Executive Coaching for Supply Chain, Operations & Logistics Leaders
Six months into the bigger job, and the problem is never the one you were promoted to fix.
I spent 30 years designing supply chains for Fortune 500 companies. Now I coach the executives who run them, through the part nobody prepared them for.
Thirty minutes on what you’re actually trying to change. Nothing to prepare. A proposal within two business days if there’s something real here.
30 Years in Operations
Carriers, 3PLs & Fortune 500 Networks
FourKites Strategic Advisory Council
Wayne State Global Supply Chain Advisory Board
Certified Executive Coach - Center for Executive Coaching | ICF Member
The thing in front of you stopped being the thing that matters.
Operations leaders are trained to fix the thing in front of them. It's what got you promoted. You were the fastest, or the most knowledgeable, or the one who could see three moves ahead when the network went sideways.
Then the scope got bigger, and the thing in front of you stopped being the thing that matters. The decisions that used to take ten minutes now involve four functions and a P&L. Every escalation still routes through you, because you're still the fastest. Your calendar has no white space in it and hasn't for a year.
So you work harder at the thing you're already good at. It's the most rational response available, and it's the one that keeps you stuck.
Here's what I've watched happen in thirty years inside these organizations: the problem is almost never the one on the agenda. It isn't the system. It isn't the team. It's structural, and it's usually sitting one level closer to you than anyone wants to say out loud.
That's the conversation this is for.
"I'm not sure I can do this job at this level."
"Everything runs through me and I don't know how to stop it."
"I haven't had an hour to think since February."
If any of that is familiar, you're not failing. You're at the edge of what got you here.
Who this is for
I work with a small number of executives at a time, in one specific situation.
This is you if
- You were promoted into a VP or SVP role in supply chain, operations, logistics, distribution, or manufacturing in the last 6 to 18 months, or the role you already held got much bigger.
- You own real scope: $50M+ in freight or operating spend, or multiple sites, or a network you inherited and didn't design.
- You're in an asset-heavy, complexity-heavy business: a carrier, a 3PL, a manufacturer, a distributor, a large shipper.
- You don't have a peer you can be fully honest with about the job.
- You can protect one hour a week for three months. Actually protect it.
This isn't the right fit if
- You want deliverables: a network study, an operating model, a roadmap. That's consulting, and it's a different conversation.
- You want someone to tell you what to do. I'll ask you harder questions than that.
- You're looking for the cheapest option. This is a senior-market fee and there's a three-month minimum.
- The hour is the first thing that gets cancelled. This only works with a steady rhythm.
If you own or lead a family business, the criteria above may not describe you, and that is fine. The next section is written for you.
If you own or lead a family business
Two jobs, one chair.
When you run a complicated business that your family also owns, every decision has two audiences. The network needs an answer today. The family hears it for years.
A change in a facility, a customer, or a key hire is also a message about who has a say, who is trusted, and what comes next. Relationships shift as the business grows and as the generations change. A parent becomes a board member. A sibling becomes a peer, then a boss. A cousin joins, or a longtime manager is promoted over someone who wanted the job. The titles move faster than the relationships do.
So decision authority gets blurry. Who decides, who is consulted, and who simply expects to be told are rarely written down, and everyone has a slightly different answer. You feel the pull from every direction: the family wants to be included, the team wants a clear call, and the business wants an answer by Friday. The conversations that would settle it, about roles, timing, and who decides what, wait for a calmer week. The calmer week doesn't come.
Meanwhile, a lot still routes through you. Partly because you are still the fastest. Partly because in a family, few people want to be the one who says no to you. You may find that the people closest to you are the ones you can be least candid with, because they each care deeply about the answer.
That is a lonely place to lead from, and a very human one. It is also workable.
I've worked inside carriers, 3PLs, and shipper networks for thirty years, including the family-founded ones. I know how a network behaves when the plan breaks. I also know that the operating problem on the agenda is rarely the whole story.
What the work looks like
- A confidential hour, every week. It belongs to you. A place to say what you can't say at the office or at the family table, and to think it through out loud.
- A clear read first. I talk to a handful of the people around you and bring back themes, never attributed quotes. In a family business, who is in that group is a decision we make together before anyone is contacted.
- A plan we build together. We start with what matters most to you, which is often different from what you walked in with, and shape a plan around it. Then we work on it week by week, through the real situations as they come up, at the pace that fits your life and your family.
- Room to think. Most owners tell me the first thing that changes is time.
Who this tends to fit
- You lead or own a business that is complex to run and complicated to hold: a carrier, a 3PL, a manufacturer, a distributor, or a large shipper.
- More than one generation, or more than one branch of the family, is involved in ownership or management.
- You are preparing to hand over responsibility, share it, or take it on, and you'd like to think it through with someone outside the family and outside the business.
- Or you're a non-family executive leading inside a family-owned business, and you'd like to be fully candid with someone for an hour a week.
What this is not
Coaching develops you as a leader. It is not family governance, legal or tax advice, a succession plan, or mediation between family members. If those are what you need, I'll tell you and point you to the right specialist. It is also separate from my consulting work: no deliverables, no operating model, and everything we discuss stays between us.
If your company or family office is funding the work, I have a one-page sponsor brief that covers the scope, the structure, and a 90-day review. Get the sponsor brief
If this sounds like your week, start with a conversation. Thirty minutes, no pitch, nothing to prepare.
Book an Objectives CallFrom inside the seat
I'm not a coach who read about supply chain. I ran carrier operations, 3PL networks, and Fortune 500 shipper networks for 30 years. Then I trained to coach the people doing it now.
I've sat in the escalation calls at 11pm. I've defended a cost-to-serve number to a CFO who'd already decided it was wrong. I've inherited networks I didn't design and been asked why they weren't performing. I've had the peak season that broke the plan, and the reorg that arrived the week before it.
That's not a résumé. It's the reason you won't have to explain your world to me before we can get to work on it. When you say the commercial team committed to something operations can't deliver, or that safety and throughput are pulling in opposite directions, or that the integration is eighteen months behind and everyone has stopped saying so, I already know the shape of it. We can spend the hour on you instead.
I founded BlueWave Supply Chain Consulting to bring senior operating experience to organizations that needed it. Coaching is where I do the work I find most interesting: not fixing the network, but working with the person deciding what to do about it.
I hold a Certified Executive Coach credential from the Center for Executive Coaching, and am a member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF). I serve on the Wayne State University Global Supply Chain Management Advisory Board and the FourKites Strategic Advisory Council. I have an MBA from Wayne State. I'm based in Philadelphia and I work with executives across North America by video.
Outside the work: I bake, knit, read, write, hike, travel for family, fun, history, and food, and find my peace in nature.
What you can count on from me
- Everything we discuss stays strictly between us.
- I'll ask you the questions nobody around you is asking.
- I won't hand you my answer. It wouldn't survive contact with your business.
- I'll tell you when I think you're avoiding something.
- I'll come prepared, every week, whether or not you did.
- We'll get some of your time back. That's usually the first thing that changes.
How it works
Executive coaching is a bit different from consulting, so let me be plain about what it actually is.
At its core it's dedicated time that's entirely yours: a place to step back from the day-to-day, think out loud, and work through what's on your mind with someone who isn't inside your business. It isn't advice-giving and it isn't problem-solving on your behalf. It's about seeing things more clearly and making decisions with a bit more room to breathe.
It works as a steady weekly rhythm rather than an occasional conversation for a simple reason: the kind of clarity and new habits we're aiming for take a little time and repetition to settle in.
The framework
I call it The Constraint Method. Every stalled executive has one real constraint, and usually it isn't the one they came in talking about. Three phases, in the order you actually run them.
Assess
I talk to the people around you: peers, your boss, the reports who see you on a Tuesday afternoon. Half an hour each, and I bring back what I heard as themes, never as attributed quotes. It's the fastest honest read on how you think, decide, and land on people, and it's usually the part clients tell me they never got anywhere else. Nothing to prepare for and nothing to pass. A mirror, not a test.
Plan
Then we sit down and map out what you actually want from our time together. Usually the objective that emerges isn't the one you walked in with. That's the point. Whatever we land on, it's your plan and your goals. I'm here to help you work it, week by week.
Engage
One protected hour a week, same day and time, by video. We work real situations as they come up, with some reflection and a few grounded next steps to carry forward. The sessions build on each other, so the value compounds instead of resetting every time.
Weekly is where we start, and in a three-month engagement weekly is where we stay. Over six months the cadence steps down as you make progress. It steps down when you carry it yourself, not on a schedule I set in advance.
About a month after our last session I'll come back to you and ask how it's holding. No agenda and no charge. The weekly hour is gone by then, which makes it the only honest test of whether any of this worked.
Our engagement is confidential, reserving space focused only on you.
Ways to work together
Two ways into the one-to-one work, and one for your team. Every engagement begins the same way: assess, plan, then the weekly work.
90-Day Engagement
Three months · one hour a week
The minimum I take on, and the right choice when you have one specific thing to work and a clear window to work it in. I start by talking to a handful of the people around you and bringing back what I hear. Then objectives you set, and a protected hour every week for the quarter. A check-in about a month after we finish, to see how it's holding.
Six-Month Engagement
Six months · weekly to start
What I recommend to most people, because this is the horizon on which the change actually holds. It goes wider at the start. I speak with up to eight people around you, then I go back to the same group at month five and ask what's different. Most coaching can tell you where you started. This tells you what moved.
We start weekly. As you make progress and begin carrying it yourself, we adjust the frequency. Your call as much as mine. A check-in about a month after we finish, to see how it's holding.
Leadership Team Offsites & Facilitated Sessions
What becomes possible when your leadership team can finally say the real thing out loud? I facilitate half-day, one-day, and two-day sessions for operations leadership teams. Scoped and quoted per engagement.
Ask me about offsites →How pricing works
No two engagements are the same shape. The term matters, the assessment work matters, whether I'm talking to the people around you matters, and whether your organization is sponsoring the work changes what's involved.
So here's the sequence. We spend thirty minutes on what you're actually trying to change. Then, within two business days, you get a written proposal: the objectives in your words, the structure I'd recommend, the assessment work, the term, and one flat fee.
The number lives in the proposal rather than in the conversation, and that's deliberate. Quoting you inside the first thirty minutes would mean pricing work I don't yet understand, which is how people end up paying for scope that doesn't fit them. You'll have the number in writing, with the reasoning attached, faster than most firms return a call.
Four things I hold to, whatever the number turns out to be:
- Never hourly. You're not buying an hour. You're buying the thinking, the preparation, and the work that happens between sessions. Hourly billing prices none of it.
- A three-month minimum, weekly. Below that the rhythm doesn't hold and neither of us gets what we came for.
- One flat number, agreed before we start. No scope creep, no surprises, no add-on invoices. Assessments are included in what I quote you, not billed on top.
- Fees are non-refundable. When we start, I hold the same hour on my calendar every week for the length of our engagement, and that hour isn't something I can resell. I'd rather say that plainly now than have it turn up in the agreement later. What I will commit to in return: if I don't think this is working, you'll hear it from me first, and I'll help you find someone better suited.
Nearly six in ten coaching clients have their engagement funded by their organization. If that's a route worth exploring, I'll give you a one-page brief you can hand to HR or L&D with the scope, the structure, and a 90-day review built in.
What leaders say
I'm building this practice deliberately. Results with clients cary based on the objectives they have set for themselves. Their words and what changed for them are here. And they were looking for exactly what you are seeking.
The fastest way to judge whether this is right for you is thirty minutes on a call.
Your patience and empathy really allowed the conversation to breathe.
You have such a calm presence. I feel safe sharing with you.
You helped me discover new solutions to a problem that has been vexing me, without judgement.
FAQ
Questions, answered directly.
If your question is not here, bring it to the call. I would rather answer it than have you guess.
Consulting produces deliverables: a network diagnostic, an operating model, a plan. Coaching produces your thinking. In coaching I'm not inside your business and I'm not solving it for you; I'm helping you see it more clearly and decide what to do. Different work, different agreement, and this space sits entirely outside the scope of any consulting engagement.
Most people don't, and the industry is bad at explaining it. It's a dedicated hour, on a consistent schedule, that belongs to you: to step back, think out loud, and work through what's on your mind with someone who isn't inside the business and has no stake in the internal politics. Not therapy, not mentoring, not advice. Coached leaders consistently report sharper decisions, a more sustainable pace, and more capacity to lead without carrying all of it themselves.
You can, and it won't work as well. New patterns need repetition, and the between-session thinking is where a lot of the value actually shows up. Ad hoc calls give you relief; a steady rhythm gives you change.
Three months is the minimum I'll take on, and it's the right fit when there's one specific thing to work and a defined window to work it in. Six months is what I recommend to most people, because a quarter is usually enough to see something clearly and start changing it, and not quite enough for the change to become how you operate.
Every engagement starts weekly, and a three-month engagement stays weekly. Over six months we adjust as you go. When you're clearly carrying the work yourself, we space the sessions out. That's a decision we make together based on where you actually are, not a schedule I set in advance.
Engagements vary enough in shape that a single published number would mislead you. What I can tell you plainly: this is a senior-market fee, there's a three-month minimum, and it's a flat rate rather than an hourly one. If you want orientation before we speak, I've written up what executive coaching typically costs and what moves the number.
In a written proposal, within two business days of our first conversation. I don't quote on the call itself, and I'd be wary of anyone who did. A number priced before the work is understood is a guess dressed up as confidence.
What you get instead is built around what you told me: the objectives in your words, the structure I'd recommend, the assessment work, the term, and one flat fee. You're reading a scope with a price attached rather than a price on its own, which is the only version of that document worth signing.
I talk to the people around you. Not a questionnaire. Actual conversations, thirty minutes each, with the peers, boss, and direct reports who see you work. Then I bring back what I heard as themes, never as attributed quotes.
In a three-month engagement that's a focused version, four conversations. Over six months it's up to eight at the start, and then I go back to the same people at month five to ask what's changed. That second round is the part I'd protect if I were you. It's the only honest way to know whether any of this worked.
Where a formal instrument would add something specific, I'll say so and we'll build it in. It's included in your fee either way. And none of it is a test to pass. It's a mirror.
Because I hold the same hour on my calendar every week for the whole engagement, and that hour can't be resold. It also keeps us both committed to the work rather than to renegotiating it. That said, if we feel that something isn't working, we will discuss it openly. I will help you find someone better suited, if that is the result of the conversations.
That's who I know best and who I'm most useful to. But the problem I work on, the operator who has become the bottleneck, shows up in every asset-heavy business. If you're in one, let's talk.
Yes. If your organization sponsors the engagement, we agree upfront on what gets shared: normally that you're engaged, that objectives were set, and a 90-day review at the theme level. Never session content.
One hour a week on video, plus a little thinking in between. That's it. If you can't protect the hour, this isn't the right season for it.
Most engagements are by video, which is what makes a consistent weekly rhythm realistic. Team offsites and facilitated sessions are in person. I'm based in Philadelphia and travel regularly.
Book the Call
What's actually in the way?
That's the question we'll spend thirty minutes on. No pitch, nothing to prepare, no obligation.
Here's how it ends. If there's something real to work on, you'll have a written proposal within two business days: the objectives in your words, the structure I'd recommend, the assessment work, the term, and one flat fee. Built for your situation, not pulled off a shelf, which is exactly why I don't quote a number inside the thirty minutes.
And if I'm not the right person, I'll tell you and point you somewhere better.
Book the objectives call
Thirty minutes. No pitch, nothing to prepare.
October 2026
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Prefer email? leanne@leannecoulter.com