C O A C H I N G
Ways We Work Together
One signature engagement, shaped around where you’re starting.
30 minutes. No cost. No pitch. If it isn’t a fit, I’ll say so.
The P.A.T.H.™ Engagement
A focused stretch of one-to-one work on what no longer fits — how you lead, what’s next, or who you are underneath both.
S I G N A T U R E E N G A G E M E N T
LENGTH
3 to 6 months
SESSIONS
45 minutes, weekly then every two weeks
LANGUAGE
English, Cantonese or Mandarin
WHERE
Private video call
HOW IT UNFOLDS
1. Weekly to start. The first three sessions are weekly, to build momentum.
2. Then every two weeks. Adjusted to what you need.
4. A wrap-up at the end. In our final session, we look back at what’s changed and what you’ll carry forward on your own, or what out next goal may be.
3. A mid-point review. Halfway through, we look at what’s moved, what hasn’t, and what to adjust.
Three months is where it starts. Change that lasts needs time to hold.
I work with a small number of clients at a time. Engagements are a considered commitment; I share pricing in our first conversation.
Employer-sponsored? Some companies fund coaching through learning or development budgets.
30 minutes. No cost. No pitch. If it isn’t a fit, I’ll say so.
IF YOUR EMPLOYER MAY PAY
Some companies fund coaching through learning or development budgets. It’s worth asking your manager or HR.
If your employer sponsors it, the three of us agree at the start what is shared, and your employer is told only that sessions are happening. What we discuss stays confidential, within the limits set out in our agreement.
FOR HR AND DEVELOPMENT LEADS
Arranging coaching for someone on your team? I’d be glad to talk.
Three starting points
The starting point doesn’t need to be fully defined. We find it together.
How you lead
The role you hold, the people you affect, the weight you carry.
Often leave with: language for the conversations you’ve been postponing, and a clearer line between what’s yours to carry and what isn’t.
What’s next
When the current shape no longer fits — a role outgrown, a reorg that changed it, a pivot postponed, a rebuild after a layoff.
Often leave with: a direction instead of a restlessness, and criteria you can hold a real offer up against.
Why you are underneath both
When life seems right on paper, and something in you still asks for your attention.
Often leave with: an answer to what you want that isn’t borrowed, and boundaries that hold when tested.
The approach: P.A.T.H.
Four movements that turn what you’re sensing into something that holds.
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When everything feels urgent, it’s easy to react before you’ve seen what’s actually happening.
Pause is stepping out of the reaction long enough to look.
What clients often notice: you catch the pull to respond immediately, and choose whether to.
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Before you can decide where you’re going, it helps to see clearly where you actually are.
Acknowledge brings into view what’s true now — what’s working, what you have to work with, and what no longer fits.
What clients often notice: you can name the thing you’ve been circling for months.
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Seeing clearly doesn’t tell you what to do.
Translate is where you get specific about what you want, how you’d know you had it, and what the first move actually is.
What clients often notice: you leave with a decision, a boundary, or a sentence you’re going to say out loud — not a feeling.
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Old habits, external pressure, and familiar patterns don’t disappear because you’ve decided something.
Hold is what keeps the direction in place when they come back — and they will.
What clients often notice: the direction holds through a hard week.
Why it holds
Most advice works on what you do. Change that lasts usually has to reach what matters to you and who you’re being — otherwise the old pattern returns on the first hard week. That’s what the fourth movement is for.
Every session goes somewhere
There is no fixed curriculum — we work on what’s live for you. At the start, we agree what you want to achieve. At the end, we check whether you got it. You leave with something specific: a decision, a boundary, a conversation to have, an action to move things forward.
Multiplexities™
For people holding several worlds at once: professional and caretaking, cultural and generational, relational and individual — whether you’ve moved across countries or carry two cultures at home. For some, it started early. as the one who translated, explained, and kept things together. The weight isn’t the doing of it. It’s knowing what you actually want when no one needs anything from you.
Some of these worlds need to stay apart. Others can’t be pulled apart without something breaking. Knowing which is which, again and again, is the part nobody sees, least of all at work.
WHERE THE WORK OFTEN GOES
What a coherent version of you looks like across all of them, not just a better balance between the parts.
Where this work goes deepest
Like a stone dropped into still water, change starts within you — then home, work, and more…
Leaders who feel everything
For leaders of any gender who register what a room is doing before anyone says it. They read what sits under the update, sense where a team is about to fracture, and know which conversation actually needs having.
It’s a real instrument: team led this way tend to be more engaged and more creative. Unaimed, it’s exhausting. The difference is between absorbing what people feel and choosing how to respond.
WHERE THE WORK OFTEN GOES
What to act on, what to name, what to let pass, and what leading looks like when it runs on that perception rather than despite it.
Women leaders in tech and beyond
For women in tech and beyond who are carrying more than the job. The double binds are real: directness reads as abrasive until your competence is beyond question, holding back reads as lacking presence, and feedback drifts from your work to your personality. So is everything outside the office that doesn’t pause while you lead.
The ambition hasn’t gone anywhere. What it’s for is often changing, and what counts as success is worth deciding for yourself rather than inheriting.
WHERE THE WORK OFTEN GOES
Being read accurately, starting with how you read and present yourself.
Achievers at an inflection point
For people in a role that’s costing more than it’s giving, out of one and rebuilding, or somewhere in between and not yet sure which way it goes. Sometimes it follows a shock: a layoff, a reorganization, even a promotion. Sometimes nothing is visibly wrong. You’re still performing, still respected, still busy, and something has stopped adding up.
The usual first move is to change the surface: a new title, a new team, a better company. Sometimes that’s exactly right. Sometimes it turns out to ge the same shape in a different building.
WHERE THE WORK OFTEN GOES
Where’s actually driving it, and what you want, separately from what you’re supposed to want and separately from whether you stay or go.
Further reading: Text, bias in performance feedback (2024) · Journal of Applied Psychology, the competence shield (2025) · Catalyst, empathic leadership (2021) · LHH, career transition (2026) · UMD Smith, mid-life transitions
Questions people ask
W H A T I S I T ?
Coaching, therapy or a good friend?
A friend listens with love, and usually has a stake in what you decide. A therapist helps you heal what hurts, a coach helps you see clearly and move forward — with structure, and no agenda about which way you go.
Will you tell me what to do?
Not usually. I’ll share what I notice, with your permission — the decision stays yours, which is why they hold.
I S I T F O R M E ?
Do I need to be an executive?
No, Many of the people I work with lead teams; others lead families, careers in transition, or simply their own next chapter. If people count on you, and something is asking to change, you’re in the right place.
Do I need to know what I want first?
No. Often that’s the work.
I’m not sure this is even a real problem.
That’s where most people start. Being able to describe what isn’t working — without yet knowing what you want instead — is enough.
P R A C T I C A L
What does it cost?
Engagements are a considered commitment rather than a single session. I share pricing in our first conversation, once I understand what you’re navigating. Some employers fund coaching — it’s worth asking.
Can my employer pay for coaching?
Some companies fund coaching through learning or development budgets. Every company handles it differently, so your manager or HR is the best place to ask. If they sponsor it, your employer is told only that sessions are happening. Anything more is shared only with your written agreement.
Is it confidential? Will my employer know what we discuss?
Yes, it’s confidential. For sponsored coaching, what — if anything — is shared with your employer is agreed with you at the start.
I don’t have time for this right now.
The first conversation is 30 minutes. It’s a reasonable amount of time to find out whether the rest is worth it.
W I L L I T W O R K ?
I’ve tried things before. They didn’t stick.
That’s what the fourth movement, Hold, is for. We plan for the hard week before it arrives.
“I came to Jacqueline feeling frustrated and pulled in different directions, unable to name what was underneath all of it. Through our conversations, I found clarity on what was actually driving it — and a different way of looking at the situation.
What stood out was how she helped me see and hear myself more clearly. I left with a new perspective and a sense of what to do with it. Having someone who holds space for you to think more clearly, rather than just telling you what to do, makes more of a difference than I expected.”
~ P.C. (She/her); Network Cloud Systems Engineer
30 minutes. No cost. No pitch. If it isn’t a fit, I’ll say so.