FAQs
What does Emerald Coaching & Consulting do?
Emerald Coaching & Consulting offers two services: personal and professional coaching, and strategic HR advisory consulting. Coaching supports individuals and leaders through growth, transition, and reinvention. Consulting supports CEOs, boards, investors, and executive teams through high-stakes leadership and talent decisions. Both are led by Diane Schulz, a former CHRO with more than 30 years of executive experience.
Who is Diane Schulz?
Diane Schulz is the founder of Emerald Coaching & Consulting, a former Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), and an advisor to CEOs, boards, and executive teams. She has more than 30 years of executive experience across public, private, and ESOP companies, spanning strategy, finance, sales, and senior HR leadership, including CEO transitions, executive succession, and M&A due diligence and integration. She is also an iPEC-certified coach and a certified ELI Master Practitioner (ELI-MP).
What is the difference between coaching and consulting at Emerald?
Coaching is for individuals: leaders, professionals, and people navigating a transition who want a thinking partner for personal and career growth. Consulting is for organizations: CEOs, boards, private equity firms, and executive teams who need strategic HR and leadership advisory support for a specific high-stakes decision. Coaching is ongoing and personal. Consulting is engagement-based and organizational.
Who is coaching for?
Coaching is for leaders, professionals, founders, and individuals who are ready to think more deeply about where they are and where they're headed. Clients typically come to coaching from one of four places: leading at the top and needing to sustain energy and intentionality, climbing into greater leadership responsibility, navigating a transition or uncertain decision point, or reinventing their career or life after burnout or a shift in priorities.
What happens in a coaching engagement?
Coaching begins with a Discovery conversation to talk through where the client is, what they want, and what may be getting in the way. From there, Diane partners with the client in an ongoing process built around honest reflection, clearer thinking, and intentional action. Diane is an iPEC-certified coach, and the approach is a partnership rather than a prescription.
What is the Energy Leadership™ Index (ELI) assessment?
The Energy Leadership™ Index (ELI) is an attitudinal assessment, created by iPEC, that measures how a person leads and shows up in relationships during everyday situations and under stress. Unlike personality assessments such as Myers-Briggs or the Enneagram, the ELI measures energy levels, which shift moment to moment, rather than fixed personality traits. It has been recognized by the Forbes Coaches Council as one of the assessments every executive should take.
How does the ELI assessment process work?
The ELI process has two steps. First, the client completes a confidential online assessment that takes about 20 minutes. Second, Diane, a certified ELI Master Practitioner (ELI-MP), leads a debrief session to walk through the results and what they reveal.
What other ELI assessment options are available?
Beyond the individual ELI, Emerald offers the Energy Leadership Index® 360, which pairs a self-assessment with feedback from colleagues, direct reports, peers, or personal relationships to show the gap between self-perception and how others experience the leader. The ELI Team Assessment has each team member complete the ELI individually, with results aggregated into a team profile to build shared language and surface patterns affecting team performance.
Who does Emerald's consulting work serve?
Consulting engagements serve CEOs, founders, and senior executive leaders, boards and compensation committees, private equity firms and portfolio company leadership, and CHROs and executive HR leaders. Engagements typically center on high-stakes leadership, talent, and organizational decisions during periods of growth, transition, or heightened complexity.
What areas does Emerald's consulting cover?
Consulting covers four main areas: CEO and board advisory (people strategy, leadership risk, executive team design, succession planning, compensation and incentive design), executive team effectiveness (team assessment, succession planning, CEO and CHRO transition support), M&A and private equity advisory (human capital due diligence, post-transaction integration, executive retention), and interim or advisory HR support (fractional CHRO leadership, strategic counsel, independent perspective on HR function performance).
Does Emerald offer interim or fractional CHRO services?
Yes. Emerald provides interim and advisory HR leadership support, including fractional CHRO leadership, strategic counsel for CHROs, and guidance on high-stakes people decisions, for organizations that need experienced executive HR support on a short-term or targeted basis.
How do I get started?
The first step is a free consultation. From there, Diane will talk through whether coaching, consulting, or an ELI assessment is the right fit.
Is coaching only for people in a career crisis?
No. Coaching supports people at many different points, including leaders sustaining performance at a high level, professionals climbing into more responsibility, people navigating a transition, and people reinventing their career or life after a shift in priorities or burnout. It is not limited to crisis moments.