About Lise Bruynooghe
I listen fast.
I name what
others won't.
Executive Coach, Master Certified, Chair of ICF Global Enterprise Board, TEDx Speaker, Founder of the Lise Bruynooghe Academy.
I am to my clients what a world-class coach is to elite athletes: an essential partner in reaching new heights of leadership and impact.
A Master Certified Coach and former Senior Executive at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), I have spent my career leading complex transformations in dynamic, international environments. I hold degrees in Finance and Strategy from Sciences Po Paris, as well as International Relations from MGIMO University in Moscow. Today, I coach senior leaders and executive teams outdoors in the Swiss mountains and globally online.
My clients are fast-thinking, high-performing, often unconventional people who brim with brilliant ideas. Many of them, like me, have lived and worked across cultures and continents, navigating diverse teams and complex systems. They are at ease in international contexts yet seek deeper alignment and authenticity as they lead. They turn to me as a peer who speaks the language of global strategy and systemic complexity.
I have sat in rooms where what is unspoken carries more weight than what is said.
I have reinvented myself enough times to know how much courage it takes to begin again.
We stay with it, across strategy and execution, logic and emotion,
until something profound shifts.
OLA-x
A Framework for Complexity
In high-stakes leadership, you cannot control the system, but you can orient yourself within it. OLA-x is my practical methodology for bridging the gap between being and doing.
Observe
We strip away the stories and judgment to see the system as it actually is.
Love
We access the human capacity to stay present and connected under immense pressure.
Act
We move from analysis paralysis to intentional, small-scale experiments that take you one step forward.
Iterate
We treat every result as data, replacing the illusion of control with continuous learning.
Coaching in Nature
Physical space informs psychological space. Being outdoors slows habitual thinking, deepens clarity, and creates the conditions for leaders to access their best judgment.
The Personal Side
I used to jump Rittbergers as a competitive ice skater and sang in Puccini's La Bohème as a child. I have lived and worked in five countries and am fluent in French, English, and German; my Russian used to be advanced and is now rusty, and my Italian is strictly for ordering pistachio ice cream.
An ex-economist and ex-banker, I was Advisor to the President of the EBRD at 28. The daughter of a mathematician and a nuclear scientist; I'm married to a statistician and quant (16 years and counting). I've raised three children while leading transformations across continents. If someone had told me I would one day be a full-time professional coach, I would not have believed them.
Don't get me started on long-distance hikes and cycles, I will be unstoppable. I've first crawled, then walked with my oldest friend since birth. Currently a few weeks away from a 1,600km tour across Switzerland and France. On the wishlist: a double traverse of the Pyrénées, there and back, on both the French and Spanish sides, and walking the Cape Wrath Trail.
Grounded by personal experience, including supporting our youngest son through childhood cancer (he is thankfully in remission), I bring a blend of empathy, resilience, and incisiveness to my work.
Those are the parts no bio can hold. They shape how I listen and who I choose to work with.
Forthcoming
The Debut Book
When life presents seemingly impossible situations, how do you stay oriented without falling into overcontrol or paralysis?
Drawing on decades of leadership at the highest levels, personal experience, and my work with leaders globally.
A book for leaders navigating complexity, deciding under uncertainty, and learning to lead from who they actually are.
Keynotes and Panels
Speaking
Leadership at the Edge
Complexity, uncertainty, presence under pressure.
Ambition, Identity and Reinvention
Bigger roles, executive to entrepreneur, high achievement.
Systems, Power and Perspective
Boardroom dynamics, complex organisations, influence, living between cultures.
For bookings, email hello@lisebruynooghe.com