Ever heard of an Olympic medalist who didn’t have a performance coach?
No, neither have we.
Professional athletes use coaches to help improve performance across the physical and psychological domains that are intrinsic to competitive success.
High-performance coaching is increasingly a feature of the investment world, too. A growing number of investment decision-makers now use one-to-one performance coaching to refine and develop their personal investment approach, or to overcome individual challenges and take their careers to the next level.  Â
Because finding the right investment coach can be difficult, we’ve compiled a list of independent, highly-qualified investment coaches for your consideration.Â
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To strengthen decision-making skill using data from your own investment activity, why not explore working with an Essentia Insight Partner?
Part of the Essentia Insight service, our Insight Partners are experienced former portfolio managers who will understand your individual process and help you integrate the behavioral opportunities revealed by our analytics. Find out more
“Getting a coach to help you improve is as imperative in fund management as it is in elite sport.”
Mick Dillon, CFA
Portfolio manager, Brown Advisory
Recommended Investment Coaches
Denise Shull – Performance Coach
Denise Shull’s Wall Street career began in 1994 when she joined one of the first electronic trading firms in Chicago. She then traded at Schonfeld Securities before she was recruited to move to New York to run her own desk at Sharpe Capital.
In 2003, an academic journal published her pioneering University of Chicago master’s thesis “The Neurobiology of Freud’s Repetition Compulsion.” This led Denise to discover the then-emerging research indicating that, contrary to popular belief, emotion is required for perception, judgment and decision-making.
She founded The ReThink Group in 2006 to apply this radical finding to the problem of market and risk decision-making. The Shull Method, based on modern psychoanalysis and the science of anticipatory affect, is outlined in her 2012 book, Market Mind Games: A Radical Psychology of Investing, Trading and Risk which has been reviewed as the “best of its genre” and a “veritable Rosetta Stone of trading psychology.”
In 2016, Ms. Shull’s consulting company added professional athletes to their client roster, and today also work with Broadway directors and sports agents in addition to investing firms.
Coaching delivery options:
Dr. Gio Valiante – Performance Coach
Gio Valiante, Ph.D. is an expert in the area of ultimate human performance as applied to business, finance and sports. In golf he has been the sport psychologist for some of the game’s best players including Jack Nicklaus, Davis Love III, Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose and Matt Kuchar.
He has been named:
- Sport Psychologist of the Year by The Golf Channel.
- Top 40 Under 40 to Influence the Game of Golf by Golf Magazine.
- The #2 Sport Psychologist in the world by Golf Digest.
His players have won over 50 PGA Tour Events in the past 15 years.
Dr. Gio is the author of two books, Fearless Golf and Golf Flow, and his work has been featured in Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, Good Morning America, ESPN, The Financial Times and Time Magazine. Dr. Gio also spent the past 5 years as the resident performance coach for Point72 Asset Management, as well as the Buffalo Bills, where his unique brand of psychology helped the Bills break a 17-year playoff drought.
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Christine Scordato – Performance Coach
As a skilled coach, facilitator and program designer with more than 25 years of experience working with investors, Christine has a deep understanding of the challenges portfolio managers, CIOs and senior leaders within asset management face as they grapple with developing investors to thrive and deliver superior investment outcomes. Always grounded in data, Christine uses a variety of tools and assessments including: Hogan, Risk Compass, Gallup Clifton Strengthsfinder, Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) and Immunity to Change, pragmatically customizing each engagement to provide clients with the maximum insights efficiently. She is also certified as an International Systemic Team Coach through the U.K.- based Academy of Executive Coaching.
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Dr. Andrew Menaker – Performance Coach
A licensed clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. and extensive experience in performance enhancement techniques, Dr. Menaker has been a high performance coach for traders, portfolio managers and executives at banks, hedge funds and proprietary trading firms since 1995. His clients are among the top professional investors in the world.
Andrew’s approach effectively translates recent neuroscience research into actionable steps that improve performance. He uses a variety of methods to change one’s response to risk and opportunity, using emotion as a source of information and understanding unconscious motivations. He addresses the mind-body connection, so may include biofeedback, as well as assisting clients in creative and intuitive development.
Andrew is based in San Francisco and coaches globally.
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Steven Goldstein – Performance Coach
Steven Goldstein has 25 years of experience in the trenches as a trader with some of the world’s leading investment banks, which he leverages in coaching traders to “sharpen their edge” through playing to their personal strengths.
Steven specializes in helping people enhance and improve their work as risk-takers, whilst helping them develop the confidence and self-belief to overcome the challenges that inhibit them from achieving their full potential.
Central to his approach is a strong focus on enhancing the internal relationship between the emotional and intellectual aspects of trading, thus facilitating improved decision-making, confidence and self-belief, whilst working to alleviate some of the negative traits which hold traders back and undermine their performance.
Steven is based in London and coaches globally.
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Alan Winters, CFA – Performance Coach
Alan has a deep understanding of what it takes to manage and grow an investment management firm. He began coaching after a highly successful career in the hedge fund industry having been an analyst, portfolio manager, Chief Investment Officer and Chief Operating Officer. His coaching clients know that Alan “gets it”; he listens well, asks insightful questions and helps them excel in a uniquely challenging business. He remains very connected to the markets as an investor in public markets, hedge funds, PE and venture capital.
Alan is a CFA and has an MBA from Wharton and a BS from Lehigh. He splits his time between New York and Wyoming.
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Alex Green, PCC – Executive Coach
Experienced in building and growing investment management firms, Alex understands what it takes to succeed within the industry. He began coaching investment executives after a successful equities career spanning 25 years — having been part of the senior leadership team at one of the first activist hedge funds, Relational Investors. In addition to his executive coaching practice, Alex is a member of the coaching faculty at The Wharton School of business where he enjoys working with the next generation of corporate leaders. Coaching clients find Alex “easy to talk to” due to his direct and candid approach which helps them gain new perspectives on old challenges. Alex’s coaching specializes in career transitions, leadership effectiveness and investment team collaboration.
Alex is credentialed by the ICF as a Professional Certified Coach. He holds a BA in Economics and Philosophy from Union College.
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Sarah Steventon – Performance Coach
Sarah Steventon is a psychotherapist with a background in neuroscience. She combines neuropsychology, clever techniques and analysis of a natural brain process called neuroplasticity to deliver cutting-edge therapy. With Sarah’s approach, clients have the ability to remove, with precision, the issues that cause around 90% of their negative outcomes.
Sarah goes beyond the conscious and technical sides of investing to address the psychology of fear and how to remove it. She believes her clients are already exceptional when they come to her — they just need the ability to only use their “smart brain” when trading instead of making fear-based, knee-jerk decisions that destroy alpha.
Sarah’s unique style helps investors achieve an optimal mindset and a competitive edge. Her success has earned her a nickname among clients: “The Wizard.”
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Lalita Raman – Performance Coach
With two decades of hands-on experience as an investment banker, risk manager, structurer and sales trader, Lalita Raman transitioned to a professional certified coach in 2012 to help investment managers and traders enhance their personal effectiveness by amplifying their strengths, uplifting their self-confidence and empowering them to realize their full potential.
Lalita draws on her own experiences and her INSEAD program thesis on Transitions to coach her clients. She empowers them to better understand, manage and work through the personal and human side of change related to markets, roles and external environments in a way that enables them to take risks and amplify what they are good at. Lalita has several coaching accreditations that she blends in during sessions and tailors to the needs of every client.
Clients find Lalita’s style candid, empathetic and supportive. She is a PCC-certified coach with the ICF and also has a Masters in Change from INSEAD.
Lalita is based in Hong Kong and provides coaching to a global audience.
Coaching delivery options:
Janet Larsen – Business Psychologist & Executive Coach
Janet’s coaching is informed by a unique combination of experience, including researching the psychology of thinking at Stanford and Oxford Universities, doing clinical work in a variety of settings, and 16 years of applying a psychological perspective to the selection and monitoring of fundamentally driven, active portfolio managers on behalf of asset owners. In 2015, she pivoted away from sitting in judgement on asset managers to working with them to raise their game.
Janet’s knowledge of the inner workings of hundreds of asset management firms around the globe means she knows intimately the challenges faced, including making decisions of conviction in a context of uncertainty, reconciling conflicting timelines and pressures from various stakeholders, shaping and leveraging winning teams, and communicating with clients at the best and the worst of times.
Janet understands how important it is for portfolio managers to withstand the pressures of constant scrutiny while maintaining the humility and courage of conviction. This can deplete cognitive/emotional reserves, which can in turn influence decision-making and performance. Most portfolio managers believe psychology is hugely important to fund management, yet few seek targeted, sustained support in this regard. This is where an edge can be gained.
Clients retain Janet to support them in enhancing investment thinking and behavior, working with and around organizational issues, and increasing interpersonal effectiveness. Frequent areas of impact include:
- Sustaining cognitive emotional resilience.
- Decision-making.
- Reflective investment practice and deliberate, continuous process improvement.
- Team dynamics.
- Leadership and succession.
Coaching delivery options:
Even Keel Trading –Â Performance Coaching Partnership
Based in Chicago, Mark Paulik and Ken Celiano of Even Keel Trading have been coaching professional investors for 10 years. Using their trader-tested coaching process, Poised 2 Perform, they help independent traders, proprietary groups and portfolio managers around the world attain a psychological edge. The Even Keel coaching approach is unique in its split, yet integrated, focus on the technical and psychological contexts of trading. Mark and Ken integrate a client’s outer market observations and execution decisions with “inner market” understanding of emotional and memory relevant data.
Ken Celiano, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist who coaches high performers who operate in high pressure situations. He is passionate about taking them on deep dives toward their “inner market” to appreciate how emotion, memory and decision-making converge into coherent and strategic execution. Ken’s approach combines relevant research and experience from behavioral finance, neuroeconomics, emotional regulation, personality profiling and stress management, and both on psychology and biometric data.
Mark Paulik, MBA is an independent trader and performance coach who utilizes a variety of manual, gray and black box strategies to assist high performers. From his start at a top private technical analysis firm in Chicago, Mark has evolved to providing integrated feedback by tracking relevant market generated data with chart analytics.
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Mindfulness at Work – Mindfulness Training and Coaching
Led by former investment analyst and fund manager Louise Chester, Mindfulness at Work offers group, team and 1:1 mindfulness training and coaching to help clients reach greater levels of both self-awareness and mental clarity, enable greater effectiveness and focus, and become more resilient, both physically and emotionally.
The Mindfulness at Work team consists of highly experienced, accredited mindfulness practitioners who have all held senior positions in organizations. Their tried and tested proprietary training and coaching methods are not only quick and effective, but also create lasting positive change.
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Don’t see the sort of coach you want? Let us know at [email protected]