My advice to any chair is simple. To choose an executive coach in London, run the appointment the way you run any senior hire: name one sponsor, write the brief in business terms, check conflicts of interest, agree in writing what the board will and will not see, and fix a date to review the work. Chemistry between coach and CEO matters, but it is the last test, not the first.
I have been advising CEOs and executive teams for more than 25 years, and the pattern holds in London as it does in Sydney and New York. When a board treats coaching as a private favour to the chief executive, it gets a pleasant series of conversations and no way to tell whether anything changed. When it treats coaching as a governed investment, it gets a brief, a boundary and a review. The second approach costs the same and tells you far more.
How should a board choose an executive coach in London?
Start with the problem, not the coach. Ask what the board wants to be different in six months: how the CEO handles dissent in the room, how quickly the executive team makes a call after a poor quarter, how ready the successors are, how the chair and chief executive work together. A coach can only be judged against a stated purpose, so the first document in any process is a one-page brief that a director who has never met the coach could read and understand.
Then separate three roles that boards tend to blur. The sponsor owns the business reason for the work and receives themed progress reports. The CEO (or other executive) owns the behaviour change and the effort. The coach owns the process and the confidentiality of the conversation. If one person plays two of those roles, the work loses its edge. A chair who sponsors the engagement and also asks the coach for a running commentary has turned a development relationship into surveillance, and the CEO will stop being candid.
Those figures describe a gap in preparation and trust, which is the gap a well-governed coaching engagement is meant to narrow. I would not read them as proof that coaching closes it. The survey did not test coaching. What the numbers do tell a chair is that the first year of a new CEO is a period when the board has the least information and the most exposure, and that is when a clear sponsor, a clear brief and a credible coach earn their fee.
Why this belongs in the boardroom, not only in HR
The UK Corporate Governance Code 2024, published by the Financial Reporting Council, asks the board to establish a nomination committee that ensures plans are in place for orderly succession to both the board and senior management positions (Provision 17). It also asks for a formal and rigorous annual review of the performance of the board, its committees, the chair and individual directors, with an external reviewer commissioned by the chair at least every three years in FTSE 350 companies (Provision 21). The Code does not mention coaching at all; I searched the published text to be sure. It does, though, set the standard for how a board in London thinks about leadership continuity and its own conduct.
The Code applies to companies in the commercial companies and closed-ended investment funds categories of the listing regime, on a comply-or-explain basis. The FRC states that it does not apply to private companies, and also that many companies not required to follow it choose to. Most of the scaling businesses I work with are private. Their boards, often a mix of founders, investors and one or two independents, can borrow the discipline without the paperwork: a named owner for succession, a regular review of how the board itself performs, and a record of why a development decision was made.
Coaching sits inside that discipline as one lever among several. If the board's concern is a successor who is not ready, a coach for the successor may help, but so might a stretch role, a new reporting line or a change to the executive team's decision rights. That is the reason I recommend the board decides what kind of intervention is needed before it decides who delivers it. My article on executive coaching or leadership systems sets out how to tell the two apart.
Who should sponsor the coaching?
The right sponsor depends on why the coaching exists. The table below is my own view, built from the engagements I have seen go well and badly. It is a starting point for the board's discussion, not a rule.
| Sponsor | Works best when | Main risk | What the sponsor should see |
|---|---|---|---|
| The chair | The purpose is the CEO's relationship with the board, or board-level conduct | The CEO may treat the coach as the chair's agent and hold back | Agreed themes and progress against the brief, never session content |
| The CEO | The purpose is the CEO's own development and the board is supportive | The board has no view of whether it is working | A short written update from the CEO at the midpoint and the end |
| The chief people officer | The coach is working with a successor or an executive team member | Coaching drifts into a performance process | Themes, attendance and a review against the brief |
| The senior independent director or nomination committee chair | The work is tied to a live succession decision | Confidentiality becomes unclear if the person coached is a candidate | What the board needs for the decision, agreed in advance with the person coached |
Notice that in every row the sponsor sees themes and progress, and in no row sees what was said. The International Coaching Federation's Code of Ethics asks its credentialed coaches to agree, before coaching begins, the roles, responsibilities and confidentiality of the engagement with the client and any sponsor (standard 1.1), to keep the strictest level of confidentiality with all parties (2.1), and to have a clear agreement on what information is exchanged and how (2.2). A coach who cannot explain how they apply those standards to a board-sponsored engagement is not ready for one.
Five checks I would run before appointing anyone
- Write the brief first: One page: the business situation, what should be different, who sponsors, who is coached, how long, and when the board will review. Share it with every candidate so you compare like with like.
- Test for conflicts in writing: London is a dense market. Ask whether the coach has current or recent relationships with directors, investors, competitors or advisers to the company, and ask for the answer in an email. Disclosure is normal. Surprise later is not.
- Agree confidentiality before the first session: Settle what is private, what is reported as themes, and the narrow exceptions such as legal duty or risk of harm. The ICF standard on exceptions (2.3) expects these to be agreed with the client and the sponsor in advance.
- Ask how they challenge: Ask for a description of the last time they told a senior client something unwelcome and what happened next. You are looking for specifics about method and judgement. A coach who answers with praise for the client has told you what you need to know.
- Set review points and an exit: Agree a midpoint check-in and a final review against the brief. Agree also how any party can stop the engagement. The ICF Code recognises each party's right to end the relationship at any point, subject to the agreement.
These checks look procedural, and they are. That is the point. A coach who is comfortable with them will be comfortable with the harder conversation that follows in month four. A coach who finds them an imposition is telling you how they will behave when the CEO pushes back.
Where the board's own role stops
Directors often want to help the chief executive grow, and that instinct is sound. Michael Dauphinee, writing in Directors & Boards in May 2025, argues that directors can offer brief coaching moments that guide a decision, but that executive coaching is a sustained, confidential relationship focused on the executive's own development, and that directors should not try to be that coach. His examples of well-meaning overreach (a director asking the coach to raise the board's concerns with the CEO, or a director meeting the CEO's direct reports to help) match what I see.
I would add one practical rule. If a director wants to share an observation with the CEO, they should do it directly and in the board's own forum, not through the coach. Using the coach as a messenger damages the confidentiality that makes the work possible, and it lets the board avoid a conversation it should be having itself.
Applying Leadership Capability Architecture to the appointment
My own lens for this question is Leadership Capability Architecture: the idea that individual leaders perform inside a system of alignment, identity, execution rhythm, capability pathways and culture, and that changing the person without changing the system rarely lasts. My free Leadership Diagnostic scores five structural pillars: the Alignment System, the Leadership Identity System, the Execution Cadence System, Capability Pathways and the Cultural Reinforcement System.
For a board, the useful question is which pillar is weak. If the CEO's habits are the issue, such as avoiding conflict or overruling the team in meetings, that falls under the Leadership Identity System, and a coach is a sensible choice. If the issue is that board papers arrive late, decisions bounce between committee and executive, and nobody owns the follow-up, that is the Execution Cadence System. A coach will make the CEO more aware of the problem, but only a change to the rhythm of governance will fix it. Using the first stage of my 5D framework, Discover, the board should establish which of the two it is facing before it commissions anyone. You can see how the stages fit together on my 5D Leadership Framework page.
Some leaders also want a companion for rehearsing a difficult conversation or a board paper. CapabilityAI is my AI leadership coach, built on my methodology. I mention it as my own product, and it does not replace a human coach in a board-sponsored engagement.
What an executive coach in London costs
Boards should know the price range before they interview. These are rates published by providers, not independent market data. Mary Taylor and Associates says most executive coaches in London charge around £200 to £300 an hour, with a more sought-after tier at £350 to £500 an hour. Will Harvey Coaching publishes per-session fees of £350, £425 and £500 plus VAT for managers, directors and C-suite leaders, and chief executives or founders respectively, with a minimum of eight sessions and a typical engagement of 12 to 24.
Hourly rates are only the start. A six-month engagement with fortnightly sessions, a 360 assessment and a midpoint review can run well above the sum of the hours, so ask each candidate for the total cost of the brief you have written. My own work with leadership teams is by application, so I will not put a number in an article. If you want the broader picture on value, my piece on executive coaching ROI covers what research can and cannot tell you.
Questions that separate coaches in the first meeting
Chemistry meetings are useful when they are structured. These are the questions I would put to every candidate, and the answers I would look for.
- What has been your experience with CEOs and executive teams under board scrutiny? Look for named situations described without identifying the client.
- How do you work when the executive is defensive? Look for a method, not reassurance.
- What would you report to a sponsor, and what would you never report? The answer should match the ICF standards on confidentiality.
- How do you handle a disagreement between the CEO and the chair about the purpose of the work? Look for a process for resolving it with both present.
- How will we know in 90 days whether this is working? Look for observable behaviour in real meetings, not a satisfaction score.
- Who else in the board's circle do you know, and have you advised any of them? Look for plain disclosure.
If you want a wider comparison of London providers, my guide to executive leadership coaching programmes in London lists them with a claims ledger, and CEO coaching in London: what to expect describes what the first six months usually involve. For the wider selection process, start with how to choose an executive coach.
How a board judges progress without reading the notes
A board does not need session content. It needs evidence that behaviour has shifted where it matters: in board meetings, in the quality of decisions, in how the CEO handles disagreement, in how the executive team talks about the CEO's changes. I suggest three signals. First, the CEO's own account at the midpoint: what has changed, what has not, and what they will try next. Second, a short 360 pulse from a handful of direct reports and directors, repeated at the end. Third, one or two observable measures in the brief, such as the number of decisions reopened after a meeting or the time from board request to executive response.
Korn Ferry's survey found that 70 per cent of boards said they did not gather enough 360-degree feedback during their last CEO transition. That is a board-side gap I see often. Whatever you decide about coaching, building an agreed feedback rhythm into a CEO's first year is cheaper than the coaching itself and tells you more.
The distinction I would put in the minutes
A board does not choose a coach for the CEO. It chooses a process: one the CEO can trust and the board can inspect. The coach is a person inside that process, and the best coach in London will still fail in a badly designed one.
If you are a chair, a CEO or a chief people officer weighing this decision now, start with the Leadership Diagnostic to see which part of the leadership system needs work, or read how I work with boards and senior teams.