful either way.

STEP 03

Begin

We start on the first structural change that week. If it's a fit, we build from there.

Questions before you book

What does a CEO coach actually do?+

Two jobs at once. The company: decision rights, a leadership team with real authority, an operating rhythm, a plan your team can be measured against. The CEO: judgment under pressure, the conversations you're avoiding, and what you want the next five years to actually look like. In your company, those are the same system.

How is this different from executive coaching for CEOs elsewhere?+

Most of it works on the person in isolation — presence, mindset, leadership style. Useful, and not enough, because much of what's grinding you down lives in the structure of the company. I've built and run the machine, so we change the calendar, the team and the systems alongside the personal work. That's why the change holds.

Is this confidential?+

Completely. What we discuss stays between us — not with your board, your investors or your team. Honest counsel only works when it's safe to be honest.

Do you work with founder-CEOs or hired CEOs?+

Both. Founder-CEOs usually need help separating themselves from a machine they built around their own habits. Hired CEOs usually need an honest outside view with no politics attached. The framework is the same; the first constraint we attack is different.

How much does it cost?+

Pricing depends on format and length of engagement, and I quote it on the diagnostic call once I know what you actually need. I'll tell you on that call if I don't think the work will pay for itself.

How long before I see results?+

The first structural change usually lands in the first two to three weeks, because it's almost always something you already knew and hadn't decided. Ninety days is the honest window for the changes to show up in your calendar, your numbers and your home.