Ulrika Gustafson Advisory
The higher you go, the more you answer for things you don't directly control. That's not a broken org. That's the job.
You're making calls with partial information, competing interests, and people whose support you need but can't instruct. Reading that accurately is most of the job at this level. It's also the part nobody trains you for.
I work with senior leaders on what's actually driving the decisions around them. Not the version in the org chart. The one that's actually deciding what happens.
THE ROOM
One senior leader says keep me posted. Another asks why they weren't consulted. Neither of them has told you who decides. You're the most prepared person on the call and the conversation still happens slightly to the side of you. You get asked to send the follow-up. A decision you already made comes back open, reopened by someone who wasn't there. Nobody is being rude about it. That's what makes it hard to name.
THE LOOP
When it gets tense you reach for what's always worked. You go back with more evidence. You put it in writing so there's a record. You review the deck at ten at night because you know exactly where it's going to fail. Every one of those is the right call on its own. Together they tell the room you're the one who gets it done rather than the one who decides. You pay for it twice, once in the hours and again in how you get read.
THE COST
The promotion conversation that keeps getting moved, until you finally have to name the cycle yourself because nobody else is going to. The target you own where your manager calls it modest and your skip-level expects double. The leadership work that only happens in whatever's left after the meetings and the email. And the part nobody counts, which is how many hours a week go on work that stopped being yours years ago.
AS FEATURED IN
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Hello, I am Ulrika!
Most coaches studied leadership. I ran things.
I've sat in the seats. Chief Legal Officer. Chief Administrative Officer. Chief Operating Officer. CEO of a group with subsidiaries under it. City Manager more than once. Some of those I was hired into. Some I was brought in to steady when something at the top had already broken.
I've run organizations of eleven thousand people and organizations of one. More union negotiations and more media than I care to remember. Decisions made under public scrutiny, where getting it wrong wasn't a bad quarter, it was in the paper the next day.
That's what I bring into the room with you. Not theory. Not frameworks. Judgment, built from having been in the seat.
So when you tell me what's going on, I'm not guessing at it. I tell you what I think is actually driving it, including when I think you've read it wrong. Everyone else you could ask has a stake in the answer. Your boss. HR. Your peers. The person who gets your job if this goes badly. I don't.
I'VE COACHED LEADERS INSIDE
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Free For Subscribers
WHEN THE PLAYBOOK STOPS WORKING
For leaders and founders who are working the same way they always have and getting a different result from it.
You're not stuck because something is wrong with you. You're stuck because the rules changed and nobody told you.
Not a checklist. It's what actually changes about the job between running the work and being the person who decides, and why the things that got you here start counting against you.
My Services
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
1:1 EXECUTIVE COACHING
You are the client.
For a decision, a transition, a mandate or a relationship where the political cost isn't clear and getting it wrong is expensive. Private work, six months, every two weeks, with direct access between sessions when something can't wait. Engagements start at $18,000. Some clients pay privately, some are funded by their organization, and the work is the same either way.
THE ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT
Where every organizational engagement starts.
Leadership already has a theory about what's wrong. Sometimes it's right. My job is to find out what's actually driving the behavior, which often isn't the thing anyone named. I talk to the people involved, look at how decisions really get made, who holds authority on paper and who holds it in practice, and where those two don't match. You get it in writing, including where accounts contradict each other, because that disagreement is usually the most useful thing in the report.
ADVISORY
What happens after you know.
Knowing what's wrong and changing it are different jobs. This is the second one. Who needs to decide what, in what order, and who has to be brought along before it's announced. The conversations leadership has been avoiding. What the first visible change signals to everyone watching. Scoped once the assessment is done, because until then neither of us knows what it takes.
THE RESULTS
01
Clear decision rights across the leadership team
02
Faster decisions that stay made
03
Accountability matched to authority
04
Aligned priorities across functions
05
Risk raised early, in the right order
06
Judgment that's visible to the people who decide what happens next
Testimonials
WHAT MY CLIENTS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT WORKING WITH ME
“I was referred to Ulrika by someone I trust - another woman in a senior leadership group I’ve been part of for years. She said, ‘If you’re ready to really grow, and not just be encouraged, talk to her.’ From our first session, I knew it was different. Ulrika doesn’t circle around things. She goes straight to what no one else is naming and she does it with zero ego. I wasn’t looking for someone to cheerlead. I was looking for someone who could actually challenge how I show up in high-stakes rooms, and help me lead at the level I know I’m capable of. After six months, I was leading with more clarity, presence, and authority than I ever have. And it wasn’t just me who felt it - my team delivered some of our best creative work to date, and we ended up winning a major international award. Ulrika doesn’t coach for comfort. She coaches for impact. And it works."
Executive Creative Director, Global Advertising Agency, USA
"I was honestly exhausted. I could see exactly why certain people were getting ahead, and it felt draining. They weren't better at the job. They were better at playing the game. And I didn't want to be that person. Working with Ulrika helped me realize I didn't need to change who I am. I just needed to understand what was really happening in the room, and how I was showing up inside it. I'm still direct, still myself, and still not into politics for politics' sake. But now I'm not sidelined and don't get overlooked. I finally feel like I'm moving forward without selling out."
Director, Operations & Strategy, Financial Services
"What pushed me to join wasn't self-doubt about my capabilities. My skills were the sole reason I volunteered to take on a complicated and very sensitive project. But I was watching leadership say one thing and do another. I stopped waiting for alignment that wasn't coming and started moving with strategic clarity. I didn't become tougher or change my ways to fit the norm. I became clearer. And that changed how people saw and responded to me almost immediately. The biggest relief comes from trusting my instincts again."
Managing Director, Global Asset Management
How The Work Actually Happens
A PARTNERSHIP,
NOT A PRESET PROGRAM
1.
THE CONVERSATION
A direct conversation, thirty minutes. An honest read on what's actually going on. I'll tell you whether the work fits what you're dealing with, and if it doesn't, I'll tell you that too.
2.
BUILT AROUND THE SITUATION
The work is shaped around what's actually in front of you, not a stock framework. The meeting next week. The decision that's stalled. The person you can't read. The mandate that arrived without the authority to deliver it.
3.
IN THE ROOM
This is where the work happens. Real situations, real questions, and the things you can't ask anyone inside the organization without it costing you something.
4.
AFTERWARDS
I stay close after the initial work. Clients stay connected, sometimes for years, for when the pressure returns and a clean read of the room matters again.
Get All The Details
FAQ - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Senior leaders and founders who are already doing the job. Managing directors, general counsels, COOs, chiefs of staff, CEOs, senior leaders on the VP track, and founders running companies they built. Some come because they own an outcome they don't control. Some because the work is good and the people who decide what happens next can't see it. Some because the way they've always worked stopped getting the same result and nobody told them what changed.
Most coaching helps you reflect and build skills. Useful work, and not what I do. I've sat in the seats. Chief Legal Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, COO, CEO, City Manager more than once, in organizations from one person to eleven thousand. So when you describe what's happening, I'm not reasoning about it from the outside. I tell you what I think is actually driving it, including when I think you've read it wrong.
Executive coaching is six months and starts at $18,000. Six months because anything shorter doesn't hold. Sessions every two weeks, and you can reach me in between when something can't wait. Corporate Advisory gets priced after the Organizational Assessment, because the cost depends on how much access, how many interviews and how much implementation the situation actually needs.
If you're the one who has to read a situation and make the call, that's Executive Coaching. If the problem is the organization itself, how it decides, who really holds authority, why the strategy isn't translating into what people actually do, that's Corporate Advisory. If you're not sure, say so on the call and I'll tell you.
Often, yes. The work doesn't change when a company funds it. What changes is that we agree the intended outcome together at the start, and we agree in advance what gets reported back at the end.
No. Some people arrive with a clear mandate. Most arrive with something they can feel and haven't named. We start there and we don't stay there. The early work is finding what's actually causing the stall. Once that's visible, the objective is usually obvious and the work moves fast.
Ulrika Gustafson Advisory
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