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The person holding the work.
About Brett Coakley
I'm Brett Coakley, founder of Critical Path — an executive coaching and fractional leadership practice in Raleigh, North Carolina, working with leaders and companies across the Research Triangle — Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill — and remotely, nationwide. I help founders, executives, and operators find the one thing that decides the outcome — then build the systems, cadence, and accountability to get there.
One method, held to the finish
The name is deliberate. "Critical path" is real project-management language — the sequence of work that decides when a plan finishes. It's the whole method: find the few things that decide the outcome, and hold them, whether the plan is a person's career or a company's quarter.
What's distinctive is the combination. An engineering foundation and an MBA, plus an AI-native way of building, applied to problems — leadership, operations, a job search — that people usually navigate on instinct. The work is held to the finish, not handed over as advice.
From the shop floor to the C-suite
I started in hardware and product engineering at Motorola Mobility, Google, and Fitbit — including direct work with global, matrixed design teams in Korea and Germany and contract manufacturers across APAC. From there I moved into regulated MedTech operations at NuVasive, then public-company transformation and PMO leadership at Blue Apron, before building Critical Path as an independent operations, strategy, and coaching practice.
As a fractional COO or Chief of Staff — or narrower fractional operations support when that's the fit — I step into growing and scaling companies to run operations, stand up and lead PMOs, and turn strategy into shipped results. As an executive coach and career counselor, I work with senior leaders on career direction, positioning, and the next move.
Education & certifications
Executive MBA — UNC Kenan-Flagler. B.S. Mechanical Engineering — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
PMP · Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) · Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) · Certified Agile Hardware Practitioner · Six Sigma Green Belt.
One practice, two doors
For leaders
Executive coaching, career counseling, resume and targeting, and candidacy prep.
For organizations
Strategy, operations, program and transformation leadership, and fractional executive support — Chief of Staff, COO, PMO, and senior operations roles.
I'll say the hard thing kindly, and I won't flatter you into a weaker plan. If you're a founder who needs an operator, a company that needs a PMO, or a senior leader deciding what's next.
Let's find your critical path →
Start with one conversation.
Twenty minutes, no cost. Bring the decision you're stuck on, the role you're chasing, or the thing you want built. We'll find the critical path from there.