9 Famous Executive Coaches and What Leaders Can Borrow
The most famous executive coaches are Marshall Goldsmith, known for coaching CEOs and for What Got You Here Won't Get You There; Bill Campbell, the former Intuit CEO who coached leaders at Google, Apple and Amazon; and Sir John Whitmore, who helped start the modern coaching movement and co-created the GROW model. Around them sit Timothy Gallwey, Jerry Colonna, Manfred Kets de Vries, Richard Boyatzis, Michael Bungay Stanier and Mel Robbins, who began her career as an executive coach. Most are known for books, research or the leaders they worked with rather than for coaching you can book.
This guide sets out who each person is, what their work centers on and what a leader can borrow from it, with a working coach or alone. If you are looking for a coach rather than reading about famous ones, skip to the directory section near the end.
How we checked: everyone below is described as an executive or leadership coach, or as a founder of coaching methods, in their Wikipedia article or on their own official page, which we read in October 2026. We name people in plain text without links, we do not repeat income claims, and inclusion here is not an endorsement.
Famous executive coaches at a glance
| Name | Best known for | The core idea | What a leader can borrow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marshall Goldsmith | Coaching CEOs; What Got You Here Won't Get You There | Small habits hold successful people back | Pick one behavior and ask colleagues to watch it |
| Bill Campbell | Coaching Silicon Valley leaders; Trillion Dollar Coach | A football coach's eye on executive teams | Judge yourself by how your team plays together |
| Sir John Whitmore | The GROW model; Coaching for Performance | Awareness and responsibility drive performance | Goal, reality, options, will |
| Timothy Gallwey | The Inner Game books | Accurate, non-judgmental attention improves performance | Notice before you correct |
| Jerry Colonna | Reboot; coaching founders | Leadership as growing up, the subtitle of his first book | Ask what part you play in what frustrates you |
| Manfred Kets de Vries | INSEAD; leadership and psychoanalysis | Irrational behavior has a logic worth understanding | Look for the pattern behind the reaction |
| Richard Boyatzis | Intentional Change Theory; Primal Leadership | Change starts from a positive vision | Begin with the leader you want to be |
| Michael Bungay Stanier | The Coaching Habit | Say less, ask more | Ask "And what else?" before advising |
| Mel Robbins | The 5 Second Rule; her podcast | Simple rules for acting now | Shorten the gap between deciding and doing |
Marshall Goldsmith
Wikipedia describes Marshall Goldsmith, born in 1949, as an American executive leadership coach and author. He earned a PhD from UCLA's Anderson School in 1977, entered management education after meeting Paul Hersey, co-founded the management education firm Keilty, Goldsmith and Company and later taught at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. Over his career he has worked with CEOs from more than 200 companies, and sources Wikipedia cites credit him as a pioneer in the use of 360-degree feedback.
What his work centers on: his best-known book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There (2007, with Mark Reiter), argues that successful executives are often held back by small interpersonal habits, the kind of thing as simple as not saying thank you enough. Later books include Mojo (2010), Triggers (2015) and The Earned Life (2022).
What to borrow: success can hide a habit that is costing you. Choose one behavior from honest feedback, tell the people around you that you are working on it, and ask for suggestions about the future rather than critiques of the past. Our guide to feedforward in coaching starts from an exercise Goldsmith describes.
Bill Campbell
William V. Campbell (1940 to 2016) played football at Columbia and was head coach of its team from 1974 to 1979, then moved into business: Apple's vice president of marketing, CEO of Claris, GO Corporation and Intuit, a member of Apple's board from 1997 and chairman of Columbia's trustees. According to Wikipedia, he coached Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt and Sundar Pichai at Google, Steve Jobs at Apple, Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Jack Dorsey and Dick Costolo at Twitter and Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook.
What his work centers on: Campbell never wrote a book. After his death, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle wrote Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell (2019) about how he worked. Intuit still presents a Bill Campbell Coach's Award to employees who excel in mentorship and growth.
What to borrow: Campbell's path ran from coaching a football team to coaching CEOs, and it is a useful lens. Judge yourself by how your team performs together, not only by your own output, and spend real time on the people around you.
Sir John Whitmore
Sir John Whitmore (1937 to 2017) won the British Saloon Car Championship in 1961 and the European Touring Car Championship in 1965 before leaving racing. He trained with Timothy Gallwey, founded the Inner Game in Britain in 1979 and, according to Wikipedia, coined the term "performance coaching" when he and his colleagues realized the method's value for leaders and managers. In the early 1980s he co-founded Performance Consultants, and in the 1990s he helped found the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. Wikipedia describes him as a pioneer of the executive coaching industry.
What his work centers on: he co-created the GROW model (goal, reality, options, will) and set out his approach in Coaching for Performance (1992), which has gone through several editions.
What to borrow: before choosing an option, describe reality fully. Leaders who rush from goal to options skip the part where they discover what is actually going on. Our list of GROW model coaching questions shows the model in use.
Timothy Gallwey
W. Timothy Gallwey, born in 1938, captained Harvard's tennis team in 1960 and went on to write the Inner Game series, starting with The Inner Game of Tennis (1974) and including The Inner Game of Work (1999). Wikipedia describes him as one of the first to demonstrate a comprehensive coaching method that could be applied to many situations, and notes that he found himself lecturing business leaders more often than athletes.
What his work centers on: the idea that performance improves when a person makes accurate, non-judgmental observations, after which the body adjusts on its own. Whitmore trained with Gallwey and built on the same idea.
What to borrow: next time you want to correct someone on your team, ask what they noticed first. People often fix what they can see.
Jerry Colonna
Jerry Colonna, born in 1963, was a venture capitalist who co-founded Flatiron Partners with Fred Wilson in 1996. After working at JPMorgan, he became a business and life coach, launched his coaching practice in 2007, and is now co-founder and CEO of the executive coaching and leadership development company Reboot. He hosts the Reboot Podcast and wrote Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up (2019) and Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong (2023). Wikipedia notes he has coached startup founders including Dennis Crowley of Foursquare.
What his work centers on: the emotional side of leadership, from imposter syndrome and burnout to co-founder conflict, as the Reboot Podcast describes it.
What to borrow: when something in your company frustrates you, ask what part you play in keeping it that way. It is an uncomfortable question and usually a productive one.
Manfred Kets de Vries
Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries is a Dutch management scholar and psychoanalyst and professor of leadership development and organizational change at INSEAD, where he founded the Global Leadership Centre. He works as a consultant and executive coach, has written more than 50 books, and created a group coaching method used in business schools and consulting firms. The American Psychological Association gave him its Harry and Miriam Levinson Award in 2001.
What his work centers on: what Wikipedia calls his clinical paradigm, which starts from premises such as that there is a logical explanation for the way people act, even when it seems irrational, and that much of mental life lies outside conscious awareness. He has also written about the dangers of narcissistic behavior in leaders. One of his books is The Leader on the Couch (2006).
What to borrow: when you overreact at work, look for the pattern: what it reminds you of and what it protects. If the pattern is painful or long-standing, that is work for a therapist, alongside or instead of a coach.
Richard Boyatzis
Richard Boyatzis, born in 1946, is a Distinguished University Professor at Case Western Reserve University and a Board Certified Coach. According to Wikipedia, he began research on helping and coaching in 1967 and coaching executives in 1969, ran longitudinal and brain-imaging studies of coaching, and advises the International Coaching Federation. He co-wrote Primal Leadership (2002) with Daniel Goleman and Annie McKee, and Helping People Change (2019) with Melvin Smith and Ellen Van Oosten.
What his work centers on: Intentional Change Theory, his model of sustained, desired change. Helping People Change argues that coaching works best when it connects to a person's positive vision of themselves rather than focusing mainly on problems to fix.
What to borrow: before you read your next performance review or 360, write down the leader you want to be in five years. Then read the feedback for what moves you toward that picture.
Michael Bungay Stanier
Michael Bungay Stanier, a Rhodes Scholar, wrote The Coaching Habit (2016), which his site notes turned ten in 2026, and The Advice Trap (2020). His site says the company Box of Crayons uses The Coaching Habit to help organizations build coach-like curiosity, and he hosts the podcast 2 Pages with MBS.
What his work centers on: coaching as an everyday habit for managers, built around seven short questions, starting with "What's on your mind?" The book's subtitle sums it up: say less, ask more.
What to borrow: in your next one-to-one, ask "And what else?" twice before offering any advice. Our guide to The Coaching Habit's seven questions covers all seven.
Mel Robbins
Mel Robbins is better known today as an author and podcast host, but Wikipedia records that she began working as a life coach and executive coach in Boston in 1999, after working as a public defender. She became widely known for a TEDx talk, published The 5 Second Rule in 2017 and The Let Them Theory in 2024, and has hosted The Mel Robbins Podcast since 2022.
What her work centers on: simple rules for acting on decisions, and, in The Let Them Theory, focusing on what you can control.
What to borrow: shorten the gap between deciding and doing. If you have decided to have a difficult conversation, put it in the calendar before the end of the day.
The thinkers executive coaches borrow from
Several people who are not primarily coaches shape how executive coaches work:
- Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, who created Situational Leadership while writing the textbook Management of Organizational Behavior. Goldsmith entered management education after meeting Hersey in 1977.
- Edgar Schein, the MIT Sloan professor known for work on organizational culture and process consultation, whose Humble Inquiry (2013) is about asking instead of telling.
- Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, whose Immunity to Change (2009) explains why leaders struggle to make changes they want.
- Kim Scott, a former Apple and Google executive, whose Radical Candor (2017) defines good feedback as caring personally while challenging directly.
Our list of the best books for executive coaches covers their books, and the guide to famous life coaches covers the pioneers of personal coaching, including Thomas J. Leonard.
What fame tells you, and what it doesn't
A famous name tells you someone has influence: books, research, a podcast or famous clients. It does not tell you whether they, or the coach who works under their brand, would be right for you.
- You may not be able to hire them. Campbell and Whitmore have died, and others are known mainly through books, research or firms where other coaches do the coaching. Ask who would actually coach you.
- Famous clients are not evidence for your situation. The FTC warns that testimonials and success stories might not be true or typical (FTC), and even true stories about famous CEOs may not transfer to your role.
- Method matters more than name. The research on coaching outcomes points to the relationship: across 27 samples covering 3,563 coaching processes, the quality of the working alliance between coach and client was consistently linked to results (Graßmann, Schölmerich and Schermuly).
How to use their ideas with an executive coach you can hire
| Famous idea | What a working executive coach does with it |
|---|---|
| Small habits hold successful people back (Goldsmith) | Picks one behavior from stakeholder feedback and re-checks it with colleagues months later |
| A team view of leadership (Campbell) | Looks at how your team works together, not just at you |
| GROW (Whitmore) | Structures each session from goal to a committed next step |
| Notice before you correct (Gallwey) | Asks what you observed before discussing what to change |
| Your part in the problem (Colonna) | Asks what you might be contributing to the situation that frustrates you |
| The logic behind reactions (Kets de Vries) | Helps you spot patterns, and refers you to a therapist when it is deeper |
| Start from a positive vision (Boyatzis) | Begins with the leader you want to be before reviewing gaps |
| Say less, ask more (Bungay Stanier) | Asks questions that make you think rather than giving answers |
What a working coach adds is continuity: someone who knows what you committed to two weeks ago, who has met your sponsor and who asks what happened. Our guides to what executive coaching is and the questions to ask a potential executive coach cover how engagements work, and how much executive coaching costs covers the price.
Find an executive coach on Coachful
Coachful's Find a Coach directory is public, so you can browse without an account. Start with the Business category, or search "executive", "leadership" or "CEO" to find coaches whose headline or bio mentions it. Profiles show each coach's background, credentials and method, their programs and prices, and either a calendar to book a discovery call or a form to send a message.
The Find My Coach quiz asks what you want to improve, where you are right now, your email, your preferred coaching style and your monthly budget, then suggests coaches.
For coaches: what the famous ones have in common
Strip away the fame and these coaches share a few habits worth copying: a clear idea people can repeat (GROW, "say less, ask more", "what got you here"), work grounded in experience or research, and generosity with what they know. You do not need a bestseller to do the same. Our guides on how to become an executive coach and the executive coach website senior buyers look for show the small-scale version, and Coachful's page for executive coaches covers a private workspace per leader for behavior goals, stakeholder feedback rounds, experiments and the first 90 days. The Coachful team will build your website at no extra cost through the free white-glove service.
The bottom line
The famous executive coaches are worth knowing for their ideas: Goldsmith's single-behavior focus, Campbell's team lens, Whitmore's GROW, Gallwey's attention, Colonna's honesty about the inner work, Kets de Vries on hidden patterns, Boyatzis on positive vision and Bungay Stanier's "say less, ask more". You probably cannot hire most of them. You can hire a coach who uses their ideas, knows your situation and asks every two weeks what you actually did.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the most famous executive coach?
Marshall Goldsmith is probably the best-known executive coach today, through his work with CEOs and books such as What Got You Here Won't Get You There. Bill Campbell, who coached leaders at Google, Apple and Amazon, is the coach most associated with Silicon Valley's leaders.
Who was Steve Jobs's coach?
Bill Campbell, a former Columbia football coach, Apple executive and Intuit CEO, coached Steve Jobs at Apple, according to Wikipedia, as well as leaders at Google, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook. His approach is described in the 2019 book Trillion Dollar Coach.
Who created executive coaching?
No single person. Sir John Whitmore is described by Wikipedia as a pioneer of the executive coaching industry; he coined "performance coaching" and co-created the GROW model, building on Timothy Gallwey's Inner Game work.
Can I hire Marshall Goldsmith?
He is best known through his books and the executive coaching group he co-founded, the Marshall Goldsmith Group. If you want an executive coach for yourself, a working coach you can meet on a chemistry call is usually the practical choice.
Is Mel Robbins an executive coach?
She began working as a life coach and executive coach in Boston in 1999, according to Wikipedia. Today she is best known as an author and podcast host.
What can leaders learn from famous executive coaches?
Work on one behavior at a time, look at your team as well as yourself, describe reality before choosing options, start from a positive vision, and ask more than you tell. The hard part is doing it every week, which is what a coach helps with.
Do famous executive coaches have certifications?
Some do; for example, Wikipedia notes Richard Boyatzis is a Board Certified Coach. Many built their reputations through research, books or business careers instead. Coaching is not licensed, so check any credential with the body that issued it.
