Certification of Embodied Executive Coaching
You’re already a competent embodiment coach, but… boardrooms can be harder. That’s the bit CEC doesn’t cover.
CEEC is a 3-month live certification for bringing embodiment into executive and organisational work. Choose what fits the person, the room and the actual workplace problem, without watering the work down.
- Design practical workshops for organisations
- Sell and contract with leaders, sponsors and organisational buyers
- Adapt embodied coaching for sceptical, time-poor and referred clients
- Work with leadership pressure, communication, decisions and impact
Not sure it’s a fit? Speak with Virginia
September 9 – December 9
Wednesdays at 5pm UK time
Live online, with recordings
With Mark Walsh & Carolina Padilla
What is embodied executive coaching?
Embodied executive coaching is an approach to executive coaching that works with how a leader’s embodiment, communication and relational habits shape what they actually do at work, rather than what they mean to do. That’s often a different thing entirely.
Sometimes called somatic or body-based executive coaching, it helps leaders notice their habitual patterns, widen their range, and respond with more choice when the stakes are real.
That might look like:
- Maintaining clarity in a conversation that's not going as planned
- Recovering faster after getting blindsided in a meeting
- Being authoritative without sounding like a threat
- Making a call using bodily information alongside the spreadsheet
- Noticing the gap between the impact you intend and the one you're actually having
The body’s already in the room during every leadership decision anyone makes. Whether it’s being coached well is a separate question. In most businesses, it’s not.
Why you can't do your “usual thing”
Something that lands well with your yoga-teacher or “alternative” tech-sector client can fall flat with someone who flew in from back-to-back meetings in Frankfurt.
A sceptical executive on Zoom
Suggest standing up or trying a posture and watch them shift uncomfortably in their ergonomic office chair.
That’s where a seated experiment with pace, voice or attention may help.
The body’s still in the room, the discomfort isn’t.
A leader before a hard conversation
They know exactly what they want to say. Then the moment arrives and they rush it, over-explain, soften the message into mush, or go straight to aggressive.
You help them notice the pattern, try something different, rehearse the actual conversation they’re walking into.
An organisation asks what you do
“I offer embodiment coaching” means something to you and pretty much nothing to the HR director deciding whether to cover your monthly rent.
Try: “I help leaders stay clear and constructive under pressure by noticing their pressure patterns, regulating their state, and communicating with more choice.” Now they get it.
You need range – explicit or subtle, seated or standing, verbal or physical – depending on the person in front of you, not just to throw out your favourite tool. CEEC will help you to develop that.
The CEEC Translation Framework
CEEC teaches you to start with your client’s actual situation, not with the tool you’re excited to run.
1. Start with the professional situation
What’s happening, why does it matter, what does this person need to do differently?
2. Spot the embodied pattern
How might state, posture, breath, attention or relational habits be involved? This is held loosely, as a working hypothesis, not a verdict on what somebody’s shoulders “really mean.”
3. Pick the smallest intervention that'll actually help
Sometimes that’s a question. Sometimes it’s a seated experiment. It could even be the full 4 Elements Bodystorm… but that’s more likely for when there’s trust and it’s earned.
4. Get it back into the actual work
Connect the session to the meeting, decision, or conversation this person is walking back into this afternoon.
Relevance comes before technique, and consent before depth.
You’ll get more from doing this well with three tools than doing it badly with thirty.
Books, podcasts, videos and AI can provide more coaching questions and exercises than anybody could use.
The harder part is deciding what fits this person, how to introduce it, how far to go and how to turn the learning into different behaviour at work.
CEEC develops that discernment.
What you’ll actually learn in this executive coaching certification
Adapt embodied coaching methods for business
Learn to keep what makes a tool land while adapting it for the room you’re in.
You’ll build seated, subtle, camera-friendly versions of centring, the 4 Elements and Embodied Toolkit postures whilst learning to read when someone’s ready for more and when they very much are not.
Expect to make embodiment usable, not bland. There’s already enough bland leadership training in the world.
Coach leadership presence, pressure, communication, decisions and impact
Leadership happens inside hierarchy, politics and an audience that’s often too scared to give someone honest feedback once they’re senior enough.
You’ll develop range for presence and authority, pressure and reactivity, hard conversations, boundaries, embodied decision-making, and reading how a room actually experiences someone versus how that person thinks they’re coming across.
Spoiler: it’s rarely the same thing.
Design embodied leadership workshops for organisations
A good workshop solves a real problem, shows what you do, and opens the door to more work.
You’ll build an actual workshop with a real audience, real workplace problem, realistic outcomes and activities framed so nobody bolts for the door.
This is something you can propose, run, and refine, not just describe at parties.
Create clearer executive coaching offers
For individuals that means who you help, how you explain embodiment without losing them in the first sentence, how to structure an engagement, price it, and survive a discovery call.
For organisations we’ll add communicating with buyers, sponsors and stakeholders, along with procurement and making proposals.
You can do all of this without becoming a hard-selling corporate robot. Clear language and a sensible offer get you further than either hippie vagueness or a laminated sales script.
What you'll leave with
By the end of CEEC, you’ll have more range with executive and organisational clients, plus a better sense of what fits, how far to go, what to adapt, when to leave well alone, and how to connect it back to their actual work.
- A practical, mainstream-friendly embodied workshop
- An adapted method you can use with executive or organisational clients
- Better discernment about when and how to use embodied methods… and what probably is “too much”
- Clearer coaching offers for individuals and organisations
- Ways to do “the weird stuff” without freaking your client out (or losing the contract)
- Greater awareness of how you respond to authority, selling and professional visibility
You should also be better able to explain the work, contract professionally and connect embodied patterns to real leadership situations.
Over three months you’ll gain a much stronger framework for corporate work, combine concrete new tools with useful applications of old ones, and have a noticeably lower chance of getting escorted out of a boardroom.
CEEC curriculum: 14 live sessions, 4 stages
Stage 1: Understand and sell the work
Weeks 1-3 cover what this actually is, how to talk about it, and how to get someone to pay you for it.
1. What embodied executive coaching actually is
Where this sits next to consulting, mentoring and therapy, plus why that matters more than you’d think.
- How executive coaching differs from private coaching, consulting, mentoring and therapy
- The client-sponsor-organisation triangle, confidentiality, professional scope and the basics of three-way contracting
2. Selling embodied executive coaching to leaders
Selling embodied executive coaching to leaders
3. Understanding organisations and selling embodied executive coaching to them
Selling to a person is hard enough. Selling to a committee is a different sport.
- How organisational selling differs from selling to an individual
- Buyers, stakeholders, proposals, purchasing processes, sponsor expectations, and workshops as a route into further work
Stage 2: Adapt and translate embodiment
In weeks 4-6 you’ll turn what you already know into something a sceptical exec won’t flinch at.
4. Setting goals with corporate clients
“More confidence” isn’t a goal. Here’s how to make it one.
- Turn vague aims like “more confidence” or “better leadership” into real situations, visible behaviour and something you can actually notice changing
- Work out what matters to the client, what matters to the organisation, and where those two overlap
- Handle the gap between what the client wants and what the sponsor is paying for without casually destroying confidentiality
5. Adapting what you already know
Same tools, new room – online, seated, sceptical, fifteen minutes before their next call.
- Adapt CEC, Embodied Toolkit and other methods by changing the form, intensity or duration
- Work with online clients, seated clients, limited time, different cultures and different levels of willingness to do “the weird stuff”
- Use language and models the client or organisation already understands rather than insisting they learn yours first
6. Anti-"woo"-fu: translating embodiment for business
How to say what you mean without a HR director’s eyes glazing over.
- Use the CEEC Translation Framework to explain embodied work in language a business audience actually absorbs
- Start with the real work problem, make embodiment relevant, introduce the method well and connect it back to what the client actually does
- Learn when to explain more, explain less, change the language or leave your favourite terminology at home
Stage 3: Coach leadership challenges
Weeks 7-11 are the actual coaching. Pressure, power, teams, and the parts nobody tells senior people to their face.
7. Centring, resilience and performance under pressure
Regulation for meetings, presentations, conflict and the “inbox spirals”.
- Centring, regulation and nervous-system awareness for meetings, presentations, feedback, conflict and hard decisions
- Pacing, trauma-aware practice, professional scope and what to do if an exercise starts making things worse rather than better
8. Leadership, communication and team-building
The 4 Elements, but for people who’ll never say the words “the 4 Elements” out loud at work.
- Use the 4 Elements and related models to build leadership range, communication flexibility and team awareness
- Take familiar team or personality models and make them more embodied and less like PowerPoint
- Apply the work to feedback, conflict, group dynamics and different ways of leading
9. Confidence, boundaries and embodied decision-making
Saying no, holding a line, and making the call nobody wants to make.
- Work with saying no, holding a position, difficult feedback and unpopular decisions
- Bring bodily information together with evidence, values, risk, strategy and consequences rather than pretending your gut is always right
10. Coaching senior leaders: power, authority and complexity
Nobody tells the CEO the truth. You might be the only one who can.
- Power, status, politics, isolation, competing demands and the greater consequences that come with seniority
- How limited honest feedback shapes leaders – and how your own response to authority can quietly shape the coaching
11. Leadership impact and charisma
What they think they’re projecting vs what the room’s actually receiving.
- Compare intended impact with what other people actually experience
- Look at common leadership models and what changes when you bring the body into them
- Use observation, rehearsal and feedback to build presence, warmth, authority and influence
Stage 4: Design your approach, develop yourself
Weeks 12-14 bring it together into something that’s actually yours.
12. Designing workshops for business and government
Build the workshop you’ll actually pitch after this ends.
- Design a practical workshop for a real audience and a real organisational problem
- Build useful outcomes, embodied activities, participation choices, sensible timing and follow-up
- Think about who needs to be happy with it, what feedback you need and what happens after everybody goes back to work
13. Your own business embodiment
How you sell, price and hold a boundary says as much as any technique you teach.
- Look at how your own embodiment shows up around selling, pricing, authority, boundaries and senior people
- Notice your favourite patterns – over-accommodating, collapsing, inflating, performing, disappearing – and practise something more useful
- Notice the values and assumptions you bring into different organisations and clients. What feels completely obvious to you may not be obvious to them
14. Creative integration: your own approach
Bring it all together into something that sounds like you, not like a manual.
- Adapt or combine methods for a real professional situation
- Refine your language, workshop, offer or coaching process and check the ethical edges
- Practise ending coaching and workshops cleanly – integrate the learning, get useful feedback and make the next step clear
- Decide what you actually want to take forward after CEEC
How the sessions actually work
The live sessions run for 50 minutes every Wednesday for 14 weeks. They’re at 5pm UK time (usually 12pm ET / 9am PT).
Expect the mix to shift week-to-week:
Learn
Some weeks you're mostly listening – a framework, a distinction, insights into Mark or Caro's own coaching experience.
Practise
Other weeks you're watching it done live on a real case or uncomfortably trying it live.
Build
Threaded through all of it: you're building your own offer, your own workshop, your own version of this, rather than copying some trademarked coaching method.
September 9 – December 9
50 minutes, Wed 5pm UK time
14 live recorded sessions
30-60mins practice most weeks
What certification actually requires
About 1.5-2 hours per week.
Live attendance is recommended, especially for demonstrations, discussion and practice.
Can’t make a Wednesday? Use the recording and complete any catch-up activity we give you. Life happens.
Certification requires a bit more than just showing up, but a lot less than CEC (if you’ve done that with us). You’ll need to:
- Complete the teaching live or through recordings
- Complete any catch-up work for sessions you miss
- Actually try the methods - there is no fixed client-hours requirement
- Submit a short portfolio with practice reflections, your executive coaching offer, your organisational workshop and one real application to a client or organisational situation
Is this executive coaching course right for you?
CEEC may be a strong fit if:
- You have completed an embodiment coaching course and want to take the work into business
- You already coach leaders, founders, managers or professionals
- You want to move towards executive or organisational coaching
- You have substantial coaching experience and a meaningful embodiment foundation
- You want clearer offers, a practical workshop and a more personal professional approach
- You are willing to practise and complete applied work
CEEC is probably not the right fit if:
- You need foundational coach training
- You have little or no coaching experience
- You have no meaningful embodiment or body-based background
- You want a certificate without applied work
You do not need previous corporate employment or an existing list of executive clients.
You do need enough coaching and embodiment experience to benefit from advanced specialist training.
Professional work needs professional boundaries
Executive coaching usually means more than one person “in the room”, even when it’s just you and your client. Sponsors, HR or managers can all be involved, and their interests don’t always line up neatly with each other or with yours.
Across the programme, you’ll work through:
Confidentiality
Organisational power and the agendas that don’t get said out loud
Contracting
Client and sponsor contracting, plus what “confidential” actually covers when someone else is paying the invoice
Organisational power / consent
Consent and genuinely voluntary participation (this isn’t always clear in corporate settings!)
Scope / referral
Professional scope, trauma-aware practice, supervision, and knowing when to refer out
This isn’t just a caveat. It does make a difference between a coach who’s useful in a boardroom and one who accidentally becomes the reason someone’s meeting with their HR manager.
Taught from embodiment and corporate experience
CEEC is taught by Mark Walsh and Carolina Padilla.
Mark Walsh
Founder of Embodiment Unlimited
You already know Mark (unfortunately).
He’s nearly two decades into teaching this stuff in 50-odd countries.
He’s worked with hundreds of organisations including IKEA, Google, The House of Lords, Unilever, L’Oréal, Shell, AXA, the NHS, Liberty Global, Oxfam, various militaries and every industry from law to banking to tech to engineering.
You get the idea…
Carolina Padilla
Leadership & Wellbeing Coaching
You may also know Carolina Padilla.
She has 15+ years running strategy, consulting and country/regional management across Latin America, along with being the Country GM making the actual call on the turnaround.
Since 2020 she’s coached women leaders and organisations on embodied leadership and decision-making, whilst more recently she’s been Course Manager and Assistant Trainer on CEC.
Built around problems coaches are already meeting
CEEC has been shaped around difficulties coaches reported when bringing embodiment into business and leadership work.
Clients may understand the theory yet hesitate to practise it:
- Visible movement can feel awkward online
- Some methods reach vulnerability too quickly
- Familiar tools can also be hard to explain in language an executive or organisational buyer will understand
The curriculum responds through method adaptation, business-friendly translation, goal-setting, work with power and seniority, and the development of the coach’s own professional embodiment.
Bonuses
EMbodied Marketing course
Have Mark check your website
Enrol in our embodied executive coaching certification
Join the founding Certification of Embodied Executive Coaching:
- 14 live online sessions, Sep 9 - Dec 9
- Recordings of every session
- Development of your executive coaching workshop
- Cases, demonstrations & live practice
- Certification as an embodied executive coach
Normal tuition
$2,000
Summer sale tuition until September 9
$1190
You’ll be taken to the secure payment page. Not sure whether CEEC fits your work? Talk it through with Virginia.
Frequently asked questions
Is embodied executive coaching the same as somatic executive coaching?
The terms overlap.
“Somatic” and “body-based” coaching are commonly used for approaches that include bodily awareness and experience.
We generally use embodiment coaching because the work also includes behaviour, relationships, meaning and context.
How is CEEC different from CEC?
CEC gives you the broader foundation in embodiment coaching.
CEEC is about taking that foundation into executive, leadership and organisational work.
That includes:
- Translating embodied work into business-friendly language
- Professional contracting and confidentiality
- Selling to individuals and organisations
- Leadership pressure, authority and impact
- Executive coaching offers and organisational workshops
- Your own embodiment around authority, selling and professional visibility
CEC gives you the foundations. CEEC teaches you how to use them in a different room.
How is embodied executive coaching different from conventional executive coach training?
Conventional executive coaching programmes may focus more on organisational models, leadership theory and contracting.
Embodied executive coaching (as CEEC certifies you for) specialises in how state, bodily patterns and relational habits affect leadership, along with how embodied methods can be adapted so they’re useful and credible with leaders and organisations.
It complements rather than replaces broader executive coach training.
Who can join CEEC?
CEC graduates can enrol directly. Recent and earlier graduates don’t need a separate application.
CEEC is also included in the relevant intake of Masters of Embodiment Coaching (MEC).
Experienced coaches who haven’t completed CEC may be admitted in exceptional circumstances.
We’d normally expect:
- Substantial coaching experience
- Ideally, a recognised coaching qualification
- A meaningful embodiment, somatic, movement or body-based foundation
- A sound understanding of professional scope and boundaries
We may ask for more information, a short conversation or some preparatory work before you join.
Do I need corporate experience or existing executive clients?
No.
You don’t need to have worked in a corporation, and you don’t need a ready-made list of CEOs waiting for you.
You do need enough coaching and embodiment experience to benefit from advanced specialist training.
CEEC is designed partly to help you make the move into this kind of work more credibly.
Should I take CEEC on its own or through MEC?
Choose standalone CEEC if executive and organisational coaching is the specialist area you mainly want to develop.
Choose MEC if you want the wider 18-month advanced pathway: CEEC plus four other specialist certifications, ongoing supervision, mentoring and practice.
If you’re already enrolled in the relevant MEC intake, CEEC is included.
You can also start with CEEC and continue into MEC later.
If you enrol in MEC within 12 months of the CEEC semester start date, the amount paid for standalone CEEC can be credited towards qualifying MEC tuition.
The credit is non-transferable, has no cash value and can only be used once. Full details are in the CEEC and MEC terms.
What happens after I enrol?
You’ll get programme access, joining information and the live-session schedule through Simplero starting September 2 when the platform opens. You’ll get a simple confirmation before then.
Before we begin, we’ll explain:
- Participation and practice
- What happens if you miss a session
- The applied portfolio
- Certification requirements
Your methods, executive coaching offer, organisational workshop and final approach are developed through the programme.
You don’t need to arrive with all of that sorted already.
What if I can't attend live?
Live attendance is recommended, particularly for demonstrations, discussion and practice.
If a Wednesday genuinely doesn’t work (you’re an Aussie or something), you can use the recording and complete any required catch-up activity.
Recordings remain available for as long as we exist.
What is required for certification?
You’ll need to:
- Complete the teaching live or through recordings
- Complete any required catch-up work
- Practise and apply the methods
- Submit the professional portfolio
The portfolio includes practice reflections, your executive coaching offer, your organisational workshop, plus a real application to a client or organisational situation.
How much does CEEC cost?
Early-bird tuition is $990 USD until September 2.
From September 3:
- $1,190 USD paid in full
- Or 3 monthly payments of $425 USD
Total instalment cost: $1,275 USD.
Prices are shown in USD. Other currency options may be available through Simplero, with the full amount shown before you buy.
When does enrolment close?
CEEC starts on September 9.
You can still join after the first session, but final enrolment closes on September 16 before the second live session at 5 pm UK time.
If you join late, you’ll get the first recording, course materials and any catch-up work you need.
Is CEEC externally accredited?
No.
CEEC is a specialist certification issued by Embodiment Unlimited. It is not an externally accredited executive coaching qualification.
Does CEEC qualify me to provide therapy or trauma treatment?
No.
We cover trauma-aware scope, consent, pacing and referral because these matter in responsible coaching.
CEEC does not qualify you to diagnose or treat trauma or provide psychotherapy.
Will CEEC help me find executive or organisational coaching clients?
CEEC covers positioning, discovery conversations, offers, workshops, proposals, pricing and selling to organisational buyers.
It should leave you clearer about what you offer and better equipped to pursue this kind of work.
How you use that is up to you.
What are the refund, deferral and MEC-credit conditions?
Enrolment is governed by Embodiment Unlimited’s general Terms and Conditions, plus the following course-specific conditions.
Certification
CEEC certification is awarded by Embodiment Unlimited.
To receive the certification, you’ll need to complete the conditions stated above.
Simply attending the sessions does not guarantee certification.
Moving from CEEC into MEC
You can take CEEC as a standalone certification and move into the Masters of Embodiment Coaching later.
If you enrol in MEC within 12 months of the CEEC semester start date, the amount you paid for standalone CEEC can be credited towards qualifying MEC tuition.
The CEEC-to-MEC credit:
Applies only to qualifying MEC tuition
Is limited to the amount actually paid for standalone CEEC
Is non-transferable
Has no cash value
Can only be used once
If CEEC was already included as part of your MEC enrolment, there is no additional standalone CEEC credit to apply.
Refunds, cancellations and deferrals
Any refund, cancellation or deferral rights are governed by Embodiment Unlimited’s general Terms and Conditions.
Do not assume a refund, cancellation or deferral is available unless those terms provide for it.
Bring embodiment into work leaders and organisations can use
Learn to translate embodied tools, coach real leadership situations and develop an offer, workshop and approach you can take into organisational work.
