We help C-suite executives make their value visible.
Job searches, board searches, executive leadership, and fractional practices all come down to one thing:
whether the right people clearly see your value.
You've built an exceptional career at the highest levels of your industry. However, there's a question that most senior executives have a hard time answering, and that may be limiting your opportunity: what makes your value distinct from everyone else at your level?
We work with senior leaders who are navigating a significant career moment — a job search, a post-exit plan, a board search, setting up a fractional practice, or taking on a new leadership challenge.
Having coached executives through many of these moments, we've found that leaders typically know how to build a value proposition for their organization, but aren't always as clear how to build one for themselves. Instead of building out their value strategy, they often stall their progress by jumping too quickly to tactics, including a resume, a LinkedIn profile, a fractional practice one-pager, or a short-term LinkedIn publishing sprint, most of which, in the age of AI, look and sound like everyone else's. These feel like progress, but they typically position the executive one or more levels below their actual market value.
On the other hand, when your value is clear, everything built on top of it, which could be an executive job search, board positioning, marketing a fractional practice, or having a strong leadership presence, positions you as a high-value executive to have, and keep, at the executive table.
We would love to help you make your value visible.
It’s time to build a strategy for your leadership and career success.
We work with C-Suite leaders (CXO, SVP, EVP), or people hoping to become one in their next career move.
Trusted by:
Meet Kathy
I’m Kathy Robinson, and I’m on a mission to help leaders show the world their value.
My work doesn't fit neatly into a category. It blends traditional C-suite career coaching with executive branding, strategy and executive coaching. It fills a gap that’s better called executive value coaching, helping C-suite executives build a clear, defensible point of view on the value they bring to the future of their role and/or industry, and then making that value visible across everything that follows: the job search, the board search, the fractional or advisory practice, and the leadership presence inside their organization.
I’ve developed this niche over 23 years and thousands of executive career conversations, after noticing that countless senior leaders who are genuinely exceptional at what they do routinely and inadvertently present themselves below their actual worth, leading to others treating them as one leader among many. The gap between an executive’s actual worth and how the market values them is almost never a skill issue. Instead, it is a fixable gap of the leader needing to build a value proposition and make it visible.
My approach borrows from corporate strategy rather than traditional coaching. The same frameworks executives use to position their companies, including defining their best-fit market, building a winning pitch, identifying the scenarios where their experience is most valuable, getting buy-in, and creating collateral (in the case of a job search, a resume and LinkedIn profile) apply just as much to executives as they do to the companies they build. The trouble is, executives can easily build a value narrative for their organizations, but sometimes get stuck when they try to do it for themselves.
As a respected executive career coach, executive brand strategist, executive resume writer, executive coach and multiple-time founder for over two decades, I know how to elevate value and make work visible. I have been featured in many media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNN, CBS, Boston Globe, and the Boston Business Journal. I work with C-suite leaders and senior executives who are moving into that tier, nationally, from my home base in Boston.
Frequently Asked Questions
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CXO Directions is a Boston-based executive value coaching practice founded and led by Kathy Robinson. We work with C-suite executives and senior leaders across the United States on the full range of challenges that require making their value visible: executive job searches, board searches, executive resume writing, fractional and advisory practice building, executive branding, and C-suite leadership coaching.
The practice operates on a single premise developed over 23 years and tens of thousands of executive career conversations: that senior leaders who are genuinely exceptional at what they do routinely present their value in ways the market cannot act on, and that closing that gap with the right coaching changes everything from search velocity to compensation to leadership presence.
Unlike general executive coaching or career coaching firms that work across all levels of management, CXO Directions works exclusively with C-suite executives and senior leaders moving into that tier. The methodology, the market knowledge, and the coaching conversations are calibrated specifically for that level.
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CXO Directions offers five core services, all designed around the executive value proposition work that makes each one more effective.
Executive career coaching helps C-suite executives and senior leaders run a high-value job search, from value proposition and target company strategy through executive resume writing, executive LinkedIn profile building, networking, C-suite interview coaching, and coaching on offer negotiation.
Executive branding builds the visible thought leadership presence that positions senior executives as the obvious choice for the roles, board seats, and opportunities they are pursuing, including LinkedIn strategy, executive bio, and industry visibility.
Fractional and advisory practice coaching helps senior executives build a fractional C-suite or advisory career, from identifying the right business scenarios and target companies through value proposition, business development, scoping, pricing, and first client acquisition.
Board search coaching helps C-suite executives position themselves for board roles, including board resume, director value proposition, and targeted outreach strategy.
Executive outplacement provides bespoke, one-to-one career transition support for senior executives whose companies offer premium, individualized outplacement experience rather than a cookie-cutter program.
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CXO Directions works exclusively with C-suite executives and senior leaders moving into that tier, typically at the Board level, CEO, CFO, CMO, COO, CTO, CHRO, and SVP or EVP level. Our clients are based across the United States and come from a wide range of industries including technology, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, consumer goods, and professional services.
Most clients come to us at a significant career moment: a planned or unplanned exit, a search that is not gaining traction, a desire to build a fractional or advisory practice, a board search, or a desire to establish a stronger leadership presence and visibility inside a new or current organization or in their peer community.
We work with people who are already C-suite executives and/or are actively applying for roles at that level. Our services are more strategic than would be a fit for director-level executives or below. We also do not take on resume-only or LinkedIn-only projects without the strategic engagement that makes those materials effective. If you are earlier in your career or looking for a more generalist executive career coach, we are happy to refer you to the right resource.
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Most executive coaching and career coaching firms work across a broad range of management levels, applying the same methodology regardless of where someone sits in an organization. CXO Directions works exclusively at the C-suite level, which means the coaching, the market knowledge, and the strategic frameworks are calibrated specifically for the dynamics of senior executive careers rather than adapted from a more generalist approach.
The methodology itself is distinctive. Rather than starting with documents or interview preparation, we start with personal strategy; we build a clear, defensible executive value proposition and a specific point of view on where your industry is heading and where your experience is most valuable within it. That strategic foundation then drives everything that follows, from the resume and LinkedIn profile to the networking approach, the interview narrative, and the fractional or advisory positioning.
There is also a pattern recognition advantage that comes from 23 years of working exclusively at this level, personally reviewing thousands of executive career issues, and sitting alongside C-suite leaders as they evaluate the right candidates to bring onto their teams. That depth of market intelligence across industries, economic cycles, and career contexts is what allows us to see the specific dynamics of C-suite clients’ situations clearly because we have seen versions of it many times before.
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Kathy Robinson has been coaching C-suite executives and senior leaders for 23 years, working with thousands of executives across industries including technology, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, consumer goods, and professional services.
Her client work spans executive job searches, board searches, fractional and advisory practice building, executive branding, and C-suite leadership coaching inside organizations.
Alongside her private practice, Kathy built and ran two of the first career coaching platforms in the country, personally reviewing thousands of career inquiries over two decades. That breadth of exposure across industries, career stages, economic cycles, and organizational contexts is the foundation of the pattern recognition that makes her coaching distinctive at the C-suite level.
Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNN, CBS, NPR, Time, Money, AARP, the Boston Globe, and the Boston Business Journal. She is based in Boston and works with senior executives nationwide.
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Executive value coaching is a unique category of senior-level coaching developed at CXO Directions that blends executive career coaching, executive branding, leadership identity and personal strategy.
It is built around a single observation: that senior executives who are exceptional at what they do consistently undervalue and miscommunicate what they bring to the market, and that closing that gap requires more than better documents or interview preparation.
What makes executive value coaching distinct from other types of coaching is that it links career planning, personal strategy, executive branding, and leadership identity together in one integrated approach. Here's why: an executive career strategy built without a strong brand won't stand out in the marketplace. An executive brand built without a clear, purposeful executive identity and career plan could create hollow, generic content that doesn't help you move your career forward. A job search or fractional practice built without a strategy and brand produces the commodity positioning that won't generate opportunities. And leaders who get a job or fractional, board or advisory role but don't carry their brand promise through to the work they do won't be as impactful as they could be. Each element pulls from the work on the others to function properly, which is why addressing them together in one integrated solution will give executives a well-planned, carefully branded value proposition that opens the doors they identify in their career strategy.
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CXO Directions is based in Boston, Massachusetts and works with C-suite executives and senior leaders nationwide. All coaching engagements are conducted virtually, which allows us to work with clients regardless of location.
We are available for occasional in-person working sessions for clients in the Boston area, but the work is designed to be fully effective remotely.
Our services are available only to senior executives who currently live and work in the United States. We are not set up to manage international executive coaching engagements at this time.
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