“The race itself was brutal, but brilliant,” recalls Luya. “The Gobi terrain is mountainous and rocky, maybe 5% sand in the location of the actual race. Very tough on your feet and also takes place partly at altitude.” The 130 participants carried everything in their packs, except full water rations (you get 1.5 litres every ten kilometres and a tent at night).

 

By the end of the race, Luya was in severe trouble with infections starting in her blistered feet, but she completed the course in 68 hours (around 25 people dropped out). “Walking those distances on blisters makes you realise what you are made of and this was the unexpected and amazing outcome of what I did,” she says. “The race was not about physical endurance so much as mental endurance and strength.”

 

It’s a point she makes to her clients, who are CEOs and other senior executives. “Balance your life with things you are passionate about, love to do or want to achieve and you’ll have a more fulfilled life,” Luya tells them. One executive has been inspired to train and join the next Gobi March.

 

Not everyone needs or wants external coaching. For many executives, it is a matter of teaching and learning by on-the-job osmosis or being part of the company’s talent development program, where they mentor others and may be mentored in their turn. Who has the time anyway? An executive coach can be akin to the tutor or cram school lecturer who may or may not have helped you get admitted to university, but who ate up a lot of your after-school free time.

 

But even in today’s post-crisis business environment, it seems quite a few are turning to executive coaches like Luya, whose client roster currently includes several CEOs and women entrepreneurs. To help them discern and achieve their career objectives, she draws on her 20 years of experience in HR, a decade of which she spent as regional human resources director, Asia Pacific, of The Economist Group, which publishes the Economist magazine. She likes to think that her clients’ real-life journeys also enrich what she brings to the table.  

 

“I basically function as a sounding board,” Luya says. That’s something, of course, that a friend or family member can do for free (and by someone else at work, though there is a risk that the workplace issues will filter to the rest of the organisation). But an executive coach – yes, there is such a practitioner, who is typically a member of the International Association of Coaching, International Coaches Federation or similar professional organisation – is supposed to be discreet, professional and trained in the theory and practice of getting ahead while balancing career and personal life.

 

How exactly can an executive coach help? The experience of Alistair McGregor is instructive. Until October last year, the Hong Kong permanent resident had been director for operations of the waste management division of Abu Dhabi contracting firm ETA Ascon. “Liz worked with me when I was rethinking my career, and looking if [it was] necessary to move countries to find the right position,” McGregor wrote in a testimonial on Luya’s LinkedIn page. “We used a combination of Skype, email, phone and face to face meetings, which worked well due to my hectic travel schedule at the time.”

 

In April this year, he transitioned to the non-profit world when he became CEO of Community Business, a Hong Kong-based organisation that provides training, facilitation and advice to companies in corporate social responsibility strategy, corporate community investment, diversity and inclusion, and work-life balance. Just this month, he resumed his for-profit career by joining the Environmental Solutions Group in China as regional manager for Asia Pacific. The newly formed enterprise is the result of a merger of three companies into an integrated equipment concern serving the solid waste management industry.

 

“Liz brought clarity to my thinking, challenged me to push beyond my comfort zone, supported me when things got tough and remains a trusted and reliable source of insight for me,” says McGregor.