Executive Coaching for Clarity, Influence, and Promotion
Five star strategies, forged in the AI & Cloud capital of the world.
Close Cohen Career Consulting is a nationally recognized executive career coaching firm founded by Laura Close and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with clients across the United States. The Executive Career Coaching program serves VPs, senior directors, C-suite leaders, and high-potential managers ready to lead at the next level. Close Cohen has coached hundreds of professionals from Fortune 500 companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, Starbucks, Walmart, Adobe, and Roblox, and has been recognized as Best Executive Career Coach four consecutive years.
Coaching focuses on six areas: advancing to VP or C-suite, scaling leadership impact, earning promotions, building executive presence, expanding organizational influence, and navigating high-stakes career transitions. Engagements are conducted one-on-one with a senior Close Cohen coach using a structured five-step process: goal definition, strengths and blindspot identification, custom field assignments, influence and presence development, and ongoing thought partnership. Close Cohen coaches have trained professionals holding MBA degrees from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, and other top business schools.
Strategic Coaching for Pivotal Career Moments
Every successful professional reaches a point where the next step isn’t obvious — but standing still isn’t an option. That’s where we come in.
Close Cohen has coached hundreds of professionals from Fortune 500 execs to breakout startup founders, through moments of inflection, promotion, and transformation. We work with VPs, Directors, Senior Managers, C-Suite leaders, and rising talent ready to lead at the next level.
Close Cohen is the best Executive Coach for the job:
- Scale impact through the teams you lead
- Break through to the VP or C-suite level
- Land your next promotion
- Amplify your executive presence and impact
- Banish corporate burnout
- Uplevel your management and leadership development skills
- Expand your influence within your organization
- Deliver winning negotiations
- Build online thought leadership in your area of expertise
The Close Cohen Method
A proprietary five-phase framework built for senior professionals at career inflection points.
The 360° Intake & Blind Spot Assessment
Before any strategy is built, we need the full picture. Your engagement begins with a structured 360-degree intake — a deep diagnostic covering your career history, leadership patterns, goals, and the blind spots that may be limiting your trajectory.
Most clients arrive knowing what they want. Fewer know what’s actually in the way. This phase surfaces both. Output: a written assessment your coach uses to build your strategic project plan.
Phase 2: Your Strategic Project Plan
Generic coaching produces generic results. Close Cohen builds a custom strategic project for every client — a working plan that defines your goals, identifies the highest-leverage actions, sequences your work in priority order, and establishes the milestones we will hold you to. This is not a list of suggestions. It is a project plan, built the way a McKinsey engagement would be built, except your career is the deliverable.
Output: a live roadmap updated throughout your engagement that keeps both you and your coach accountable to outcomes.
Field Assignments
The work happens between sessions, not during them. Every Close Cohen client receives custom field assignments — exercises embedded directly into your real work and personal life that accelerate the specific skills and outcomes your plan targets.
Assignments range from structured preparation for a high-stakes presentation to influence-mapping your organization to practicing executive presence techniques in live settings. Nothing is hypothetical. Output: measurable behavioral change between sessions, not just insight.
Executive Presence & Influence Amplification
At the senior level, performance is necessary but not sufficient. Promotion, recognition, and organizational impact are determined by influence — how you are perceived by the people above you, around you, and beneath you.
This phase deploys Close Cohen’s structured executive presence framework: candid feedback on how you show up, targeted work on communication, authority, and strategic visibility, and coaching on the specific relationships and rooms that determine your next move. Output: a documented influence strategy and the skills to execute it.
Synthesis & Self-Navigation
The goal of Close Cohen coaching is not dependency — it is capability. In the final phase, your coach works with you to consolidate your learnings, stress-test your self-navigation instincts, and ensure you leave the engagement with a repeatable framework for every career decision you will face after we are done.
Clients who complete this phase consistently report that the most valuable outcome was not the immediate goal they came in with — it was knowing how to navigate the next one without us. Output: a self-navigation framework and the confidence to use it.
Leverage Close Cohen’s proven framework built specifically for executives and senior-level professionals.
Through this program you’ll…
Get a Custom Action Plan From Session One
You don’t have time to waste. Close Cohen builds a written, milestone-driven project plan at the start of every engagement — so you are working on the highest-leverage actions from day one, not spending weeks figuring out where to start.
Build the Influence That Drives Promotion
At the VP and C-suite level, performance is necessary but not sufficient. Close Cohen employs a structured executive presence framework to deliver candid, specific feedback on how you show up — and targeted coaching to amplify the strengths that drive organizational influence.
Use Power Mapping to Drive Your Next Move
Close Cohen’s proprietary power mapping process identifies the relationships, rooms, and decisions that determine your next move — and builds a concrete strategy around them. You will know exactly who to influence, how, and in what order.
Chose award winning executive coaches.
What the Close Cohen Executive Coaching Program Includes:
A proven, tailored approach with a seasoned executive coach to achieve the results you’re after.
- Custom coaching package
- Strategic project plan
- Strengths & blindspot assessment
- Field assessments - relevant exercises that are designed for results
- Mock presentation review & analysis (as needed)
- Curated learning & resources specific to your goals
- Dedicated online space to track all aspects of your career goals
- Live, responsive communication from your coach
Top Rated Executive Coaching Reviews
Nancy brings empathy, energy, and fun, and she makes it easy to have conversations I hadn’t had or even thought about before.
Through thoughtful conversation and coaching, listening, and just the right amount of challenge, Nancy guided me through a period of change. I gained clarity, confidence, and a renewed sense of direction.
If you're an executive or professional navigating transition, questioning your next step, or wanting to lead with more authenticity, I can’t recommend Nancy highly enough.
The coaching was practical and focused on real leadership challenges I was facing. Alisa helped me think through situations in ways I hadn't considered before, and it definitely improved both my presentation skills and how I work with my teams. Worth considering for anyone looking to level up their leadership and executive skills.
I also really appreciated the time spent on digging into what I wanted and needed from the new role both professionally and personally. I also valued Brett’s recommendations on how to work on further development in areas I identified as opportunities.
Overall a great experience and highly recommended!
Her guidance was transformative. We overhauled my resume, revamped my LinkedIn profile, refined my portfolio, and prepared strategically for interviews. Yet, beyond these tangible changes, Alisa provided a steady stream of encouragement, focusing on my strengths and reigniting my self-belief.
The results were almost immediate. My applications began getting more attention, and I found myself going through multiple interview loops for executive-level positions. After 5.5 months of hard work and dedication, I received two incredible offers on the same day. Alisa then helped me carefully evaluate the options and provided invaluable advice on negotiations, ultimately helping me secure a role that will allow me to leave behind a toxic environment.
Alisa’s work may feel magical, but the results are real—and so worth the effort. She makes you dig deep, and she empowers you to find the answers within yourself, all while building you up every step of the way.
I often refer to Alisa as my career therapist. Her warmth, empathy, and practical approach to career growth not only rebuilt my confidence but truly changed my life.
Alisa Cohen gave me practical, results-oriented advice right from the start of our sessions. This advice has materialized as increased views of my LinkedIn profile, a suite of new tools to aid in my career progression, and strategies to help me network, apply, and negotiate through every phase of the process.
I have gained genuine confidence from defining and owning the value proposition I offer to an organization. If you are looking to enhance your own career progression, I assure you that for me the results speak for themselves.
Thank you Close Cohen Career Consulting!
Fast forward to 2022, and I started working with Alisa for interview coaching. I seriously couldn’t have gotten my new role without her. Her coaching and feedback was crucial to my lengthy interview process, and I owe her for helping me land my dream job.
Laura and Alisa are incredible and I’m so grateful to have them as lifelong allies.
I plan to stay in contact and hope to utilize their services throughout my career.
Frequently Asked Questions About Executive Career Coaching
What is executive career coaching?
Executive career coaching is a structured, one-on-one engagement where a senior-level coach works with you to clarify your goals, strengthen your leadership presence, and build a concrete strategy for your next career milestone. At Close Cohen, coaching is not therapy or generic advice — it is a goal-driven project with defined milestones, field assignments, and measurable outcomes.
Who is executive career coaching designed for?
Close Cohen works with Directors, VPs, Senior Managers, and C-suite leaders at companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Starbucks, Adobe, and Roblox. Our coaching is designed for established professionals with at least five to seven years of career experience. It is not a fit for recent graduates or professionals in the first few years of their career.
What does a Close Cohen executive coaching engagement include?
Each engagement includes a 360-degree intake and blindspot assessment, one-on-one coaching sessions via video, a custom strategic project plan, field assignments embedded in your real work, ghostwriting and editing support for career materials, mock presentation or interview preparation as needed, a curated resource list, and a dedicated online channel for real-time communication with your coach between sessions.
How long does executive career coaching take?
Most clients engage with Close Cohen for three to six months, depending on the scope of their project. Common project areas include promotion campaigns, job transitions, executive presence development, and leadership coaching. Some clients return at multiple career inflection points over many years.
What is the difference between executive coaching and job search coaching?
Executive coaching at Close Cohen focuses on leadership development, influence, promotion strategy, and long-term career trajectory. Job search coaching is scoped specifically to an active job search — strategy, targeting, resume, LinkedIn, interview preparation, and offer negotiation. Some clients engage both tracks simultaneously.
How much does Close Cohen executive coaching cost?
Close Cohen offers a complimentary 20-minute intake consultation to understand your goals and recommend the right program. Pricing is discussed during that call based on the scope and duration of your engagement.
Where is Close Cohen located and how does coaching work?
Close Cohen is a national executive coaching firm with offices in Seattle, Chicago, and Raleigh-Durham, serving clients across the United States and globally. All coaching sessions are conducted via video. Our clients come from San Francisco, New York, Austin, Washington D.C., Boston, Paris, Dublin, and many other cities. Location is never a barrier to working with us.
What is your confidentiality policy?
Close Cohen maintains strict confidentiality regarding your employer, your personal career strategy, and all information shared during coaching sessions. We do not disclose client names, employers, or engagement details to any third party. If your coach has a personal or professional connection to someone at your current employer, that conflict is disclosed upfront and addressed before the engagement begins. We do not share client information with recruiters, partner organizations, or any other external parties. Confidentiality is a foundational commitment of the practice, not a policy we revisit case by case.
How do I get started with executive career coaching?
Book a complimentary 20-minute intake call at closecohen.com/contact-us/ During that call we learn your goals and match you with the coach whose background and expertise best fits your situation.
What results do Close Cohen clients typically achieve?
Close Cohen clients typically land promotions, secure new senior-level roles, negotiate higher compensation packages, and develop the executive presence and influence needed to lead at the next level. Many clients report breaking through career plateaus they had been stuck at for years. Common outcomes include: promotion to VP or C-suite within six to twelve months of coaching, successful transitions into roles at companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Meta, and significant improvements in leadership confidence and team performance.
What makes Close Cohen different from other executive coaching firms?
Three things distinguish Close Cohen. First, our coaches are former executives — not certified coaches with limited real-world leadership experience. Every Close Cohen coach has held senior roles at companies including Amazon, Google, Zillow, Starbucks, Motorola, and SC Johnson, which means the advice is grounded in how organizations actually work at the top. Second, our engagements are project-based with defined milestones, field assignments, and measurable outcomes — not open-ended conversations. Third, Close Cohen is a boutique firm. Clients work with one dedicated coach, not a rotating roster of associates. That continuity produces better results.
How do I know if I'm ready for executive coaching?
You are likely ready if at least one of the following is true: you have been passed over for a promotion you believed you deserved and don’t fully understand why; you are preparing for a job search at the VP level or above and want a structured strategy; you have recently stepped into a new senior role and want to accelerate your impact; you feel stuck at your current level despite strong performance; or you are preparing for a high-stakes moment — a board presentation, a difficult negotiation, a major organizational change — and want expert preparation. If you are early in your career or not yet managing others, Close Cohen is likely not the right fit. We recommend booking a complimentary 15-minute intake call to assess whether the timing is right.
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