Driven by its strategic location, excellent infrastructure, and numerous pro-business initiatives taken by the government, Singapore’s thriving business landscape has been attracting companies across the globe for business opportunities. In the past, organizations in Singapore were hesitant to embrace executive coaching as a development tool for their workforce. However, there has been a noticeable shift in recent years, with companies becoming increasingly receptive to exploring executive coaching as a valuable opportunity for employee development. Companies in Singapore today seek skilled executive coaches to develop their employees, maximize their potential, and make a real impact in terms of organizational growth, which, in turn, is helping the demand for executive coaches grow rapidly in the country.
Before being a corporate trainer and executive coach, Julie Yeap was working as an Auditor at Ernst & Young. A Certified Public Accountant by training, she eventually realized her love for coaching and training people and asked for a transfer to the Learning & Development (L&D) department in the firm. There, she was mentored and coached by her experienced L&D colleagues, which, in her words, opened her eyes to the benefits of executive coaching. Later, she earned her first executive coaching certification from the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership (IECL), to which Julie gives a lot of credit for instilling a coaching mindset in her. She was recently awarded the Outstanding Leadership Award by the Education 2.0 Conference in recognition of her contributions to the field of education and learning.
A Strong Coaching Mindset
A strong believer in continuous learning, she has done numerous coaching certifications over the years to enhance her coaching skillsets further. Currently, Julie, through her Singapore-based corporate training, coaching, and consulting firm, Mastering Success, is providing executive coaching and training services to her clients across the globe. “As an executive coach, I need to hold the belief that all my clients have the potential to achieve the performance that they aspire for, and as the coach, it’s my job
to help them be aware of the interferences that are holding them back and how to manage them”, shares Julie.
lients seek her coaching services to help them achieve their career goals, excel in their new role, develop critical soft skills, such as leadership, presentation, and facilitation skills, boost their confidence at the workplace, increase their work efficiency, or stay ahead of the curve.
Embracing Diversity & Cultural Sensitivity
Owing to her service offerings to different industry domains, Julie always ensures to do extensive research on the industry when she is not familiar with the industry type, which includes having discussions with the client’s sponsor or Human Resources personnel. As a certified facilitator of GlobeSmart Profiles from Aperian Global, she is well aware of the cultural differences as well as different working styles across different countries. Through her training and coaching sessions, she helps her clients become more aware of the inclusive behaviors that they should demonstrate to have an inclusive environment at their organization.
Julie also takes various measures to respect the client’s diversity and background, which includes having coaching conversations in different languages, such as English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, based on the client’s language proficiency. She also offers both face-to-face as well as virtual coaching sessions, especially for overseas clients, based on clients’ preferences. Apart from that, she does evening as well as weekend-based coaching sessions based on clients’ availability. An executive coach must believe in his/her clients’ potential & enable them to achieve the performance that they aspire for
The Coaching Process
Being truthful to her IECL training, which focuses on good rapport between the client and coach, Julie always schedules a short 'meet and greet' session with her clients before the actual coaching session begins to build rapport and set the expectations for the coaching process. A Gallup-certified Strengths coach, the coaching sessions planned by Julie are mostly about having structured coaching conversations using the strengths based approach to motivate the client and enable them to achieve the goals that they are working towards.
During rare occasions when clients seem clueless about their next steps, she doesn’t mind putting on her trainer’s hat and sharing with them other possibilities that can help them grow in that particular area. At the end of each coaching session, she ensures that the client has SMART action points to work on.
Future Roadmap
Coming to the future roadmap, Julie doesn’t believe in one-size-fits-all training sessions and currently is working on providing customized training to her clients. She is also working on developing e-learning modules, where clients can consume the theory part of the soft skill they would like to develop in before attending the one-to one coaching sessions, where they get to practice the soft skill and receive coaching and feedback for their continuous development.
Julie Yeap, Founder & Managing Director
An award-winning educator with around two decades of extensive experience as a Trainer, Facilitator, and Executive Coach, Julie Yeap started her career as an Auditor with EY before finding her calling in executive coaching and corporate training. Currently, as the Managing Director of Singapore-based corporate training, coaching, and consulting firm, Mastering Success, she is providing executive coaching and training services with specialization in leadership, presentation, facilitation, communication, and interpersonal skills to her clients across the globe.
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