The Executive Kingmaker

A Q&A WITH VASCO PATRÍCIO: EXECUTIVE PERFORMANCE COACH FOR C-LEVEL EXECUTIVES AND ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT MANAGERS

How did your working life begin?

I actually started as a tech entrepreneur I co-founded two different startups backed by the MIT-Portugal IEI Startup Accelerator, and ended up becoming part of the leadership team for the accelerator itself Despite mentoring and assisting young founders,

I found that I got client requests from seasoned executives at the time, so I slowly started assisting these executives and consolidating my coaching in that crowd

Within the executive coaching itself I started connecting with a few Hedge Fund managers in Switzerland and Germany, and started to slowly specialize in financial services, not just Hedge Funds but also partners of Venture Capital and Private Equity firms among others

I started specializing in helping with hiring and assessing people in these markets, helping establish the values and mission of the company, promoting team collaboration and resolving conflicts as well as doing assessments of personalities, motivators and drivers for people to optimize their performance

What are some common mistakes you find yourself helping to correct in your clients?

Mainly people issues At the end of the day, it's all about people It might be a leader that can't effectively lead his team or a person that can't get the best result in a negotiation or can't sell his financial product to a client, but at the end of the day it's all about you being able to connect with other people It's all about being able to influence, to impact, to connect with someone else I many times brand myself as an "influence and persuasion" coach because, at the end of the day, that's the backbone connecting all of the different issues

Influence in understanding and leading your team

Influence in a negotiation

Influence in being able to empathize and connect with a possible client, partner, other At the end of the day, 90% of clients' issues are about needing to influence someone they can't with their current skill set or emotional state It's always about the people