You’re accountable for success in a complex environment:
- A CEO or founder of a medium-sized business, or
- A senior divisional executive in a large corporation.
You’re looking for someone who can be both executive coach and a board-level thought partner. Someone who can help you navigate the complexity of your role. Here, I play the role of coach and thinking partner. I am committed helping you become a better leader and working alongside you as you reflect on what your business requires, all while making sure you’re taking care of yourself, your connections and your soul.
The process helps you strengthen your leadership and personal worlds, and shape whole ecosystems— strategy, operational excellence, succession pipelines, culture flywheels, and community legacies—while ensuring that every move is grounded in strategy, personal presence and carefully paced practice.
It is an intellectually challenging space where you can debate, test and refine strategy and execution plans, whilst keeping you, the person, at the center of the experience.
“I cannot thank you enough for the immense strategic value you have added to my business, leadership, and personal life. Everything from your leadership coaching, care, concern, and your weekly Sunday morning insights—you continue to touch the entrepreneur’s mind, heart, and soul.”
– Anthony Govender, CEO and Founder, ASI Group
How We Work Together
I connect disciplined learning in strategy, leadership, and personal mastery with the practical insight gained from coaching and advising CEOs, founders, and senior executives across multiple sectors. Together, we create a thinking partnership that is both rigorous and generative—built to challenge assumptions, enable decisive action, and expand systemic impact.
The work creates space not only for strategic leadership and organisational performance, but for the deeper questions of self, purpose, and contribution. It supports leaders in sustaining themselves while shaping cultures, communities, and systems with integrity.
Many of my clients value long-term collaboration. I’ve had the privilege of working with several CEOs and senior leaders on an ongoing basis since 2020.
“Karl brings to executive coaching the unique aspect of having lived both the light and dark side of corporate executive life. He couples this with a deep, insightful approach to holistic coaching.”
– C-Suite Executive
“Karl has been invaluable to me as a Founder and Executive. He has helped me navigate hard situations about people, operations, strategy, and how to work with and manage my co-founders. One of the things I value most is Karl’s coaching session notes and the recommended readings, books, and blogs that he shares.”
– Thapelo Motlogeloa, COO and Co-Founder, Pele Group
Your Outcomes
Our sessions provide a creative and challenging partnership where you can test your leadership, strategy and operational plans. Expect:
- Sharper Strategic Focus – the ability to discern signal from noise, set non-negotiable priorities, and articulate strategy with persuasive clarity.
- Increased Capacity for Complexity – sense-making habits, case studies and mental models that help you simplify complexity, stay generative under pressure, and learn faster than the context changes.
- First Principles Thinking – a disciplined return to first principles, identifying and reinforcing core strategic levers.
- A Coherent Leadership Identity – unifying your experience, values, and ambitions, enabling confident and authentic action.
- Systemic Influence – practical tools for designing and driving systemic impact so impact scales beyond your own span of control.
- Sustainable Resilience – renewed attention to energy, relationships, and meaning, ensuring high performance does not hollow out the person who delivers it.
The Process
1. Understanding Your Leadership Journey
Our first three or four sessions focus on:
- Understanding your personal and leadership journey. How we lead is shaped by our history, but we often don’t pay it sufficient attention. This will help you better understand how your strengths and blind spots influence your leadership effectiveness.
- Reviewing your strategy documents and operational plans, ensuring our conversations are rooted in your organisational context and culture.
2. Ongoing Support Tailored to You
We agree on a programme of support that works for you:
- Monthly meetings are typical.
- Some long-standing clients meet quarterly to consolidate and test their thinking before Board and review meetings.
Think of it as leadership therapy. You get consistent access to an experienced business leader and coach to help you be your best.