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Case study

A Global Banking Group

Global Managed Service for Executive Coaching

2000

Relationship begins

2000

Formal coaching partner

2000

MD mandate awarded

2000

ExCo mandate awarded

80

Participant satisfaction

The relationship

The client is a FTSE 100-listed international banking group operating in more than 60 countries. We have worked with the bank continuously since 2008, and the relationship has deepened at every stage.
It started small. In 2008 we provided external coaches in markets where the bank had no coverage — Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong — delivering into the gap. In 2010 we were made a formal coaching partner, providing most of the bank’s external coaches alongside an internal panel that handled the majority of delivery. Each phase built on a track record of consistent quality in the locations and at the seniority levels the bank needed.

The shift to a Global Managed Service

In 2016 the bank went to tender for a single provider to run external executive coaching for its largest senior population — the MD level, equivalent to Senior Manager grades at NatWest. The objectives were clear: improve global reach, raise consistency and quality at the senior level, and lift the overall experience for both coaches and coachees.

Acuity Coaching won the contract, awarded the exclusive mandate to deliver external coaching at MD level. We onboarded a selection of the bank’s existing internal coaches alongside coaches who had previously delivered through other suppliers — a sensitive process completed to timescale. In parallel we co-created a standardised programme that could be accessed anywhere in the world to the same standard.

How we deliver

The standard programme is offered in 8-hour and 14-hour formats, with optional verbal 360 stakeholder interviews. Line Manager involvement is built in through three-way conversations and midpoint reviews. Coach panels are maintained in key hubs including the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, the US and the UAE. Although the exclusive mandate sits at MD level, we also coach at levels below this where a higher calibre of coach is required than the bank’s technology-platform coaching supplier can provide.

Governance and reporting run on a quarterly cycle: management information on spend and assignment status, demographic data, thematic analysis of coaching focus and impact, coachee feedback, and process improvement suggestions. Measurement is customised to the client rather than drawn from a standard template - the metrics are built with the bank to reflect what it wants and needs to see. The framework evolves with the client — most recently to reflect a preference for connecting each coaching objective to a prospective contribution to the bank’s headline performance metric, so that development objectives are documented against commercial outcomes from the outset.

Responsiveness and flexibility in practice

What has sustained the relationship is the ability to respond at pace. A representative example: we are regularly asked to staff workshops and group sessions in different parts of the world at short notice, and we resource and deliver them. The same orientation has shaped how the programme itself has evolved — adding regions, formats and offerings as needs have emerged, including event-style workshops for senior leaders and the extension of executive coaching across the wider MD population.

“It’s been one of the most valuable development experiences I have had.”

Managing Director, participant

A second mandate: integrated succession and development

At the end of 2025 the bank went to tender again — this time for an integrated succession planning and development programme covering the Executive Committee and the two levels immediately below. The mandate was awarded to Acuity Coaching exclusively, in open competition with global coaching suppliers of every size.

The programme is one of the first of its kind globally, combining succession planning with executive coaching in a single integrated structure. It runs across two distinct tiers: unlimited coaching packages at ExCo level, reflecting the open-ended demands at that altitude, and structured hourly packages for the identified successor population, focused on development against future roles.

Delivery is through Pinacl, Acuity Coaching’s brand for top-tier executive work. The bank now has a single trusted partner running provision from the wider MD population up through the Executive Committee.

Visit the Pinacl website

Results

Across the full term of the engagement, we have maintained a 100% track record of meeting service level agreements, across every aspect of the service.

Programmes have been delivered across Australia, China, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the UAE, the UK, the US and Vietnam. Average participant satisfaction across the programme stands at 94%, and every participant who has completed end-of-programme feedback would recommend coaching to a colleague.

Thematic reporting consistently evidences behavioural change at individual, team and organisational levels, with coaching focus tracking closely to the bank’s strategic priorities.

The enduring relationship

Eighteen years on, the scope continues to expand. What began as filling coaching gaps in three Asian markets is now a global service running from the wider MD population up through to the Executive Committee. The constants have been consistency of delivery, willingness to adapt and a shared focus on what the bank is trying to achieve.