“We help others grow only if we are willing to do the work ourselves”

Evgeny Shadchnev came to coaching from an impressive professional background in web development and engineering. Having built and led a successful startup, Makers, Evgeny left his CEO role and now works as an executive coach and coaches founder CEOs and their boards. We were honoured to speak to him about his perspective of the AoEC’s Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching.

Prior to developing yourself as a coach, you worked in web development and engineering and are a former CEO of a venture-backed business. Who or what introduced you to coaching and led to you signing up for coach training with the AoEC?

As a first-time CEO of Makers, a tech training business, I often felt out of my depth, painfully learning on the job through my own mistakes. Looking for some answers, I signed up for a CEO Bootcamp, a group coaching programme led by Jerry Colonna and his team at Reboot. I flew to Colorado to spend five days in the company of 14 other CEOs, not knowing what to expect. I thought we would talk about fundraising and strategy, but from the very first evening, Jerry and his team started asking us deeper questions: what is it really like to run our own business, deep down? Soon, there were tears.

I didn’t have the words to explain what was happening in the room at the time, but the energy was palpable. Jerry seemed to be doing hardly anything at all, asking simple questions and listening attentively, but the effect of his presence on each of us was profound. In hindsight, that retreat marked a turning point in my development as a leader and human being. Since that retreat, I have worked with five executive coaches, seeing coaching power in action. One of my coaches trained with AoEC, and his recommendation led me to choose AoEC Practitioner Diploma as my first training course.

What were some of the positives and challenges you experienced while doing the diploma?

Anyone can call themselves a coach, but where do you start? The Practitioner Diploma gave me the structure and the confidence to start having first coaching conversations with my practice clients. Being part of a cohort of like-minded individuals was hugely supportive. I am still in touch with some of them today. At the same time, the course helped me see very clearly that no course will ever be enough.

While training is indispensable, we need to chart our own unique path as a coach and find who we are and how we coach. This work never stops, and we are never “done”. Seeing this during the course was both freeing and challenging as the scope of the work ahead of me became clearer.

What is your top advice to others considering coach training?

While training is very important, the deep commitment to doing our inner work will make the most difference to how good we become as coaches. We help others grow only if we are willing to do the work ourselves. This work is not about coaching frameworks or powerful questions. The unprocessed stuff in our psyche will find its way to sabotage our coaching work until we learn to bring it to consciousness ourselves. The challenge, of course, is that it takes a lifetime, and we’re never done. We must commit to growing and knowing that we’re never done, perfect or great — all while practising and learning.

I also see new coaches often confuse the skills of coaching and building a coaching business. They are different. We can be good coaches and not know how to create clients. We can be good at selling our services but not know how to coach. We need both skills. Most coaching courses will help you become a better coach, but that won’t necessarily translate into a thriving coaching practice on its own.

Looking back at doing your diploma, what has been its lasting impact on you as a person and you as a coach?

The course helped me find the confidence to start coaching others and internalise some of the key coaching principles — active listening, direct, powerful questions, non-attachment to the outcome of the conversation — that served me well in many non-coaching relationships, too. Training as a coach helped me realise that it’s not a skill that exists separately from the rest of our personality. We transform ourselves when we commit to the work required to be a good coach, which also changes the rest of our lives.

Can you tell us more about your personal coaching model and how this has evolved since doing the diploma?

We were invited to develop our coaching model during the course, and each of us did. However, it’s also true that it takes years of practice to really answer this question because our coaching approach must emerge from our lived experience, not from a reflection of what we would like to work. Just like any child has no choice but to be naive about what kind of adult they will be when they grow up, any coach will find out what their model is as they practice.

I’m still at the very beginning of my coaching journey. I have crossed my first thousand hours of practice only earlier this year, and it would be premature to say that I have a coaching model that stood the test of time.

At the same time, some pieces may one day come together into a completed puzzle. One of them is the realisation that the really important and meaningful work in coaching is done not by the client, let alone the coach, but by something greater than either of us that emerges in the context of a coaching relationship. A celebrated Jungian analyst, James Hollis, speaks about two lessons he took from decades of his practice: patience and helplessness. We need to be patient to let the transformation happen on its own terms, and we are fundamentally helpless to do anything truly profound. The most we can do is to skilfully hold the space in which our clients can be in dialogue with something greater than themselves that can guide their growth.

Another piece of the puzzle is the focus on what’s happening at this moment in the coaching conversation. I find that the present moment holds far more keys to what needs to happen next than any framework that is supposed to take the client from A to B. Often, I notice that the less idea I have about where the coaching conversation is going, the more impact it has on the client.

You now work as an executive coach and set up your own practice in 2020; can you tell us about the type of clients you are working with?

I work with founder CEOs of venture-backed businesses, helping them navigate the challenges of building a business. Having built my own business, I empathise with what many of my clients are going through, even if I don’t have answers for them.

Much of my work is focused on CEO succession. The role of a founder CEO changes significantly as the company grows in size, and some founders decide to hire someone else to replace them at the helm. I made this decision in 2020 when I stepped down from my role as the CEO of Makers to replace myself with a leader that the company needed for the next stage of its growth and to give myself space to take my career in a new direction—coaching.

What are some of the issues and opportunities you coach people around?

On the face of it, it looks predictable: fundraising, managing others, investor relations, maintaining wellbeing while operating under stress. However, if the client is willing to engage in deeper work, we inevitably get to more personal questions that often take us into the psychological dimension. What fears do we need to face? What is life calling us to do? Where are we lying to ourselves, as all of us inevitably do? These questions acquire particular relevance during a CEO succession when everything seems to change at once: the job, the status, the financial situation… Even the very identity of the founder tends to undergo a significant transformation as they leave the company they founded and ran for many years.

In my experience, each of us has an internal sense of direction for our growth and a sense of what needs to be done. My job as a coach is to help my clients summon the courage and determination to hear what they already know deep inside their hearts and take action they already know they need to take.

You have gone onto be accredited with the ICF at PCC level. Why was becoming accredited important to you and what value has it brought your practice?

No client has ever been interested in my accreditation or training. I completed the PCC as a commitment to my own growth and development as a coach. Even though I chose to include the PCC in my LinkedIn profile, I doubt that anyone other than other coaches knows what it stands for.

Can you share a success story or testimonial from one of your clients that highlights the impact of your coaching?

One of the testimonials I’m most proud of is from Ben Henley-Smith, the CEO of cord: “Whatever personal growth I may have found in recent months, I attribute to Evgeny. Time with Evgeny feels like an open conversation with your soon-to-be wiser self.” Ben was one of my very first paid clients, and we’re still working to this day. It’s a privilege to have witnessed his growth over the years.

You published your book – Startup CEO Succession - in June 2024. What secrets or key aspects of coaching do you share with your readers?

My book helps founder CEOs navigate the process of CEO succession in their companies. I don’t have any secrets to share: the success of a CEO succession boils down to reflection, preparation, and the quality of inner work that the founder is willing to undertake. My job as a coach is to guide the founders through some of the key questions that arise during this process. Why did you start your business? What are you meant to be doing? What fears need to be faced? How will you make a decision you’re confident in? What have you learned about yourself in the process? What’s next for you?

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a coach?

I love how real and deep coaching conversations are. Witnessing my clients’ growth and playing a small part in that process is a privilege. This work also helps me grow, as I need to keep doing my own work to continue serving my clients well. Inevitably, when I feel stuck or triggered in a coaching process, it is an opportunity to do my own work with my own therapist or supervisor.

Finally, I truly value the freedom of being a self-employed coach. I choose how to work, what to learn, and who to work with, being completely free to follow my own sense of where my own growth is taking me. This doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it is deeply meaningful for me.

Our deepest thanks to Evgeny for sharing his personal journey and experience of coach training at the AoEC.