The significance of executive coaches is rapidly increasing as businesses face new challenges in a fast-evolving world. Companies are under immense pressure to scale, but many leaders struggle with outdated skills and management styles. Executive coaches help bridge these gaps by providing tailored, fast-tracked development plans that enable leaders to quickly adapt to new demands. Coaches also play a critical role in guiding young, ambitious entrepreneurs who often face the harsh realities of running a business. By offering personalized solutions, executive coaches help leaders stay relevant, upskill faster, and foster sustainable growth, making them indispensable to modern businesses expanding globally and navigating complex challenges.
Sampath Iyengar, popularly known as Coach Sampath is a certified coach and the founder of Blue Tiger is a certified coach and the founder of Blue Tiger, is one such visionary who is driven by a desire to empower professionals through coaching, training, and mentorship. After a successful 25-year career as Vice President of Mphasis Limited, a leading IT company in India, where he headed a 4,500-person team, worked across numerous countries, and established businesses in multiple countries, Sampath discovered his true purpose was to “help others to discover and achieve their highest potential”. His rise from humble beginnings in a small village, where he studied in Kannada medium and began with a daily income of only 15 rupees post completing Engineering, to a high leadership position illustrates his dedication to personal development and determination.
Sampath is a Certified Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder- Centered Coach and MBTI practitioner. He tailors his approach to corporate executives, family business owners, and young entrepreneurs, addressing their specific concerns. He addresses the challenges that family business owners face when passing on leadership to their offspring, overcoming generational gap challenges, and varying views on work ethics. He also helps entrepreneurs, many of whom start enterprises without formal business experience, scale their operations by filling gaps in strategy, execution and scaling.
Enabling Individuals to Thrive in Career and Personal Development Journeys
Sampath's considerable international and industry expertise has had a significant impact on his leadership style and coaching methods. This multinational, multi-industry viewpoint impacts his coaching methodology, assisting him in helping clients adapt to global challenges and opportunities. These cross-cultural experiences have enlarged his perspective, allowing him to understand and welcome variety while highlighting that success does not come easily.
He believes in the value of proactive self-improvement to remain relevant in any situation. Life has taught him innumerable lessons, allowing him to train and coach those he previously thought were unattainable. He has had the opportunity to coach Supreme Court and High Court judges, senior officers from the CBI, IAS, and IPS, and prominent players in India's leading corporate executives across industries.
Sampath's leadership and coaching are based on comprehensive transformation, which goes beyond business success and financial benefit. Understanding the inner purpose of one's actions is key to his approach, which encourages both personal and professional development in his clients. He emphasizes his clients prioritize “self, family, and work” in that order. “Life is simple, make it awesome!” is what he preaches and practices.
According to him, professional success means little unless he has a fulfilling personal life. He puts his health and well-being first, maintaining peak fitness levels through ultra-endurance events such as 24-hour stadium runs, 222km intercity runs, and Himalayan mountain climbs. Human ability is unlimited and stretching it systematically helps you to maximize one’s achievement is what Coach Sampath says.
Moreover, he believes that embracing challenges fuels growth, teaching resilience, adaptability, and the importance of evolving to meet market demands. “Failures are my companion throughout and I am grateful to them. I couldn't convince either college management or the students to buy our training programs though they loved it. While we believed in our ability, we had to pivot to Corporate training and then coaching after 2 years of struggles when we quit our highly-paying corporate jobs to start up in 2011. It taught me to be cool, calm, confident, and willing to understand, analyze, and change as per the market demands. After all, we aren't a tree and free to change our location when warranted”, adds Coach Sampath.
Coach Sampath believes that leadership is constantly evolving, thus coaches must keep ahead of the curve. He adds that India has the potential to build a thriving coaching industry, but there is a great need for more qualified coaches to promote holistic development. Going forward, the function of a coach will move from issue-fixing to empowering people to achieve long-term excellence. He believes that raising awareness of coaching's worth will be critical to transforming leadership development into a holistic and meaningful tool for personal and professional fulfillment.
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“To professionals in leadership roles navigating complex environments, Congratulations on your contributions so far. However, as Marshall Goldsmith aptly says, "What Got You Here Won't Get You There". The world is evolving rapidly, and without adapting, you may find yourself falling behind. The younger generation is faster, smarter, and more ambitious, and if you're not prepared, they may surpass you. Stay aware, keep learning, and take decisive action now to remain relevant and impactful before it's too late”, concludes Coach Sampath.
Sampath Iyengar KR, Certified Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder, Centered Coach & MBTI practitioner, Blue Tiger
Sampath Iyengar KR, popularly known as Coach Sampath in the industry is a Certified Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder-Centered Coach and MBTI practitioner, as well as a Success Principles trainer by Jack Canfield. With over 25 years of experience across diverse industries, he founded BlueTiger in 2011 to pursue his passion for training, coaching, and mentoring. His vision is to impact the lives of at least one million people over the next decade. An engineer with further education from IIM Kolkata and Dale Carnegie University, Sampath leverages his extensive experience to guide others toward success and happiness.
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