Singapore · Hong Kong · Asia-Pacific · Online

Executive coaching for Singapore and Asia-Pacific leaders

Somatic executive coaching for senior leaders carrying more pressure than they let on. Online, in hours that work for the region.

You're good at your job. That's not the problem. The problem is what it's costing to stay good at it: the 5am wake-ups with your mind already running, the shortness with people you respect, the sense that you're performing steadiness rather than feeling it.

You've probably done leadership development. Maybe a coach, a 360, the books. You understand your patterns well. And under real pressure, in the rooms that matter, the same reactions still run.

That's because the pattern doesn't live in your thinking. It lives in your nervous system. This is the work that goes where insight alone can't reach.

Regulation is a leadership capacity

The leaders people trust in a crisis aren't the smartest in the room. They're the most settled. A regulated nervous system is what lets you hear bad news without flinching, hold conflict without escalating, and make decisions from clarity rather than threat.

Most coaching works at the level of strategy and insight. This works underneath it. I'm an ICF Professional Certified Coach and a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, trained in Internal Family Systems and as an Integral Coach, and I spent two decades inside the corporate world before this one. We work with how your system actually responds under load, and we train it. Not through willpower, but through repetition: 30 repetitions builds familiarity, 300 builds muscle memory, 3,000 builds embodiment. Most of the change happens between sessions.

Who this is for

• Senior leaders and executives in Singapore, Hong Kong and across APAC carrying chronic pressure
• Tech, finance and consulting professionals whose performance is fine but whose recovery has stopped working
• Founders who can't switch off, even when there's nothing left to do
• Expats navigating transition: new role, new country, separation, identity shifts
• Leaders who've done the development work and still hit the same wall under pressure

What we work on

Every engagement is shaped around the leader, but most of the work falls into a few territories:

• Executive presence. Gravitas that's felt, not performed. Presence isn't a communication technique; it's what a settled nervous system looks like from the outside, and it can be developed.
• Leading under pressure. How you respond in conflict, in crisis, and in the rooms where the stakes are real. We train the response, not just the awareness of it.
• Communication and difficult conversations. Saying the hard thing without escalating or going quiet. Holding your ground without hardening.
• The gap between intention and impact. When 360 feedback keeps surprising you, the pattern usually isn't in what you mean. It's in how your system shows up before you've said a word.
• Burnout and sustainable performance. Rebuilding the capacity to switch off, recover, and perform without running on threat.
• Transitions. Bigger scope, new market, relocation, separation. The moments where the old way of operating stops working and something more solid has to be built.

Why a Melbourne coach for APAC

Further training: Harvard Kennedy School · Kansas Leadership Center · World Institute for Action Learning

Practically: Melbourne runs two to three hours ahead of Singapore, so your morning is my late morning. Same-day scheduling across APAC is easy, and sessions run online via video.

For organisations

Corporate and sponsored engagements run through my consulting practice, Vertical Development Consulting. These are structured differently from private coaching:

• Three-way contracting. The leader, the sponsor and I agree the development goals together at the outset, so everyone is working toward the same outcomes.
• 360-degree stakeholder input. Where it serves the engagement, I interview managers, peers and HR partners to ground the work in how the leader actually shows up, not just how they see themselves.
• Clear reporting boundaries. Themes and progress against agreed goals can be shared with the sponsor. The content of sessions is never shared. This boundary is set in writing before we begin, and it's what makes the work possible.
• Structured arc. Engagements run in defined phases with a midpoint review, rather than open-ended.

I'm an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and work within the ICF Code of Ethics. If you're sourcing coaching for a leader in Singapore or the region, the chemistry call works the same way: the leader and I speak first, because fit decides everything.

Common questions

Is this coaching or therapy?

For international clients, coaching. It's body-based and trauma-informed in approach, but it's not psychotherapy and isn't a substitute for mental health treatment. If therapy is what you need, I'll say so and help you find it.

How do sessions run?

Online via video, typically fortnightly, with specific practices between sessions. The between-session work is where most of the change happens.

Is this confidential?

Completely. For organisation-sponsored engagements, themes and progress against agreed goals can be shared with the sponsor, but the content of sessions never is. That boundary is contracted in writing before we begin.

How long does an engagement last?

It depends on what we're working with, and we'll talk about it honestly in the first call. This isn't open-ended coaching by default.

Do you only work with Singapore?

No. Singapore is a natural base given my history there, but I work with leaders across Hong Kong, the wider APAC region, Australia and internationally.

Rudi Doku · Executive Coach (ICF PCC) · Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) · Melbourne, Australia · Coaching online across Singapore, Asia-Pacific and internationally