Executive & Leadership Coaching in Tokyo
For the people building what comes next.
Somatic, cross-cultural coaching and leadership programs for creatives, engineers, and founders across Japan and internationally. ICF ACC, PCC pending.
I'm Heather Dobbin. I work with leaders who carry real responsibility — founders, senior creatives, engineers, and executives — and want to do that work without burning themselves out doing it. My practice integrates somatic and nervous-system depth with the cross-cultural fluency built over fifteen years of developing people across Japan and Korea. If you're navigating a transition, growing fast, or sensing that the way you've been leading isn't sustainable for the next chapter, you're in the right place.
60 minutes, ¥35,000 — credited toward your engagement if we work together within 30 days
Or explore ways to work together
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![Heather Dobbin coaching a female entrepreneur]()
Executive & Leadership Coaching
Deep individual coaching for founders, senior leaders, and creatives navigating transition, burnout recovery, or a new chapter of leadership.
Also: Burnout & Sustainable Performance · Women & Global Leadership
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![Heather Dobbin Speaking at Google for Startups Japan]()
Speaking, Workshops & Facilitation
Custom workshops, keynotes, and team facilitation for companies and ecosystem partners investing in sustainable senior leadership and women in leadership.
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![A view of Mt. Fuji and Sagami Bay]()
Retreats & Immersive Programs
Multi-day retreats and longer immersive containers for leaders and teams ready for deeper transformation than a calendar of sessions can hold.
Meet Heather
I came to coaching the long way. I spent a decade as an educator and program manager across Japan and Korea — building learning environments, developing teachers, and watching closely what helps people change and what doesn't. That program-builder's lens is the floor under everything I do now, and it's a real part of why corporate clients hire me.
Five years ago I trained as a coach (ICF ACC, PCC pending) and moved my practice to executive and leadership work full-time. Today I work with founders, senior creatives, engineers, and executives — many at the moment when the strategies that got them here stop working for what's next. My approach integrates somatic and nervous-system awareness, cognitive-behavioral tools, hormone cycle awareness, mindfulness, and a cross-cultural lens that's particular to building a career between Japan and the global stage.
Alongside the one-to-one work, I convene communities for entrepreneurial women, founders, and senior operators across Tokyo's innovation ecosystem. I do this because I believe leadership is shaped as much by the rooms we're in as by the work we do alone — and because the most useful conversations of my career have happened in rooms someone else built. I build those rooms now.
How we’ll work together
Most leadership coaching asks you to think more clearly. My work also asks: what is your body doing while you think? What is your nervous system telling you that your strategy is overruling? What changes when you slow down enough to listen?
Somatic and nervous-system depth
We'll work with how leadership actually feels in your body. The contraction before a hard conversation, the freeze in a meeting, the patterns your system has learned over a long career. Tools change. State-shifts last.
Cross-cultural fluency
Fifteen years across Japan and Korea taught me that leadership doesn't translate cleanly across cultures, and that the leaders who do this best build bicultural fluency on purpose. I work in English with Japanese support.
Sustainable by design
The goal isn't to extract more from a depleted system. It's to build a way of leading that you can actually sustain. Sustain through founder cycles, through corporate seasons, through the long arc of a career.
Cross-cultural fluency
Fifteen years across Japan and Korea taught me that leadership doesn't translate cleanly across cultures, and that the leaders who do this best build bicultural fluency on purpose. I work in English with Japanese support.
Sustainable by design
The goal isn't to extract more from a depleted system. It's to build a way of leading that you can actually sustain. Sustain through founder cycles, through corporate seasons, through the long arc of a career.
What my clients say
"I shifted from struggling to attract clients to a point where I had more offers than I could handle on my own. […] I viewed it as a transformative experience that holds more impact for me than pursuing an MBA, all at a fraction of the cost."
— Apolline Daimaru, Founder, nowthen, Tokyo
Excerpted from Apolline's full testimonial. Read her story →
"When I first reached out to Heather, I was completely burned out and couldn't imagine making it through the next day, let alone the coming months. […] After six months of coaching, I went from being burned out and mentally exhausted to feeling positive and focused on the future. I became genuinely excited about my future goals."
— Agnieszka Dobija, Marketing DirectorTokyo]
Excerpted from Agnieszka’s s full testimonial. Read the full story →
Curious whether we'd work well together?
The best way to find out is a clarity call, a 60-minute paid conversation about what you're navigating, how I work, and whether this is the right next step for you.
60 minutes, ¥35,000 — credited toward your engagement if we work together within 30 days
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