Edith Hamilton | Executive Coaching and Consulting

I create value at the intersection of private equity and CFO (or COO) leadership, combining my background in finance, operations, process improvement, and business development with executive coaching and consulting skills groomed by top coaches in the industry — and top execs in real life. 

Specializing in the healthcare, information technology, transport and service sectors, I help CFOs and COOs who are facing increased expectations, expanding responsibilities or new challenges to build additional key skills that produce personal, team and organizational success. I work primarily with executives who are on point to deliver the growth, process improvements and cost savings that generate high multiples. 

UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION

I’m a CFO Coach and COO Coach with boots-on-the ground experience in both corporate, private equity, and start-up finance and operations environments.  What makes me unicorn-like in the world of executive coaching and consulting is not only that I have rigorous training in the classroom and in the field, using clearly defined leadership frameworks: it’s also that I apply my real-life functional experience in the types of roles in which I coach others to excel. 

My MBA and process-engineering backgrounds bring a depth of context and a wealth of resources to clients.  While many coaches come from a psychology or organizational development background, my real-world experience working with 8 different CFOs, as well as with multiple CEOs, COOs, private equity partners over 25 years bring a richness, clarity and focus to leadership coaching that makes an even more rapid impact. 

I’m uniquely able to coach certain types of CFOs, as well as COOs and General Managers: namely, those who want to demonstrate a more strategic and operationally-focused mindset, and those who need to step into their power more fully – perhaps as a newer CFOs who’s come to the role in unexpected ways, or one who’s facing stepped-up expectations now that a deal’s closed.  Whether the issues revolve around building a stronger team, creating better KPI reports and insights, increasing impact with colleagues and the board, or any one of a dozen specific elements (see for example one of my CFO Coaching frameworks), I work with the few who influence the many.

I led teams of all sizes at DaVita Healthcare Partners (2003-2013) in a series of roles including Operations CFO for a $900 million Group segment, operations leader with direct responsibility for a $75 million P&L, and then in a nationwide role. 

Recruited  by UnitedHealthcare as a VP of Benefit Operations (2013-2014), I partnered with senior leaders to drive a culture of increasing accountability focused on regulatory compliance metrics across 10 functional areas ranging from Billing and Claims to Payment Integrity.  I then served as CFO and growth leader for Cars2Charities, a for-profit provider of services to large charities, which was co-founded on the side years a few years earlier (2012-2016).

Prior to moving to CA in 2003, my career in NY started in private equity at a boutique real estate investment banking firm (1992-1996) with $4 billion in assets under management.  At HMSY (1996-2003), a healthcare I/T firm originally backed by P/E firm Welsh Carson Anderson Stowe, I worked with Board visibility for a series of great CFOs and focused primarily on M&A, then FP&A.

I earned an MBA at Columbia University, and later a Six Sigma Black Belt at Motorola University. In recent years I returned to a classroom setting and completed ICF’s rigorous 15-month coach-certification process as an executive coach. I’ve been amazed at how quickly leaders have been finding me — generally by word of mouth.  Yet the accomplishment I’m most proud of is the fact that after 30+ years together my spouse still LIKED me. (Not merely loved… he continued to LIKE me and to extol my virtues to others.)

MORE SPECIFICALLY … if you wish

I joined DaVita as a Group Operations CFO in 2003, leading a $700 million Group covering 13 states, and helped grow that Group to $900 million as DaVita became one of Fortune 500’s “Most Admired Companies”.  I served on the faculty of DaVita University for 5 years, and for a time held direct Operations VP responsibilities for a $75 million Division with 400 employees – leading strategy, growth, profitability, teammate engagement, and clinical outcomes.  In a later corporate-wide role, I led implementation of an enterprise-risk program with board-level visibility, and worked directly with the CEO to develop significant programs including the KT Community Foundation.

Recruited by UnitedHealthcare as a VP of Benefit Operations, I partnered with EY consultants to dramatically improve UHC's Medicare regulatory adherence rates – driving a new culture of accountability.  Subsequently, I served as CFO and Business Development Officer for Cars2Charities, a startup I co-founded earlier in 2012. C2C was ultimately purchased by Riteway. 

My early career began as an associate at a boutique private equity firm in NY. It later led to working directly with 4 CEOs and 8 CFOs over the course of 2 decades.  At HMS for 7 of those years, I collaborated with investment bankers at Morgan Stanley and Welsh Carson Anderson Stowe, which had led the company public.  At the then-1,000 employee NYC firm, I evaluated more than 20 acquisition candidates, helped close 4 deals, and divested 3 businesses.  HMSY now has 3,200 employees.

I began to create a program to coach retiring C-level executives as they define their “NEXT” chapter, soon after we sold Cars2Charities and after reaching my own decision to retire from corporate life.  That initial foray into coaching led to a call from a large private equity firm, inviting me to coach the CFO at one of their portfolio companies. And then another. And so on.

This began to power a growing practice focused on coaching CFOs, mostly at P/E-backed firms.  I apply the same effective Co-Active® coaching framework with General Managers, COOs and CIOs, as well as VPs and occasionally high-potential leaders in whom their executives choose to invest.

What I love about executive coaching is the rapid transformation it can evoke in a leader.  It doesn’t have to take a long time. Leaders see break-through moments right from the 1st session. How? It often starts with asking the right questions, often related to values and what brings the leader to life. This can cut to the heart of the matter, to create the outcomes desired by the client.  It’s great fun!  I’d almost do it for free.  (But shhhh . . . let’s not spread that around.)

Happily, leaders find it equally engaging and energizing. They tend to see that coaching – especially when someone else is paying to invest in them – is not only a privilege:  it’s also a source of freedom, power, fulfillment and balance.  Yes, there’s work.  Lots of it.  (Like when you sign up for a fitness program.)  But ahhh, the results! 

I hold a Bachelor’s in English Literature from Queens College. How does one get from English Lit to an MBA?  Well, as I was going to school I also worked at an investment firm that first exposed me to the joys of Excel – and I soon found my true calling in business and finance.  I decided to pivot, and was admitted to Columbia University’s Business School, earning an MBA in 1992.

Years later while working at HMSY as a Director of Finance, I partnered with operations leaders and got a glimpse of the breakthroughs process improvement can create. Getting my own Six Sigma Black Belt certification was timely.  I chose Motorola University, which was later absorbed by Google, and completed training in 2003.

I graduated from the Co-Active Training Institute, considered by many to be the top program in the country for executive coaching, as a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC).  I then completed International Coach Federation’s (ICF) rigorous certification process to earn my stripes as an ACC (Associate Certified Coach).

About Me, Personally

I moved to the West Coast nearly 20 years ago when I accepted the role at DaVita.  While my travel schedule is more manageable now, I do travel for select clients – because I believe coaching is most effective in person, especially in the early phases of an engagement. I was unexpectedly widowed in 2022, yet with the help of family, friends, faith and my own coaching skills, I have been rebuilding a life of resilience and joy in the moment. My coaching skills have been tested by the fire of my own experiences.

According to StrengthsFinder 2.0, my personal Top 5 are:  Achiever, Focus, Responsibility, Individualization, and Learner. I am also strategic, analytical, a good relater and a clear communicator.

Truth ● Wisdom ● Connection ● Generosity ● Creating Value ● Being Authentic, Gracious, Kind

Direct ● Smart ● Honest ● Creative ● Bold ● Resourceful ● Courageous ● Kind ● Persistent ● Generous ● Check out What (Else) Others Say

What I Believe about executive coaching and consulting

Living and leading from a place of clarity about your values and strengths – and living your life’s purpose – creates freedom, joy and fulfillment both in your role and in your broader life. This is the fountainhead from which you can lead with great authenticity and power.

Your perspective creates your reality.  Balance comes from choosing a perspective that resonates with your values and purpose.  From that naturally grow the fruits of clarity on how you want to choose to “Be” or act, and what is best for you to “Do” in any particular situation.  Why?  Because a choice that resonates with your values is a key that unlocks the box you’re in.

Processing through issues that have emotions attached enables you to articulate what’s going on.  You are better able to simply see and to listen, like never before – to yourself and to others, with gentle curiosity.  A shift happens.  Your awareness expands.  From this pool, new energy and creativity becomes available so you can quickly move on:   tapping into the fresh fuel of an amplified life. And that’s is part of what executive coaching and consulting creates for clients.

 ENDORSEMENTS

About a Typical Engagement

My approach is built on the foundation of the Co-Active ® Coaching model, with a custom-frame designed for each engagement – based on the leadership challenge(s), and the selected elements we mutually agree to include in the scope.

Typical Elements of an Executive Coaching Engagement

Engagements tend to average a duration of 8 months with a span of 3-12 months, depending on the scope of desired outcomes.  Most engagements are built on the bedrock of a monthly in-person meeting, often a full 6-8 hour day addressing specific elements of the leadership challenge(s), and punctuated with weekly check-ins.  In some cases 3 months may produce sufficient results, if the scope of change is specific to just one or 2 growth areas.

While weekly meetings foster accountability, I picture each meeting as a time for my client executive to connect his or her vehicle to a charging station.  At the end of each weekly session, my goal is for the client to go return to their role refreshed, refocused, and ready.  Re-energized by the “Where” and “Why” of the journey, with a fuel-cell in reserve to power through what’s important and what’s NEXT on their agenda for the coming week.

Some coaching engagements also include a technology-enabled element of daily coaching, using a smartphone app “dashboard” that visibly demonstrates progress. Just 15 minutes a day (in 5 bursts of just 3 minutes over the course of the day) reinforces leaders’ ability to intercept habits that interfere with great results, and enable them to build the kind of “executive mental muscles” that can tap a wellspring of clarity, creativity, intuition and wisdom.

To rapidly generate powerful insights from which to create development plans, I use assessment tools that we’ll select together based on what seems appropriate to each engagement.

To elevate progress to significant breakthroughs, I hold client executives accountable and measure their progress both before and after the coaching experience on the 5 Leadership Practices (for engagements that are 8 months or longer)

• Pre-engagement

• Mid-point

• At end of the engagement

• 3 Months after the engagement

For sponsor updates, I prefer that meetings typically include both the CEO and/or private equity partner as well as the client executive, to foster both communication and trust in the triad relationship.  Updates are scheduled either monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly.

Organizations measure what matters and the same should be true in coaching.

1. In my experience, the toughest — and best — metrics to evaluate an executive’s performance improvement is measuring other people’s shift in their perception of the executive. (When change happens, the executive demonstrates this change before it registers with others. Therefore, others’ acknowledgement of improvement is the ultimate metric.) 

   This is measured with a 2nd 360 Re-Assessment 1-3 months after the end of the engagement, inviting the same individuals to respond as those to participated in the Baseline 360.

2. In addition, we will identify what ROI metrics the sponsor and client think are relevant.  See further below under the Value Proposition.

I ask coaching clients to involve co-workers, colleagues, supervisors, direct-reports, and external partners in gathering examples of habits and behaviors that work for and against performance. I also ask them to actively discuss what changes they are experiencing during the coaching progress with their constituents.  This creates accountability to those who share a vested interest in the executive’s long-term development.

According to an International Coach Federation Global Coaching Study, the median company return was reported to be 7x with almost one fifth of respondents reporting an ROI of at least 50 times the initial investment.  Hmmm.

I like to be conservative. Before an engagement letter, I work with the Sponsor to identify metrics and associated $ value resulting from a successful engagement.  My goal is to define an ROI that’s between 4x – 10x the investment in coaching. 

The potential for value when clients follow through on their stated goals and commitments is monumental, so we aim high. “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars.” We aim to evoke transformation. And while there is no guarantee, and in fact a promise could be a violation of ICF coaching ethics, ROI can emerge in occasionally surprising forms.

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