Executive coaching has taken giant strides in Asia Pacific over the past decade. This study demonstrated that the trend has accelerated. Companies are increasingly providing coaching to middle managers, persons with hi potential, junior managers, and even management trainees.  This trend stimulated a small group of APAC members to ask a pertinent question: “What will the future of coaching in Asia Pacific look like?” As the group got organized to discuss this deeper, more questions took center stage, such as:

• What is the profile of future coaches in Asia Pacific?
• How will artificial intelligence, robotics, digital platforms, and/or other technological
• innovations change coaching in Asia Pacific and/or in other geographic markets?
• Will the needs and desires of Generations Y and Z dramatically change the coaching
• Landscape from where it is today? How will coaching the young look like?
• What future challenges and opportunities can coaches expect to face in Asia Pacific?
• Will coaching rates remain comparable to today or will we see significant changes?

The report contains sections on each of these themes. 

We called our group the Future of Coaching group. We held regular teleconferences to look for answers and included representatives from Mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, and other parts of Asia.  While some of the questions were covered directly in our questionnaire, one major area that was not anticipated when the questionnaire was developed was the advent and impact of COVID-19. Many respondents later referred to the coronavirus as they discussed coaching challenges they faced.

This is a qualitative study. Hence, we do not claim any statistical significance but rather a collection of expert opinions on the future of executive coaching in Asia Pacific. When this research journey began, the intention was to examine where the profession of executive coaching in Asia Pacific was headed. We wanted to provide suggestions about which aspects of coaching one should develop in order to be prepared for the future.

Our primary source of information was 40 interviews with coaching experts in Asia Pacific. All of these coaches were very senior and many held positions of coaching leadership. Our secondary source of information was the professional literature. While there is much written that is indirectly related to our research, the literature is rather sparse on the subject of the future of coaching in Asia Pacific. In fact, this relative dearth of published guidance for coaches was one of the drivers of this research.

The authors’ intention is that this report will help coaches enhance their understanding of what it will take to coach in Asia Pacific in the near future.