Home·FAQ
The short answers.
Frequently asked questions
What Critical Path is, how the two doors work, how engagements are priced, and how to start.
Questions, answered
What is Critical Path?
Critical Path is the executive coaching and fractional leadership practice of Brett Coakley, based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The method is to find the one sequence that decides the outcome — in a career or a company — and hold it to the finish.
What does ‘one method, two doors’ mean?
One method (find the critical path and hold it) applied two ways: coaching for individual leaders, and fractional leadership for organizations. A third lane, Special Projects, is for builds that fit neither door.
What’s the difference between the two doors?
Door one, For Leaders, is coaching and career work for an individual — the seat you hold or the next one you want. Door two, For Organizations, is fractional operations leadership — holding the work inside a company until it lands.
Do you work with individuals or companies?
Both, through the two doors. Individuals come for coaching, a full search campaign, or standalone resume and interview help. Companies come for fractional operations leadership across five engagements.
Do you work as a fractional COO or Chief of Staff?
Both — it's the same operator, and the title follows the job. A fractional COO owns the operating half of the business end to end; a fractional Chief of Staff works closer to the founder on priorities, follow-through, and making the leadership team function. When the scope is narrower, it's fractional operations support. See the fractional COO & Chief of Staff engagement.
How is the work priced?
For organizations, in one of three shapes agreed in writing up front: fractional (ongoing days per week), project (fixed scope and date), or advisory (standing time). Coaching and the à-la-carte pieces are scoped to the engagement.
Where are you based, and which areas do you serve?
Raleigh, North Carolina — serving Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and the wider Research Triangle, plus remote engagements nationwide. Coaching runs mostly remote; fractional and project work is remote and on-site across the Triangle as the engagement needs.
What makes this different?
The work is held to the finish, not handed over as advice — backed by an engineering and operations background, an MBA, and an AI-native way of building.
How do I start?
One conversation: twenty minutes, no cost. Bring the decision you're stuck on, the role you're chasing, or the thing you want built.
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.