Executive coaching & private advisory
Vana Cristina is an executive coach and private advisor to founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs and senior leaders who want extraordinary success without sacrificing their peace.
Her work sits at the intersection of leadership, decision-making, relationships, identity, intuition and the major transitions of a life and a business.
The philosophy
Ambition and inner peace are not opposites. The belief that you must be stressed in order to be serious is the most expensive assumption in modern leadership.
Read the philosophy →Urgency and anxiety are not the same fuel. One moves a company forward; the other only makes the days louder. Most leaders I work with are already driven — what they need is a quieter engine, not a bigger one.
Authority is mostly composure. The leader who can sit with a hard week without flinching makes better decisions, and everyone around them can feel it.
The marriage, the friendships, the children, your own health — these are not the cost of the company. When they are treated as the cost, the company eventually pays it back with interest.
Vana helps high-performing leaders create clarity, make better decisions, navigate relationships and transitions, and build lives that feel as successful on the inside as they look from outside.
The work
How you carry the seat you are in — presence, authority, and what changes in a company when the person at the top stops leading from fear.
The decision that has been circling for months, made properly: slower where it deserves slowness, faster where hesitation is the real risk.
Co-founders, leadership teams, marriages and families. Private life is where most decisions are actually made, and where the cost of ambition first shows.
Who you are underneath the role, and what happens to that person if the company fails — or, more unsettlingly, if it succeeds.
The signal experienced leaders feel before they can justify it. Vana takes it seriously, and turns it into something you can act on.
Exits, succession, a move, a separation, a loss. The turning points that arrive whether or not the quarter is convenient.
Ways to work together
For senior leaders, and for companies who want their leaders coached properly. Presence, decision-making, and the patterns that shape how someone leads.
For founders whose company and identity have become the same problem. Vana has built and exited companies herself.
For chief executives carrying a company, a board and a leadership team. One impartial counterpart, entirely off the record.
Strategic thought partnership on the business itself: the opportunity in plain sight, positioning, introductions, and the next move.
About Vana
Vana Cristina holds an MBA from Oxford. She has built and exited companies and trained in relationship coaching and transformational work.
Her clients tend to be people who have already achieved a great deal and who are quietly considering what comes next — a company entering a harder chapter, a marriage, a succession, a move, a rebuilding. She holds those conversations with equal care whether they concern work, relationship, or the shape of a life.
She works by introduction and inquiry, and keeps her practice small by design.
More about Vana →From clients
“I first met Vana when she was advising the company I worked for. What I didn't expect was how quickly she would understand me on a human level. That combination of real professional relatability alongside a genuine feel for the person in front of her is a rare gift, and it is a significant part of why I trust her.”
Her insight is next level. She asks the kind of questions that open doors you didn't know were there, and she has an ability to see patterns and articulate them in a way no one else has been able to do for me.
I would recommend Vana to anyone moving through a season of transition. I came to her in the midst of one: I had recently lost a parent while navigating a significant career and financial shift. She offered exactly the perspective I needed. One session with Vana proved more powerful than the months of therapy I had been doing alongside it — and far more worthwhile.
— Jen Kim
“I came to Vana during a time when I was navigating a lot of change and uncertainty in my life, and she has been such an incredible source of support. What makes Vana so special is how genuinely she cares — I've always felt that her advice and encouragement came from a place of truly wanting the best for me.
She knew when I needed perspective, when I needed encouragement, and when I simply needed someone in my corner. She helped me work through some difficult moments without ever making me feel judged or pressured to have everything figured out.
Over the past several months, I've found so much more confidence, clarity, and excitement about the direction my life is taking, and Vana has absolutely been a part of that. She is one of the best cheerleaders you could ever have in your corner.”
— Claire Sala
Send Vana a private note about what you are navigating — she reads every inquiry herself. Or speak with the Concierge first, if you would rather ask a few questions before you write.