"As a successful executive operating in China for many years, I found myself truly challenged with a significant business restructuring and change in leadership. Jean was next to me the whole way, as both a sounding board and as my coach. Working together enabled me to adapt myself to work effectively with the style of my new president and organization, without losing my own style and identity. That year I assumed a broader Pan-Asian leadership role, and today I have successfully crossed over to running a global business."

Vice President and General Manager, Global Process Business of an Industrial Group

 
Jean worked with me as my executive coach and mentor, over a 2 year period. My role as Global Head of Technical Operations for a complex and fast paced generic pharmaceutical business, involved leading >30 plants, 12500 associates, supplying > 160 countries. Jean was able to help me become aware of management skills, that if honed, would enable me to operate at my best. Additionally, Jean’s own experience leading and facilitating organizations and teams helped me to enhance reporting structures and metrics, and to really focus on what was important to the business and to me. Jean brings her own business experience as well as a highly supportive and challenging coaching style to her coaching relationship. I found her support invaluable to reaching my potential, whilst driving the performance of the technical operations team and the overall business unit. I would highly recommend Jean to any executive seeking to be their best.

.Global Head of Technical Operations, Global Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Company


"As the Global Head of HR for a 10 billion dollar division of a major pharmaceutical company, I worked extensively with Jean over a 5 year period. What makes Jean unique as an executive coach is her operational experience. She leverages this experience to bring fresh perspectives to our leaders as they face business challenges, helping them to become more effective operationally in their roles. She has great assessment skills to help leaders gain awareness on where they can further develop themselves. She also works with them extensively on the dimension of Emotional and Social Intelligence to enhance their interaction within their organization and with their colleagues. Finally, one of the greatest assets Jean brings to an organization is her pragmatism in coaching leaders that truly sets her apart."

Global Head of Human Resources, Global Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Company

 
"I had the opportunity to work with Jean as my coach from day 1 as I stepped into a new executive role with a steep learning curve. My new role was to lead the one of the largest markets for our overall pharmaceutical company that had stagnated (5 years of decline) in growth, in an environment of very high visibility and big expectations to stimulate growth.

Jean took the time to learn about me both as a person and as a professional. We spent time together working through what I anticipated to be the challenges I would be facing, shadowed me through all aspects of my day-to-day work, and spoke to my direct reports, colleagues, my manager and CEO. From this comprehensive base, I was able to see clearly the areas that I wanted to develop for immediate impact in my role.

Specifically, she supported me to transition from being a manager to becoming a leader - understanding my role, how to enable and support my team, and to hold them accountable to drive the execution. She helped my to better structure my thinking - allowing me to better focus on key priorities, communicate these clearly and succinctly, cascade them, and then allow my team to run. She helped me with the development of my own diverse leadership team - not only as individuals but also in the development of a strong high performing team, leveraging the framework of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by P. Lencioni. Additionally, as the need arose, she created a workshop for my leadership team on presentation and communication skills to help us become more effective in our business reviews. Jean also helped me with managing upwards - working with my manager and our CEO, how to manage expectations and communicate difficult messages while demonstrating the concrete actions we are taking to mitigate risks.

I truly appreciated working with Jean as she has both the flexibility and the depth of experience in order to provide the support I needed when I needed it. She is able to ask questions and raise different perspectives to allow me to define my best course of action as she spent many years in the corporate world herself. She knows what a GM is going through, so her focus is on what is concrete and actionable, not only conceptual. We still face the same high level of business challenges on a daily basis, but my team and I are calmer and more confident. And, I am happy to say that at the end of the year, my business and team succeeded to surpass our growth objectives!"

General Manager Regional Market, Global Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Company


"I had the privilege to be coached by Jean Hooks while leading a complex geographically dispersed team in a global role. Jean has extensive experience in large and mid-size multinationals and has lived across multiple continents and cultures. Jean has the ability to quickly assess my personal strengths and developmental areas and has helped me to recognize and acknowledge them. Due to her extensive experience and her exceptional situational leadership capabilities, I have been able to implement behavioral changes and leadership improvements applicable to my personal situation. Working with Jean made a difference for me getting me to the next leadership level. During this coaching engagement, my employees and colleagues around me recognized me change. Challenging, constructive, but always pleasant, I had an exceptional coaching experience with Jean over a period of 12 months. I would recommend Jean to any person who wants to grow in leadership and is open to receive feedback."

Global Marketing Executive, Large Multinational. Healthcare Industry, Shanghai, China


“Jean has been my executive coach through much of the year as I sought to reevaluate my career objectives and to explore various options both internally within my current business as well as externally. I have known Jean for many years professionally and picked her services based on her successful professional track record, her passion for excellence, intuitiveness and strength of character.

After just a few sessions, it was clear, that her approach to coaching is flexible (client-focused), refreshing (fun!) and impactful. She guided me through an introspective and efficient process based on articulating short (session) goals and longer term goals. We would test progress to these goals on a regular basis and adjust as necessary. Somehow, she always kept an eye on the bigger picture for me, weaving in threads of patterns and behaviors she had seen previously, bringing these as an offering to gain a better awareness of myself and my habits.

Jean is particularly good at illuminating those blind spots we all have as executives in a non-threatening way. On more than one occasion, I would come to a session with a game plan that I felt was bullet-proof and well thought-out. Jean’s creative questioning approach and ensuing dialog always enabled me to form an even stronger plan in which I had more confidence. And, today I find myself better able to ask myself the tough questions that help me gain better insights about myself and the situations that I face.
Tangibly, she helped me build a more effective resume seeing things from the eyes of the reader, develop a targeted list of contacts and a strategy for leveraging my network to optimize impact. Additionally, our early sessions helped me to rekindle an important thing that has always brought joy in my life, the love of music. Today, in addition to my corporate life, I have found a way to also perform regularly as a jazz musician – something I would never have dreamed of a few years back.

I can’t say enough how pleased I am with the overall progress and confidence that I now have as I embark on my career and overall life aspirations – thanks to the time that Jean and I had together in our coaching relationship!“

CIO, Financial Services Business, Global Digital Industrial, Infrastructure and Services Company
 

"As a European Sales Executive in the medical industry, I personally hired Jean to assist me in facing a complex business situation where I needed to gain clarity on what I wanted to achieve and how. She supported me through establishing myself in a leadership role within a new business and  through a transition phase affecting multiple aspects of my professional and personal life. I have worked with Jean as my Executive Coach over a period 13 months, and I wanted to share my experiences working with her.
 
Jean demonstrated the utmost level of professionalism in our working relationship. She handled any business and personal information given to her with utmost confidentiality - an essential prerequisite for me in entering the coaching relationship. She is highly reliable, candid, and always treated me with respect. She often reminded me of my achievements and experiences, and helped me translate those into resources I needed in order to do more. These components enabled me to establish the level of trust and confidence that I needed to work on my achieving my goals.
 
One of Jean's strengths was to help me to identify the relevant issues out of the noise of everything going on at the same time. She gave me the space to work through things, highlighting things that I could not see easily or that I may not have been aware of. By asking questions that really made me step back and think, she helped me to shed light on particular issues from many different angles. Thus, where I sometimes had already developed a rather one-dimensional approach, she helped me to see more alternatives and potential solutions.
 
She drove progress in our coaching relationship by providing me with a more structured approach. Each session started with me articulating the outcomes I wanted for this particular meeting. Then we would dive right into the heart of the matter, laying out all the elements involved, how I viewed them, she asked questions to understand what was truly important to me and helped me to identify options congruent with that. Once the core of the matter had been identified, I would then define the specific goals that I wanted to achieve. Before diving into action plans, she would help me do a reality check, challenging me in a sincere way, helping me see the systemic view of what I was embarking upon. After this exploration, finally I would clearly determine what I was going to do about it, by when, using which resources and taking adequate measures.
 
As a result at the end of each session we had developed a very realistic action-plan that did not allow for any excuses. The process by which Jean provided support and guidance was of a very high value to me. It always has put me into a can-do mode, with me taking full responsibility for the execution. After such sessions I felt much more in control of things, having a clear vision on how to achieve my goals. All the while, Jean was there, keeping an eye on this particular issue in the context of making progress on my over-arching goals of development for our engagement, weaving the thread of continuity rather than pursuing disconnected individual action plans.
 
The interaction with Jean was inspiring and motivating and added tremendously to making complex subjects more transparent to myself. I still refer to some of the results I have documented and implemented as a process.
 
Due to Jean's professional experience and enormous business acumen, she was certainly able to add a fresh perspective as well when I needed it.
 
Jean has great interpersonal skills which make even moments of tension acceptable. After all, coaching is a lot about self-reflection, so in these situations it was necessary to overcome obstacles on my way forward. I really enjoyed working with her and can fully recommend her as a coach to any executive."
 
European Sales Executive, Global Medical Devices Company


“I have been working with Jean on improving my presentation skills over a period of 9 weeks. The results that I achieved were above my expectations: she helped me to push myself to improve my presentation skills significantly, and in addition, she stretched me to explore different styles of presenting that further increased my confidence and versatility. From the onset, we defined clear goals that she helped me keep in sight throughout the whole process. Next, her observation, analysis and feedback increased my awareness, bringing even more areas of improvement to light. And finally, she not only focused on my developmental needs but she spent as much time highlighting my strengths, offering me ways in which I can leverage them to take myself to the next level.

I wanted to share how it was like to work with Jean during our engagement. I truly enjoyed her coaching philosophy: immediately as we started, she focused on building a relationship together. She is open, candid, personal and authentic, which was very important to gain my acceptance and to have a constructive working relationship. Her feedback was immediate, clear and well structured: first - always giving feedback on my requested focal areas, second - additional offerings that opened my eyes, and third - highlights of my strengths with offerings on how I could further leverage them. She was very helpful in sharing various presentation and communication models and provided simple frameworks (i.e. preparing for speeches, repetitive 3 cycle, etc), which I am now using to give even more structured, more convincing, and better presentations and speeches. Jean also used some pretty creative techniques (my favorite: watch myself presenting on video with no sound!) where I learned a lot about myself. Above all, I really enjoyed Jean's professional and client-centric approach: she always operated in a very constructive and motivating manner, which, in my opinion is a key ingredient and a necessity to make personal and professional improvements possible. Jean has helped me to improve my presentation skills a lot, and I have learned many important lessons.”

Software Architect, International Software Company in the Finance and Automotive Industries
 

"As part of a Neurosurgery Think Tank, I was amazed to see Jean's facilitation in action. She enabled some of the world's top neurosurgeons, each with their own unique style and strong opinions, to function seamlessly as one team, driving for a common goal. She moved us through what seemed like impossible obstacles to craft a cohesive strategy that we all supported with pride. It was incredible that we accomplished so much, yet, when we were done it felt truly effortless."
 
Professor of Neurosurgery and Head of Stereotactic Surgery Section, UCLA
 

"As my coach, Jean was someone whom I felt was on my side and genuinely wanted me to achieve the goals that I had identified during our initial sessions. No subject matter was uncomfortable for Jean to handle: she was professional and non-judgmental in her approach. During our sessions, Jean often held up the metaphorical mirror to remind me of my own gifts and what I am capable of doing. In her gentle, yet challenging style, she kept me eyes focused on the "prize" and brought me back on track whenever I lost momentum or focus."

Business Founder, Netherlands & UK
 

"While working with Jean, she proved herself to be an excellent coach. We covered a whole range of topics, from professional matters, to personal ones and she demonstrated an extremely flexible approach, adapting her style to suit the issues under discussion and how I was feeling at the time.  Jean has a warm, supportive and gentle approach and a genuine interest in the subjects under discussion. She is 100% committed to working with you to explore what's going on, both visibly and under the surface; she takes the time and care to work through solutions and discuss how plans can be put into practice. I came away from every session with defined actions that have made a real difference to my work and home life. I would recommend Jean to anyone looking for greater understanding, increased momentum and tangible results."
 
Business Founder, Communications Industry Leader, UK
 

"Jean was able to hear both my words and what was behind them. She helped me to identify the thread in potentially disparate thought processes, enabling me to link them in a meaningful way. As a result, I was able to update my frame of reference, which enabled me to exchange some stubborn habits and mindset for more useful behavior and beliefs."
 
Executive Coach, London, UK


"I worked with Jean over a period of months in 2010. During that time I brought many and varied topics to our coaching conversations. Sometimes the areas to be worked on were business focused, sometimes the elements were personal. Always, the topics were significant. Jean remained completely focused on my objectives, adjusting her style and tempo to closely match and mirror the situation at the time. She was at all times insightful, empathic and positive, never giving up on my goals or in the belief that I could and would achieve my goals. Jean was generous in her time, herself, and in the practical offerings that she was able to bring to our coaching relationship. I found the experience helpful, professional, and uplifting. I would be very happy to use Jean as my coach again in the future and would happily recommend her services to anyone who wants the services of a versatile and professional coach. Thank you Jean for your belief, your energy and your total commitment to your craft."

Business Founder, UK


"I found Jean to be a precise and thoughtful practitioner. Jean has the ability to be  clear in her approach and clean with her questions and feedback. Jean had a way of making me feel very comfortable and safe, while at the same time enabling me to take risks and confront challenges that I was facing. Jean has immense capacity for compassion, while also focusing on the task of helping individuals reach their goals.
 
Jean helped me through a difficult phase of transition. She helped me to value each opportunity as a stepping stone towards helping me move forward on to a secure path when I was frozen in the decision making process. Jean enabled me to celebrate my qualities, whilst at the same time helping me to strengthen areas which I was neglecting, enabling me to see a bigger picture to move towards.
 
In short, I would highly recommend Jean to anyone who is seeking to make progress with life and career through coaching. Jean is an outstanding person who has a good eye for detail and quality. She is professional and inspiring.  Jean makes use of her experience and talent to great effect in her coaching."

Social Worker, Health and Well-Being Facilitator, UK