Executive Coaching · Asia
Get Clear.
Get Strategic.
Get Moving.
Executive coaching for senior professionals navigating leadership transitions and cross-cultural complexity
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The Leadership Gap
You Were Promoted for Your Expertise. Now You Need an Entirely Different Skill Set.
The transition from practitioner to leader is one of the most consequential — and least supported — shifts in a professional career. Add cross-border complexity, cultural misreads, and the expectation to deliver immediately, and most high performers feel overwhelmed and confused.
Top firms invest millions recruiting senior talent. They rarely consider helping that talent actually lead.
The PARCS Framework
Five Dimensions.
One Clear Plan.
"I'm delivering results but still feel invisible."
Professional Performance
Understand the written and unwritten rules that drive assessments, promotions, and influence. Know who makes the decisions — and what they are actually measuring.
"I network, but I don't have real advocates."
Alliances
Move beyond networking to building alliances — people who actively help you get what you want. Learn to add value intentionally and build meaningful relationships across departments, offices, and cultures.
"I know there's support available — I just never use it."
Resources
Inventory everything at your disposal — training, internal expertise, political capital, and the people around you. Most professionals underutilize what they already have. We'll change that.
"I'm focused on the next promotion — but is that what I really want?"
Career Vision
Look beyond the next title. Define where you are going and why it matters. A clear career vision drives better decisions today and sustains motivation when the work gets hard.
"I can sustain this pace — until I can't."
Self-Care & Personal Interests
Sleep, nutrition, stress management, exercise, and the relationships that matter outside of work. Willpower alone is not a strategy. We build sustainable habits that sustain your performance and the life you are building around it.
"My job is to help you get clear, strategic, and moving — one meaningful step at a time."
Brandon Whittaker
Meet Brandon
I Didn't Read About the Path You're On. I Walked It.
Five years in investment banking at UBS across New York, Tokyo, and London. A decade in corporate law at Simpson Thacher, A&O Shearman, and Mayer Brown* — advising on multi-billion-dollar, cross-border transactions. Ivy League training at Harvard Law and the University of Pennsylvania.
I transitioned from full-time law firm work to coaching because I saw the same pattern in every high-performing team: exceptional professionals navigating leadership transitions with limited structured support. I built Whittaker Coaching to fix that.
Based in Asia for over a decade. Teaching at Keio University Law School, Rikkyo University, and Temple University Japan. Coaching across various industries, including law, finance, tech, and pharma — for professionals who work globally and lead across cultures.
*Independent consultant since August 2022. Not an employee of any law firm.
The Process
A Clear Process. Not a Pep Talk.
01
Clarify
Every engagement begins with a structured intake process — a questionnaire, optional Hogan assessment, and where appropriate, 360 feedback. By the first session, we already have direction.
02
Strategize
Using the PARCS framework, we build a development plan across all five dimensions. Concrete actions. Clear milestones. No vague aspirations.
03
Move
Act, get feedback, process what comes up, and refine. Periodic coaching sessions keep momentum. We help you track progress and adjust based on what happens in the real world.
What the intake process looks like
The process begins with a questionnaire every client completes before we start coaching. Its purpose is to clarify what the coaching is meant to accomplish — because if we want to know whether it was successful, we first have to define what success means.
The questionnaire asks you to outline what you want from the coaching, why those goals matter, and what you hope will be different by the end. It also asks you to reflect on where you are now within the PARCS framework — your strengths, weaker areas, and where you'd like to be by the end of the engagement. This helps us understand the baseline, identify the gap, and see where the work needs to focus.
An optional step I strongly encourage is the Hogan assessment. It helps you understand your strengths at your best, the tendencies that may derail you under stress, and the values that shape what matters to you at work and beyond. It also offers insight into how you may be perceived by others — which matters, because success in the corporate world often depends on reputation as much as performance.
Where appropriate, I can also incorporate 360 feedback, stakeholder interviews, or prior assessments like CliftonStrengths. These are most common in corporate engagements but can be valuable for individual clients as well.
By the time we reach the first meeting, we are not starting from scratch. Between the intake form, any assessment data, and any additional feedback, we already have a strong foundation. The first session has direction and momentum — but nothing is set in stone. The point is to begin with clarity, focus, and real data, rather than drifting through abstract conversation.
For Organizations
The Cost of Not Investing in Your Leaders
$1M+
Cost to replace a single mid-level associate at a top-tier firm
Click for breakdown
Breakdown
- Recruiter fees (25% of comp): ~$85–100K
- Signing bonus: $50–100K
- International relocation: $75–150K
- Onboarding ramp-up (6 mo): ~$175K
- Lost billings during transition: $300–400K
7x
Average ROI on executive coaching — up to 788% in controlled studies
Click for source
Source
MetrixGlobal study (2001) by Merrill C. Anderson, Ph.D., commissioned by a Fortune 500 firm. Widely cited by the International Coach Federation (ICF).
51%
Of senior lawyers report burnout — with no demographic solution in Asia
Click for source
Source
Based on ALM/LegalWeek intelligence surveys and Bloomberg Law research on attorney well-being. Asia-Pacific markets have significantly fewer coaching and support resources compared to US/UK counterparts.
Questions Senior Professionals Ask
How is executive coaching different from mentoring or consulting?
Mentors tell you what to do based on their experience. Consultants become experts about your business and give you a menu of suggested solutions. Coaching focuses on the values and objectives of the coachee in a collaborative way — and the coachee is the expert, not the coach. The coachee decides what to do and what not to. The coach facilitates by listening, supporting, and pushing back, always from the place of helping the coachee act in line with their values.
The coaching I do blends all three. I listen when that's needed, I provide advice from my perspective to help clients when they need a quick fix, and I can be analytical and strategic too. But the foundation is always coaching — structured, confidential, and focused on building your leadership capability.
Who is this for — lawyers only?
My background is in law and finance, and many of my clients come from those fields. But the PARCS framework applies to any senior professional navigating leadership transitions in complex, global environments — including tech, pharma, and professional services. If you work across cultures and are at a point of major transition, this is designed for you.
What makes your approach different from other executive coaches?
Most executive coaches come from HR, psychology, or consulting backgrounds. I come from the same environments my clients operate in — Big Law, investment banking, cross-border transactions, and a decade of living and working in Asia and the UK. I combine ICF-certified coaching methodology with Hogan psychometric assessments and direct practitioner experience. I am not coaching from theory. I have sat in the seat.
Do you work with organizations or only individuals?
Both. I offer individual coaching programs and create bespoke corporate engagements. Corporate work typically starts with assessments — Hogan, 360-degree feedback, stakeholder interviews — then moves into coaching, including team coaching, and facilitations. I have worked on multi-coach programs for global financial institutions and can scale to meet organizational needs.
Free Resource
The Expat Leader's
90-Day Playbook
A structured framework for senior professionals navigating their first 90 days in a new leadership role, a new country, or both. Built from nearly 20 years of experience working with leaders in Asia.