To read 400-word biographies of our coaches based throughout Asia-Pacific, click on a country name below:
CHINA | HONG KONG | THAILAND | JAPAN | KOREA | INDIA | SINGAPORE | AUSTRALIA | MALAYSIA
PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF CHINA
GABOR HOLCH‘s work as an intercultural leadership coach, consultant, and trainer is powered by exposure to global cultures and first-hand experience in navigating among them. A native speaker of Hungarian, he is fluent in English and Mandarin, speaks decent German, Italian, and Spanish, and can converse in Russian and Japanese.
Gabor grew up between Baghdad and Budapest. He acquired a bachelor’s in English studies and philosophy at ELTE University, a master’s in international relations from Central European University (CEU), and an M.Phil. in advanced international studies at Vienna’s Diplomatic Academy. He is a Certified Management Consultant, having passed the qualifying test in Mandarin (the only non-Chinese person to do so). Gabor is a Certified Action Learning Coach, a qualification he acquired in Hong Kong; as well, he’s certified in assessment tools including DISC, Predictive Index, MBTI, and NeuroColor.
As a diplomat, Gabor worked at the United Nations in Vienna, then became head of a Bosnia-Herzegovina field office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In 2002, he relocated to Shanghai and founded his consultancy providing intercultural leadership skills development, coaching, and consulting services. As a consultant, he helps firms adapt their leadership methods to an age of global mobility. As a coach, he has worked with over a hundred European and Asian executives, managers, entrepreneurs, and diplomats, helping them develop leadership approaches sensitive to individual and cultural diversity. As a workshop facilitator, he helps management teams consolidate and apply similar skills.
Gabor has worked with over a hundred clients in 25+ countries including AB InBev, AkzoNobel, Alcatel-Lucent, Bayer, Benteler, BMW, Bracco, Carrefour, Covestro, Danieli, DEIF, Deutsche Bank, DSM, Ecco, EY, Ferrero, Four Seasons, GEA, Henkel, Howard-Johnson, LANXESS, Logitech, Maersk, New Look, Nissan, Nokia, Patek Philippe, Pepsico, Peugeot-Citroën, Scania, Schneider Electric, ThyssenKrupp TK, TÜV SÜD, Voith, Walt Disney, ZF. He delivers his services in locations worldwide, and he coaches executives both in-person and virtually.
Gabor is an active member of professional communities and organizations such as the International Council of Management Consulting Institutions (ICMCI) and the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. He is a regular keynote speaker at professional and academic events including Asian, European, and American EMBA programs. He is an author of over a hundred articles and three books, and he’s currently writing a fourth on China’s expat executive community.
When he gets bored with his keyboard, Gabor enjoys martial arts, SCUBA-diving, and travel.
HONG KONG
NADINE SLATER is an executive coach focusing on developing global leaders. She enables business leaders to “raise their game” in situations of challenge, change, and transition, enhancing their leadership effectiveness through clarity, direction, and focus.
A German national, Nadine received her education at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany), Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Grenoble (France), and Australian Graduate School of Management (Sydney). She is an ICF accredited Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and a Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coach, and she’s qualified in the DISC, MBTI, and Leadership Circle profiling tools. Nadine has lived and worked in Europe, the U.S., Australia, and East Asia. She delivers services in English and German, and speaks French, Spanish, and some Mandarin and Japanese.
Nadine began her career working with the CEO of Bertelsmann’s music division; she quickly progressed into sales and helped build the European sales function in the company’s first regional headquarters. She then joined the senior management team as international operations director and participated in the integration of Zomba and merger with Sony Music.
Leveraging her M&A experience, Nadine joined the communications consultancy Maitland with a dual role. On the client side, she advised on cross-border M&A transactions and corporate positioning; on the business development side, she managed Maitland’s international partner network, AMO Global. Having coordinated a multi-national communications campaign around Mittal Steel’s merger with Arcelor, Nadine helped AMO win the industry award “Financial Consultancy of the Year” in 2006. During Nadine’s years of working directly with its board, AMO was consistently ranked at the top of M&A league tables, with 300+ deals worth over $400bn in 2007 alone. These experiences – including collaboration with people of 15 nationalities at several hierarchical levels – enabled Nadine to hone her business acumen and intercultural skills.
Nadine became an independent coach and consultant during 2009/10 and moved with her family to Beijing in 2012, where she coached executives in international organizations active across Asia. After relocating to Japan at the start of 2016, she delivered executive coaching and leadership and team development workshops. Nadine’s clients have included Aldi, Sony, Electricité de France, Continental, Friesland Campina, ReSource Pro, Daimler, Fairmont, Total, The British Council, and Johnson & Johnson.
Nadine relocated to Hong Kong in 2019 with her English husband and two daughters. She enjoys exploring new cultures, connecting with people, and tasting new foods. She recharges by doing Yoga and playing with her girls.
AUSTRALIA
ANNA HARPER is an executive coach and facilitator who enjoys the complexity and intrigue of the global business environment as well as the creative dialogue that underpins her intercultural service delivery all across Asia-Pacific. She believes that people are most effective when their values and world view are aligned with that of their organization and society. Her approach to executive coaching is informed by psychology, intercultural communication, leadership training, and systemic thinking.
A native of New Zealand, Anna completed a bachelors in fine arts at the University of Canterbury, followed by graduate studies at other universities in communication and design management. In 2003, she received an M.A. in organizational development at the University of Western Sydney. She also has studied extensively at the Summer Institute of Intercultural Communication (Oregon). Anna has received NLP training in systemic thinking and advanced behavioral modeling. She also is certified in Spiral Dynamics Integral, MBTI, BarOn-EQi, FIRO-B, Situational Leadership, SIE (Survey of Influence Effectiveness), and MOT (Managing Organizational Transition).
After receiving her first degree, Anna joined the international division of Elizabeth Arden, for which she worked for 12 years in expatriate positions across Europe and Asia-Pacific; eventually she attained the position of marketing manager for Asia. In the course of her corporate and subsequent career, Anna lived and worked in Japan (where she devoted three years to establishing a joint venture), Hong Kong (where she managed a cultural-change project), and Singapore; these first-hand experiences enabled her to grasp the complexities of identifying and navigating different needs and perspectives.
Since founding her own consultancy in 1991, Anna has coached executives at the C-level and below for companies in China, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, and the United States. Recently, much of Anna’s work has involved executive transition coaching for business unit heads and general managers. Clients have included Ford Motors, Caterpillar, Barclays Global, Cisco, E&J Gallo, Raytheon, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Scherring, Kelloggs, Deutsche Bank, Frucor, Thompson-Reuters, Cathay Pacific, Optus Communications, and Alcon Laboratories. She also facilitates leadership programs for Thompson-Reuters and the U.N.
Anna is the treasurer for Lotus Outreach Australia, an independent, secular, non-profit organization dedicated to improving the living conditions of vulnerable children and their communities through education and healthcare. Otherwise, she enjoys teaching and practicing yoga, reading, traveling, music, art, walking, dancing, and being with her family in New Zealand whenever possible.
SINGAPORE
SWEE LIN TEOH is an organizational consultant, leadership assessor, and executive coach who advocates that we live in the “school of life”: the issues and obstacles we face are opportunities for us to reflect, challenge, and change our internal mindsets so we can develop ourselves into more effective leaders.
A native of Malaysia, Swee Lin earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with First Class Honours from the Northern University of Malaysia. She is a Master Certified Coach from the Behavioral Coaching Institute (Australia), and has completed both the Core Essentials and Advanced Corporate Coaching programs with CoachU (USA). She was trained in Gestalt technology by The Space Between (Australia/United Kingdom); she now co-facilitates foundational Gestalt-in-Organizations programs in Asia. Additionally, Swee Lin is certified in Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Hogan’s Personality Assessment, Birkman Occupational and Behavioral Assessment, and Management Research Group Leadership Effective Analysis (MRG 360). She works comfortably with people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, conversing in English, Malay, or Mandarin.
Swee Lin began her career as a business process consultant with Accenture in 1993, where she conceptualized and configured business systems, redesigned business processes and structures, and managed change implementation projects. She later joined Atos-Origin, then Avanade, and finally Microsoft, organizations for which she helped establish local and regional consulting practices while continuing to provide consulting and project management services to clients. As consulting practice director, she won awards for her contribution to high customer satisfaction, publicly referenced projects, and profitable businesses, e.g., Asia Pacific Excellence Award 1997, SAP Employee of the Year 1998, Outstanding Performer of the Year 1998, ASEAN Excellence Award 1999, and CEO Award 2001.
During 2005, Swee Lin redirected her professional focus to begin supporting business leaders in their personal development journey. She worked first for Sheppard Moscow, then Right Management, and finally, during 2010, founded her own consulting practice. She now coaches middle managers and senior leaders, provides leadership assessments for selection and development, and designs and facilitates interventions to improve individual, team, and organizational effectiveness. Her clients have included Tesco, Skanem, Philips, Citibank, Syngenta, BHP Billiton, Exxon-Mobil, Asian Development Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland.
A resident of Singapore, Swee Lin is a member of the Asia Pacific Alliance of Coaches. Outside of her professional life, she spends much of her time and energy developing community teams and team leaders dedicated to sustainable agriculture, holistic well-being, and community services across the Asia-Pacific region.
INDIA
MICHAEL S. DAVID designs and delivers corporate training workshops on leadership development, cross-cultural effectiveness, customer relations, talent development, team building, and doing business in India. He also serves his client organizations as an executive coach.
Michael holds a bachelors degree in commerce and a post-graduate diploma in banking from the University of Puna as well as a masters degree in commerce from Shivaji University. He attended the human process laboratories offered by the Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Sciences, and he has qualified as a cross-cultural trainer with General Motors Relocation Services.
Michael’s early corporate career was in advertising, where he held creative and client-service responsibilities. During that time he also served as a visiting faculty member at business schools such as Symbiosis Institute of Business Management.
During his long independent career, Michael has facilitated, trained, and consulted extensively in the area of cross-cultural effectiveness and collaboration, and cross-cultural team-building. These activities, for numerous client companies, have been conducted both as stand-alone interventions of one and two days, and as modules within managerial and leadership development programs. His work with cross-border teams, delivered in the U.S., U.K., and the Netherlands, has been for Essel Propack and Suzlon. Including Michael’s many other types of training deliveries, he has trained nearly 60,000 managers and executives for DSP Merrill Lynch, Vodafone, Cadbury India, Algorithmics Toronto, Morgan Stanley India, Chase Manhattan Bank, Lucent Technologies, Amtrex Hitachi, Cummins India, Godrej & Boyce, and others.
During his parallel career as an executive coach, Michael has contributed to the leadership development of CEOs, vice presidents, and middle managers at Johnson Controls, Pharma Link, Eurostar Diamonds/Dimexon Diamonds, Hindustan Times-Fever 104, Dawney Day, Morgan Stanley, Johnson & Johnson, and Whirlpool India. Michael’s work as a coach addresses leadership effectiveness, cross-cultural and interpersonal communication, diversity challenges, and people management.
In the course of his training and coaching, Michael travels not only throughout India but also to North America, Europe, Israel, and Southeast Asia. He is a member of the panel of trainers for the U.K. firm Frost & Sullivan, and he’s a training partner at the Tata Management Training Centre.
Michael’s wife, Lorraine, is trained in industrial psychology and counseling; she collaborates with him whenever there’s a need for specialized behavioral inputs. Michael enjoys listening to Western classical music and taking long drives in the country. For him, combining both of these pleasures is the ultimate relaxation.
THAILAND
JEAN-FRANÇOIS COUSIN is an executive coach as well as a cross-cultural leadership consultant and trainer. This phase of his professional life follows a successful career in global leadership roles including manufacturing, marketing, business development, and general management.
A native of France, Jean-François graduated as an engineer from Ecole Centrale Paris, then pursued executive education at The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in North Carolina. He is accredited as a Master Certified Coach by the International Coach Federation, and has been trained in NLP, “clean language,” Extended DISC, and other executive coaching techniques. He is fluent in English and French, and has some understanding of Thai, German, and Spanish.
Jean-François’s 15-year corporate career was with Lafarge, the “world leader in building materials” and a member of the Fortune 500. Ten of those years found him in Asia, holding senior management positions with P&L responsibilities. In his final corporate role, Jean-François was responsible for the worldwide strategy of a two-billion-euro division. In this role, he informally coached business unit managers in 32 countries, usually about their business development efforts, and conducted missions in 40 countries.
As a global executive coach, Jean-François is working across a variety of organizations and industries. He has enabled more than 300 C-level executives and other senior leaders to adjust to different cultures, fine-tune their strategic planning, and develop their leadership and communication skills. He also is passionate about cross-cultural leadership consulting and training. His frequent cross-cultural workshops have been attended by more than 600 executives to date and his public-speaking engagements have attracted over 3,000 attendees. His regular clients are found in Europe, Asia, North America, The Middle-East, and Australia, and include Unilever, Philips, L’Oréal, Mazda, Michelin, Barclays, S.C. Johnson, Hermes, Carrefour, Akzo Nobel, BNP Paribas, ING, Essilor, SAP, Amadeus, Akzo Nobel, KFC, Pizza Hut, Tesco, Air France-KLM, Bosch, Hanes, Carrefour, Deloitte, and HSBC.
Jean-François is an active participant in the Asian community of executive coaches. He trains and supervises coaches. He devotes more than 80 hours each year to his own professional development, and his own coaching is supervised. He is a co-author of Coaching in Asia (Candid Creation Publishing, 2011), and is at work co-authoring a second book on executive coaching in Thailand.
A resident of Thailand, Jean-François pursues pastimes such as sailing, skiing, playing music, reading, cinema, and travelling (so far to over 75 countries.
KOREA
ALEX PARK is an executive coach who applies well-established coaching approaches and theatrical improvisation techniques to improve coachees’ creativity, communication, and confidence, then accompany them toward greater personal and professional effectiveness.
A native of Korea who immigrated to the U.S. at age 15, Alex holds a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. To fortify his grasp of leadership, management, and training, he has attended programs at Oxford University’s SAID School of Business and at INSEAD. In addition, he holds a certificate from the Foundation of Positive Psychology. He recently completed a five weeks of improv training program at Improv Olympic Chicago. Fluent in Korean and English, Alex works professionally in both languages.
Alex’s leadership career started during the mid-1980s after he completed Citibank’s executive development program. Subsequently, he was employed in New York, Zürich, London, and Seoul by financial institutions such as UBS and Standard Chartered Bank, moving up the ladder from successful trader to respected industry executive. Besides his leadership roles within banks, Alex has held related positions including president of the Korea Swap Dealers Association and member of the Bank of Korea’s Monetary Policy Advisory Board.
Alex’s coaching career started several years before he retired from the banking industry. While serving as a senior leader of Standard Chartered Bank, he was one of a few executives chosen to provide coaching for the internal staff. Since becoming an independent practitioner, Alex has worked with coachees from numerous backgrounds on a range of challenges including navigating a career transition, adapting to a new culture, developing executive presence, building business strategy, improving communication skills, and attaining work-life balance. Recently, Alex’s clients for coaching have included Procter & Gamble, Standard Chartered Bank, and the Korea-based global tobacco company, KT&G.
Since returning to live in Korea, Alex has been supporting his U.S. alma maters there as a board trustee, head of an interview committee, and president of the alumni club. He also serves as president of his local Rotary Club, auditor of the Yang Hyun Foundation, and chair of the Financial Market Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea.
Alex’s wife is a Juilliard-trained soprano; they have three children. During his leisure time, Alex composes and performs music. Recently he founded the Korea Improv Society to better enable his fellow-countrymen to develop their creativity, communication skills, and confidence.
MALAYSIA
GALE METCALF & JOEL WALLACH are a husband-wife team with more than 40 years of experience working together. Most of that time has been dedicated to helping people adapt and thrive when working in cultures different from their own. They have lived and worked in Malaysia, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Egypt, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Kenya as well as the United States. In addition, they have consulted or provided training workshops in Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.
Gale has a masters’ degree in education and another in public health. Joel has a masters’ degree in community psychology with a focus on international issues. Their first professional experiences (separately) were in public health in Malaysia. Along the way they met, married, and in 1977 returned to Kuala Lumpur as co-directors of a community counseling program serving the expatriate community. In total, Joel and Gale have lived and worked in Malaysia for 14 years, and in Asia for 24 years.
Moving to Egypt in 1980, Joel and Gale served for seven years as co-directors of the Community Services Association of Cairo, leaving in 1987 to establish the Community Services Center of Taipei, an organization they directed for the next seven years. Throughout their time in managing these centers, they provided orientation programs for newly arrived expatriates as a key component of their work. In addition, they served as consultants and trainers for the U.S. State Department, focusing on the cross-cultural adjustment needs of expatriate communities worldwide.
Beginning in 1988, Joel and Gale expanded their cross-cultural training to embrace global corporate clients, assisting host country nationals as well as Western expatriates. They developed programs for Asian and African managers on how to increase their effectiveness when working with European and American colleagues in global organizations. Over the years, Gale and Joel have not only managed diverse multinational staff and led a variety of organizations in Asia and Africa, but have also created innovative programs to enhance staff competencies and organizational global competitiveness.
More than 80 global corporations, international NGOs, and government agencies have taken advantage of training programs developed and delivered by Gale and Joel, including First Solar Malaysia, Prudential Malaysia, DuPont, Intel, Texas Instruments, Motorola, UEM Sunrise, McDonalds, Degussa, Deutsche Telekom, ICI, Eli Lilly, Exxon/Mobil, Ericson, Amoco, Citibank, and the State Department and Peace Corps of the United States.
Drawing on their decades of first-hand experience with the challenges faced by local employees of American corporations, Gale and Joel authored Working with Americans: a Practical Guide to Business Success for Asian Managers (now out-of-print). The book was translated into Korean and Chinese. In addition, they are the authors of numerous articles on cross-cultural management and intercultural adjustment. From their base in Penang, they provide orientation programs for expatriates relocating to Malaysia and Singapore as well as cross-cultural management training for Asian staff working in multinational companies.
Joel and Gale volunteer with local NGOs, where they mentor staff and support community health and education initiatives. They regularly travel to Geneva to spend time with their son, his wife, and their new granddaughter, Maari.
JAPAN
MASAE ARAKI coaches executives and senior leaders of global businesses, helping them to establish behaviors that enhance their own learning and development. She guides her coachees to tap their own internal strengths to prepare for transitions to broader responsibilities.
Raised and educated in Japan, Masae earned a graduate Certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching from the University of Texas’s School of Management and Organizational Behavior Studies. She is now recognized by ICF as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC). She recently gained a Hogan assessment certification. Masae is equally able to coach in Japanese and English.
Masae’s initial employment was at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, after which she moved to the Tokyo office of Ferrero, the Italian confectioner, to become logistics manager. Her responsibilities included marketing and sales as well as logistics, and included working closely with Glico, an Osaka-based alliance partner of Ferrero, to plan strategies for marketing, sales, and importing. When Ferrero tripled its size within one year, Masae took the lead in reducing employment costs by, among other things, revising its logistical systems. Her responsibilities frequently took her to Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg, Australia, and Hong Kong. After 13 years, Masae left Ferrero and moved to Los Angeles to accept a position as a market researcher with Nesstech International. A few years later, she returned to Tokyo and became an independent market consultant, helping expanding companies to develop new markets, identify global trends, and adapt products. For example, she assisted the manufacturer of the SteamFast steam cleaner to adjust its product for Japanese users, leading to millions of dollars in sales.
Based in Tokyo for the past several years, Masae coaches business leaders and high-potential managers in a wide variety of industries. Among her clients are the Japanese firms NTT Group, Recruit, Reit Japan, Joyful Restaurants, and Pacific Golf Management; and the American firms Belkin International, Hyatt Hotels, and Bloomberg.
Masae is a director of the Japan Chapter of ICF, for which she oversees education and credentials, organizing seminars for coaches in both Japanese and English. In addition, she created her own proprietary series of Core Competency programs; ICF accredited this program and authorizes Masae to award ICF Continuing Coach Education certificates.
Masae lives in Tokyo, where she enjoys yoga, ballet, and playing piano to recharge. Although she likes to travel abroad for business and leisure, she also greatly values spending time with her family and friends in Japan.
ROGER SHERRIN specializes in global leadership coaching for leaders in multinational and cross-cultural organizations. From his military leadership experience, he brings a unique blend of analytical precision, professional business behavior, and mission focus. He grounds his coaching in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and global leadership business practices, integrating it with mindfulness and self-mastery principles from Asian traditional arts. His services are delivered in English.
Roger’s B.A. in psychology and Asian studies was earned at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a M.Sc. in leadership & organizational behavior from the University of Texas at Dallas, which also granted him a Graduate Certificate in Executive & Professional Coaching. His M.B.A. was gained jointly from the London Business School and Hitotsubashi University. Roger is an ICF Associate Certified Coach as well as a Board-Certified Coach, a Sherpa Certified Executive Coach, and Marshal Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coach. He also holds certifications from the Japan America Management Institute of Science and Emotional Intelligence. He is a facilitator for the True Colors and DISC assessments, and for Marshall Goldsmith Global Leader of the Future 360˚. Finally, he has worked with Caliper Leadership 360˚.
Roger has provided coaching and leadership development services for executives and professionals at Mizuho Bank, Toyota Tsusho, Mitsubishi Mineral Transport, LINE, Amazon, Nikon, Dale Carnegie Japan, Furukawa Electric, Mercedes-Benz Daimler Japan, Chrysler Fiat America Japan, Temple University, Hitotsubashi University Graduate School, and the London Business School.
Roger often serves as a strategic thinking partner for his coachees. One executive wrote that, Roger was able to exhibit empathy and compassion and an active listening style that proved invaluable. His greatest gift was his ability to ask probing opened-ended questions. These questions caused me to think about the motivations behind my motivations. He gave me the freedom to thoughtfully work through some of the issues and, at times, was able to give a different perspective for my consideration. A Japanese CEO wrote that, …he gave me several valuable hints to notice and begin to rethink things more deeply and practically. He tried to understand my business and raised several meaningful questions to get the clear picture of my company. Through several conversations and questions and answers we have reached the necessity and importance to change the company culture.
A professional musician, Roger also practices yoga, tai chi, and Kyudo Japanese archery. His wife is an M.D. They have a wonderful daughter attending International School.