Executive Coaching

You’ve read the books, meditated, and done the visualizations. Whatever is holding you back, being elusive is its superpower. But not for long. We will focus on using a variety of modalities and techniques to get beyond what’s holding you back.

Private and Group Coaching

I provide leadership, wellness, and resilience coaching to executives, individual contributors, and teams. Passionate about helping individuals and teams thrive and achieve their goals in a sustainable way, I provide team coaching and deliver workshops to elevate team collaboration and communication.

1:1 Coaching

The space I hold and share with my clients is a compassionate one, safe, and judgment-free. You can leave your defenses at the door. Here you’ll be heard, validated, and gently challenged.

During our time together we will walk side by side through your exploration and discovery of the possibilities you want to create in your role at work and in your life. I’ll help you develop immediate and actionable skills to increase your effectiveness, broaden your impact, and embrace the life you long for.

Group and Team Coaching

If you are looking to bring a team of coaches or workshops into your place of business, I am delighted to also be affiliated with Humessence, a premier leadership coaching firm. At Humessence, we grow the professional, people-first leadership skills your company desires. Check us out and see what amazing change we can bring to your teams.

Who I Work With

As a Master of Transitions, I work with adult students and professionals who are facing a variety of transition periods in their educational, professional, and personal lives.

You may be:

  • Transitioning from school to career, anxious about the future and unsure of how or where to target their ambitions.

  • Rising leaders worried about “imposter syndrome” and dealing with hidden self-doubt, resistance from colleagues or other leaders, who are having trouble embracing their growing status as an expert, or who are managing performance issues (their own, their teams), straddling tactical challenges and wanting more time for strategic work.

  • Struggling with succession planning, developing leaders on their teams, curious about the next phases of their lives and careers, struggling with finding balance (work/life), #winemom crowd under high pressure from child rearing | career | aging parents.

  • Sober or sober-curious professionals looking to manage their unique health and social needs in the workplace.

  • Dreaming of writing a legacy, memoir, non-fiction, or fiction book but stuck with finding the time, the structure, or the impetus to get it done.

  • "I physically felt lighter as I walked back to my car versus when I walked to your place [for our coaching session!]"

    Beth J

  • "It is my pleasure to recommend Karen Marginot. Karen shows great care and kindness, and I know she is attentively listening to every word. I feel challenged in our sessions by the way she encourages me. She makes me feel seen and heard, and ensures that our time together is used to the fullest. This style of coaching has helped me create vivid pictures of what I would like my life to look like, as well as the skills I need to continue to grow and create that life for myself."

    Alycia Wachtel, Undergrad student, Rochester Institute of Technology

  • "Karen was paired with me as a career coach and I can't imagine navigating the past year without her. Karen is compassionate, understanding, insightful, and gently challenging. She has truly altered how I move through my career and personal life. She took the time to work WITH me, not against me, to really get to the root of my concerns and show me how to reframe my own understanding of myself. I look forward to working with Karen as I continue to navigate and progress in my career. I can't believe how lucky I am to have Karen as a friend, mentor, confidante, and coach."

    Steve M., MPH, CMAP, Strategy Director, Health Industry Leader

  • "I was paired with Karen as an Executive Coach about 9 months ago and she has been instrumental in helping me frame my thinking around important challenges and also helped me advance my career. Her coaching helped me break through barriers that I had put up for myself that were preventing me from truly thriving in my role. Karen's ability to listen, understand the root of a problem, and provide relevant and insightful coaching has been critical in shaping my approach to my role and my career. I can't thank her enough for the time she has spent with me, I value her as a colleague and coach."

    Kim P., Regional Vice President at a Fortune 500 CRM Platform company

The easiest way to know if I’m the coach who can help you achieve the life you were meant for, is to try me out. Then we can decide whether we want to work together. You'll get to know my style, and we'll determine which way of working together would benefit you most.

Coaching FAQs

  • People strive to enjoy the highest quality of life possible. They yearn to live with purpose and meaning. They want to know that their life has value. Coaching brings sharp focus to what’s purposeful and meaningful to you. It provides space for you to explore what’s most fulfilling to you, and strengthens you to create and live the life you dream of – today.

    Coaches don’t tell people what to do. It is not advice-based. Rather, coaching helps you clarify and control your life. Coaching allows you to examine what you’re doing right now in your life, and how your choices and actions match your goals, dreams, values, and intentions. You’ll uncover new choices that lead to real change. Coaching helps you go beyond any mental blocks that limit what you thought was possible.

    Coaching is a Partnership. Coaching works as a partnership between the coach and client. It helps to identify and clarify your true goals, making them challenging and motivating. Coaching then creates the space and energy you need to achieve those goals aligned with your deepest values, and ultimately design the life you truly desire.

    Coaching incorporates a number of principles:

    • All human beings dream of fulfilling themselves and they deserve the opportunity to be their best.

    • People create their life experience and a coach can help a client to create the life that they want.

    • Intellectual understanding is not enough. Change means taking action.

    • There is no such thing as failure. If you do not get what you want, you find another way. Failure is just a short-term way of saying that you have not succeeded – yet.

    • Everyone is naturally whole, resourceful–equipped with all the resources they need–and creative. No one is helpless. The client has the answers; the coach has the questions.

    • A coach works to increase the awareness, clarity, and choice in the client’s life.

    • Coaching is an equal, synergistic partnership.

    The term "coaching" was first used in sports for a person who helped an athlete train and improve. All top athletes have a personal coach. From there, the idea spread to all walks of life. A significant event in this expansion was the publication of Timothy Gallwey’s book, The Inner Game of Tennis. This book used ideas from sports coaching in a much broader way.

  • Executive Coaching

    Coaching for top-level management to improve strategic decision-making and leadership.

    Business coaching

    Business coaches coach people in their work on professional issues. They often work with managers inside a company and may also coach teams.

    Team Coaching

    Many coaches specialize in coaching business teams. These coaches help teams to give their best, helping them to work smoothly and effectively.

    Life coaching

    A life coach deals with the client’s life in all its dimensions – personal and professional, health, and relationships. Often life coaches will help a client in their work, because work is an important part of life, but their focus is not wholly on work.

    A life coach is the only professional trained to deal with all aspects of a client’s life.

    Career coaching

    A career coach specializes in coaching people who want to find a job, change career, or get back into the job market after a break from work.

    Parental coaching

    Coaches specializing with parental issues help create new options for parent-child relationships that ultimately reduce stress and increase the trust and quality in those relationships.

    Wellness coaching

    Coaching helps clients find the motivation and create structure to reach their physical and emotional health goals.

    Those goals might include:

    • Lose a few pounds

    • Eat better

    • Quit smoking

    • Quit alcohol consumption (sobriety coaching)

    • Lower stress

    Unlike a nutritionist or physical therapist, who makes specific diet and exercise suggestions, a wellness coach will help you make better general choices that fit your lifestyle.

    Coaching does not create dependency. The coach wants the client to be autonomous and achieve what they want. They make it clear from the start that the client is responsible for and owns the results of the coaching. Coaching works to make the client more self reliant, not less so.   

    Can coaching be dangerous? That is not possible. A coach does not provide therapeutic services, and will refer the client to another qualified professional if that ever becomes necessary. The coach-client relationship can be redesigned or terminated at any time.

    The International Coaching Federation (ICF) posts its Code of Ethics page which all member coaches follow. For more information about the ICF Code of Ethics, see Ethical Standards in Coaching.

  • A coach will help you to explore the present and design the future you want. Coaching enables you to achieve your goals and live your values. As a coach, I’ll use different tools and techniques designed to help you discover your core values, dreams, and life purpose. Often there’s work that I’ll design with you to be completed between coaching sessions. Transformation occurs over the course of the coaching engagement.

    You decide together with the coach how often the sessions will be, what form they will take (for example by video call, telephone, and/or face to face) and the duration of the coaching arrangement (for example, three or six months). Different coaches will suggest different arrangements. 

    Coaching provides clarity to clients about what they want from life. Clients will then have the energy and structures they need to focus on their goals with passion, because they have cleared away the obstacles that blocked them.

    Clients will have a more satisfying and fulfilling life in every aspect. Professionally, they’ll be more effective and skilled at their work and achieve better results.

    Coaching is a long-term investment in higher business performance. It is the most cost-effective method of achieving higher performance from key individuals. Coaching is evidence of the company’s commitment to developing its people and contributes to a supportive organizational culture with high morale.

    Coaching retains key employees and avoids:

    • The cost of retraining

    • The loss of company knowledge to competitors

    • The drop in productivity when employees leave 

    Coaching is gaining popularity in business because it’s one of the most cost-effective ways of helping people and organizations become more effective. It demonstrates the business’s commitment to their employees which can reduce attrition, avoiding costly recruitment and retraining.

    It is growing more popular now because people expect to be able to do more, and fulfill their mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual dreams and goals. A coach helps people to do just that. As your coach, I am committed to your advancement and well-being.

  • Everyone and anyone. Organizations hire coaches to improve teamwork, to coach executives, and upskill their managers. Individuals hire coaches to improve their lives, their relationships, and their general happiness. 

    You can find a coach to hire by going to the International Coaching Federation database and searching for a coach in your area.

    The cost for coaching varies considerably from country to country and it also depends on the coach’s specialty. Ask the coach you want to engage to explain their fees.