Executive Coaching and Career Positioning for Senior Leaders in the Research Triangle

You got the bigger job, and the instincts that earned it are now getting in your way. Or you are doing good work quietly and watching less obvious people get moved ahead of you. Or you are a strong operator who has decided the current seat is wrong and wants to run the next move well instead of hoping it works out. Those are coaching problems, and they are the ones this practice is built for. Critical Path offers executive coaching and career positioning for senior operations, program, and strategy leaders across Raleigh, Durham, and the Research Triangle, from someone who still sits in the operator's chair rather than a coach who has only ever coached.

Critical Path is the executive coaching and fractional leadership practice of Brett Coakley, based in Raleigh. The coaching is one door of that practice; the other is fractional operations leadership, described on the fractional COO in Raleigh page. Sharing a roof matters more than it sounds, and this page explains why.

Who this coaching is for

Executive coaching is a confidential thinking partnership for a leader at a hinge point. It is not therapy and it is not mentoring, and later on this page there is a plain comparison of the three. This practice aims narrowly, at senior people whose work is operations, programs, strategy, and delivery, because that is the work Brett has done and still does.

The leaders who get the most out of it usually recognize themselves in one of these.

• You were promoted into a bigger role and the habits that made you great in the last one are quietly working against you in this one.
• You keep getting passed over, and no one has told you the real reason, which means it lives in what the room believes about you rather than in your output.
• You have plateaued. Nothing is on fire, which is exactly why nothing has changed.
• You are weighing a move, or already running a search, and you want it run like a project instead of a hope.
• You talk in the meeting and the room does not move, and you have started to notice the pattern.

The Research Triangle has pulled in a deep bench of senior operators over the past decade, drawn by life sciences, medical devices, enterprise software, and the university spinouts coming out of Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, and NC State. A lot of those leaders are technically excellent and have never had a straight, senior sounding board that understands the actual work. That gap is what this coaching fills.

Coaching from an operator, not a career coach

Here is the difference that matters. Brett currently sits in fractional COO and Chief of Staff seats inside real companies. The coaching is grounded in what is happening this week in an operating meeting, a slipping program, a leadership team that will not decide, because that is the room he is also in as an operator. Over his career he has coached hundreds of leaders, from senior individual contributors and directors up through vice presidents and the C-suite, across technology, SaaS, fintech, biotech, medtech, aerospace, and manufacturing.

That operator vantage point changes the conversation. Most executive coaches are trained in coaching and have spent their careers coaching, which is a real craft and a real value. What it usually lacks is recent, first-hand knowledge of how a modern operating company actually runs. When your problem is that your quarterly business review produces status instead of decisions, or that your program keeps slipping and you cannot say why, it helps to talk to someone who has fixed exactly that as the person accountable for it.

What the coaching produces

A coaching engagement runs about three months, with up to six working sessions and an open line in between, because the useful thought often shows up two days after the session, not during it. The shape is deliberately small, so the work stays focused on the few things that actually decide the outcome.

What changes over an engagement tends to look like this. You get clear on the two or three moves that will decide the next five years of your career or your function, and you stop spreading yourself evenly across the rest. You stop doing the work you were promoted out of, which is usually most of the first month. You learn to make the case the room actually hears, in the language the people deciding already use. And you leave with a plan you are holding to the finish rather than a set of insights you will forget by the next quarter. The method underneath all of it is the same one the whole practice runs on: find the sequence that decides the outcome, and hold it.

Career positioning: a distinct offer for leaders in transition

Coaching and a job search are related but not the same, and the search has its own structured offer. Career positioning is for the leader who is actively moving, and it is run as a campaign rather than a pile of applications. The sequence is what makes it work. You settle the target first, because everything downstream depends on it. Then the resume gets rebuilt on your own evidence, with the specific terms a given role screens for leading every bullet. Then LinkedIn is aligned to the same case. Then interview preparation, including recorded practice, so you can watch what the room sees. Then the negotiation.

The full version is Critical Path Positioning, six working sessions over about three weeks, from the first move through the offer. If you only need one piece, two of them stand on their own: a Resume Rebuild done on your evidence rather than a template, and Rapid Interview Prep for an interview already on the calendar. This is done with you, not a resume mill that hands back a document you cannot defend in the room.

Onsite and remote across the Triangle

Coaching runs mostly remote, which is how most senior leaders prefer it, with in-person sessions across Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill when that is useful. Being Triangle-based means the local context is understood without translation, the companies, the talent market, the way senior roles get filled here, while the coaching itself works just as well for a leader anywhere in the country.

What makes this different

Most of the executive coaching results for Raleigh are generalist coaches with established local pages, plus the usual directories. They are good at coaching in general. This practice is narrower and more specific on purpose.

• The coach is a working operator, currently in fractional COO and Chief of Staff seats, not someone whose only experience is coaching.
• One practice offers both the coaching and the operational work, so a leader can get coached by the same person who could, in a different engagement, run their operations. For the operations side, see fractional COO in Raleigh.
• The work is held to the finish and organized around the sequence that decides the outcome, rather than open-ended conversation.
• The credentials are real and current: an Executive MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler completing October 2026, on top of an engineering foundation and two decades of operating roles.
• The claim that coaching works is not a slogan. A 2023 meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials found a moderate, replicated positive effect, which is covered in the sources below.

For a fuller treatment of what executive coaching is and what the evidence shows, see the guide on what executive coaching looks like when a former operator does it.

Frequently asked questions

What is executive coaching?

Executive coaching is a confidential, structured thinking partnership between a leader and a coach, focused on how that leader performs in their role and what they do next. It is forward-looking and practical, aimed at real decisions and behavior rather than diagnosis or instruction. A good engagement is short, focused, and organized around a few changes that matter.

Does executive coaching actually work?

The best available evidence says yes, with a moderate effect. A 2023 meta-analysis by De Haan and Nilsson, published in Academy of Management Learning and Education and based only on randomized controlled trials, found a statistically significant positive effect of coaching across leadership and personal outcomes, with an effect size of g = 0.59. That is the gold-standard study design, and the result held across 39 samples and more than 2,500 participants.

How is executive coaching different from therapy or mentoring?

Therapy treats mental health and often works backward from the past; coaching works forward from a present goal in a professional context. A mentor gives you advice from having done your job; a coach helps you find your own answer and is usually not in your field. Consulting hands you a recommendation to implement; coaching builds your capacity to decide. This practice adds an operator's perspective on top of the coaching itself.

How much does executive coaching cost?

It varies widely by market and seniority. Large companies commonly pay $25,000 to $100,000 or more for senior executive engagements. At Critical Path, coaching is scoped to the engagement and the number is shared up front in a complimentary first conversation, so there are no surprises and no pressure to commit before it is clearly a fit.

Who is this coaching for?

Senior operations, program, and strategy leaders in the Research Triangle and beyond, from directors through the C-suite. It fits best when the leader is technically strong and is dealing with a role transition, a plateau, a stalled promotion, or a decision about what comes next. It is not aimed at early-career professionals.

How is coaching from an operator different from a professional coach?

A career coach brings coaching craft; a working operator brings recent, first-hand knowledge of how companies actually run. Because Brett currently sits in fractional COO seats, the conversation stays grounded in real operating problems, decisions, meetings, cross-functional delivery, rather than general principles. For a technical leader whose challenges are operational, that shared context shortens the distance to something useful.

What is career positioning, and how is it different from coaching?

Coaching helps you grow in the role you hold; career positioning helps you win the next one. Positioning is run as a campaign, in sequence: settle the target, rebuild the resume on your own evidence with the right screening terms, align LinkedIn, prepare for interviews with recorded practice, then negotiate. It is a distinct offer, available as the full Critical Path Positioning campaign or as standalone resume and interview help.

Will you write my resume for me?

The resume gets rebuilt with you, on your own evidence, not generated from a template and handed over. The point is a document you can stand behind in the room, with the specific terms a target role screens for leading each bullet. You end up able to explain every line, because you helped build it.

How long is a coaching engagement, and is it remote?

A typical coaching engagement is about three months with up to six sessions and an open line in between. A positioning campaign is shorter and more intensive, roughly six sessions over three weeks. Both run mostly remote, with in-person sessions across the Triangle when that helps.

What industries and levels of leader do you work with?

Leaders across technology, SaaS, fintech, biotech, medtech, aerospace, and manufacturing, from senior individual contributors and directors up through vice presidents and the C-suite. The common thread is a technical or operational leader whose next challenge is about judgment, positioning, and decisions rather than raw skill.