Executive Transitions Advisory

Executive Transitions & Positioning, With Clarity and Leverage

For Directors, VPs and C-suite leaders at inflection points.

When something shifts — in your role, your company, or in you — clarity becomes leverage. I help senior leaders move deliberately into what's next, without waiting for the market, the board, or the redundancy letter to decide for them.

Start the Free 5-Day Course Book a Clarity Call

30+ years across McKinsey, Credit Suisse and Singtel. ICF certified. Working with senior leaders across North America, Southeast Asia and the UK/Europe.

Trusted by leaders from

Microsoft Kering Haleon UNHCR
When Transitions Begin

Executive transitions rarely announce themselves loudly.

Sometimes they begin with a leadership shift. Sometimes with mandate erosion. Sometimes with silence from the market.

At senior level, drift is expensive.

  • Energy drains. The role takes more and returns less.
  • Capacity narrows. You manage the week instead of the mandate.
  • Decision quality softens. You defer choices you would once have made in a day.

High-performing leaders don't wait for collapse. They recalibrate early.

Free 5-Day Email Course

Become the Professional Others Can't Ignore

One short, sharp email a day. The same frameworks I use privately with senior leaders — so you can name what you want, say what you're worth, and make your next move deliberately.

Day 01

Know Exactly What You Want

Get precise about your next move — before you apply for anything.

Without spending months reacting to whatever the market sends you.
Day 02

Describe Your Work So People Pay Attention

Learn the language shift that makes senior decision-makers listen — and pay more.

Without exaggerating, performing, or sounding like everyone else.
Day 03

The Quiet Voice That Says You're Not Ready

Meet the internal narrator that keeps capable leaders under-positioned — and learn how to answer it.

Without waiting until you feel 100% ready. You never will.
Day 04

A Filter That Makes Hard Decisions Easy

Turn your values into decision criteria — so the right opportunities become obvious, and the wrong ones easy to decline.

Without a pros-and-cons list that never resolves anything.
Day 05

A Clear Plan for Your Next Move

Leave with a concrete plan — and the push to actually make it. Then take the Bold Shift Diagnostic — seven questions, three minutes — for an honest read on your next move.

Without guessing at what to fix first.
Send Me Day One

Free. Five emails. No spam — unsubscribe anytime.

Free · 7 Questions · 3 Minutes

Twenty years in — and the next move still isn't obvious?

Seven questions, three minutes, no score — an honest read on what you deserve and the key to your next move, ending with a short personal reading from Melissa. Whether you've worked through the course or you've just arrived, it's a clear place to begin.

Take the Diagnostic
Work With Me

One focused way to work together.

It starts with a Clarity Call — a short conversation to see where you are and whether this work fits. If it does, your engagement opens with The Strategy Session, then unfolds through private Coaching Conversations built around your specific inflection point.

The Flagship Programme

The Bold Shift™

Six private Coaching Conversations

Structured, senior-level recalibration for leaders navigating a full transition — redundancy, pivot, or reinvention. A considered partnership that gives a decision of this weight the room it needs.

  • Clarify what you want next — and what no longer fits
  • Strengthen how you position yourself
  • Prepare for high-stakes conversations
  • Protect energy and decision quality
  • Leave whole — not diminished
Explore The Bold Shift

I also partner selectively with organisations navigating leadership transitions, restructures and high-stakes role entry. Inquiries by referral or invitation — learn more.

What Clients Say
“I thought this would help me navigate the next couple of years. What it’s actually done is position me for the next 10–20 years of my career.”
Sophia — Chief of Staff, Global Communications
“
It’s not about capability — I can do a lot. It’s about capacity and what I actually want. Being able to say ‘I’m capable of this, but I choose not to’ has been one of the most empowering shifts for me.
AmyGlobal Talent Acquisition Leader, France
“
The most powerful thing Melissa said was: ‘my wish is for you to have a good breakup with your company.’ I’m exiting with my head held high, proud of what I built — not bitter or broken.
SereneChief Legal Counsel, APAC
“
Even skilled captains need help with navigation. Melissa helped me translate a proven career into what the market could actually read.
WyattSenior Tech Leader · Offer accepted in three weeks

Behind the words, the outcomes: Andreas secured a 30% raise after learning to name his impact. Marie moved to Head of Business — with a recruiter telling her “I don’t think we can afford you.” Vivienne launched her own consultancy before the programme even ended.

Portrait of Melissa Schmidiger
Why Me

I've spent thirty years on the side of the table that decides careers.

McKinsey, Credit Suisse, Singtel — leading global teams, sitting in the rooms where roles are created, restructured and quietly dissolved. I know how these decisions get made, because I made them. So you get an honest read on what leadership is actually evaluating, not what it says out loud.

I also know the disorientation from the inside. I've rebuilt my life across continents more than once — starting again where my reputation didn't precede me — and stayed in a role longer than I should have, mistaking comfort for loyalty. The vertigo my clients describe when a career shifts is one I've stood in myself.

That's the work now: not open-ended coaching, but structured, senior-level recalibration with someone who's sat on both sides of the decisions you're facing.

ICF CertifiedCertified Resilience CoachGlobal Practice

Read the full story →

Insights

Thinking for leaders at an inflection point.

Essays on the internal dynamics behind career decisions — the quiet ones that keep capable people in place longer than they meant to stay.

On Waiting

The Version You're Waiting For May Never Arrive

Five reorgs and a merger taught me the difference between hope, evidence, and habit — and why the beginning you're waiting for is often one you're allowed to start yourself.

Read → On Visibility

Operationally Indispensable, Strategically Invisible

A client felt it before she could name it: busier than ever, but no longer in the room. Why being useful can quietly move you out of the decisions.

Read → On Loyalty

When Loyalty Starts Costing You Growth

I stayed in a role long after it stopped stretching me — inventing complexity to feel needed. The quiet line between loyalty and inertia, from both sides of the table.

Read →

Clarity changes everything.

If you're at an inflection point, the fastest way to know whether this work fits is a short conversation.

Book a Clarity Call