Krishna Kumar is a pioneer in the sphere of Leadership and Executive Coaching in India. In a career spanning over three decades Krishna Kumar has donned various hats where he has served as a corporate executive, an entrepreneur, a sports coach, a B-school professor, independent board member and an Executive Coach.
Corporate & Entrepreneurial career
He started his corporate career in the early 80’s with Madura Coats, the Indian arm of British textile multinational Coats Viyella, and at the relatively young age of 34 was appointed Commercial Director (Middle East). He held ex-pat postings based in Istanbul and later Dubai, with profit centre responsibility for operations in 13 countries in the region.
Having tasted early corporate success, he ventured into the entrepreneurial world and set up businesses that included textile consulting, direct-to-home marketing and a CRM technology service.
Sports Coaching
Alongside, his passion for tennis coaching resulted in his founding the Kinesis Tennis Academy, an organization that is today rated amongst India’s premier professional tennis training institutes. An USPTR (United States Professional Tennis Registry) certified tennis coaching professional for over two decades, he has received the USPTR India President’s award and the 2011 USPTR Coach of the Year award.
Krishna Kumar has coached India’s finest tennis players like Vishnu Vardhan, who represented India at the London Olympics in 2012, and many other budding tennis players and athletes.
Journey as an Executive Coach
In the early 2000’s, discovering and being deeply inspired by the seminal work of legendary tennis coach, Timothy Gallwey, he began his career as an executive coach with a desire to support others in their journey towards performing to their potential. He developed his Inner Coach methodology that merged concepts and practices from sports psychology and organizational behavior to effectively improve performance of senior executives in the corporate and business world.
In June 2013, Krishna Kumar had the privilege to co-present on the topic Awakened Leadership jointly with Sir John Whitmore at the International Leadership and Coaching Conference 2013, Bangalore, hosted by his company, the Intrad School of Executive Coaching.
John Whitmore, who in his early days was trained by Timothy Gallwey, is widely regarded as the World’s No.1 Business Coach.
The Founder Director of the Intrad School of Executive Coaching (ISEC), a subsidiary of Intrad Consult Pvt Ltd, Bangalore (India), Krishna Kumar is also a Partner with the UK based leadership and change management coaching firm, The Silk Road Partnership.
As an executive coach, in recent years he has worked with Indian, Asian and ex-pat business leaders that include American, British, Canadian, French, German and Singaporean nationalities.
As a Leadership and Strategy Advisor, Krishna Kumar has worked with business leaders in corporations across various sectors helping them with strategy formulation.
Working for the global Coaching Community
Krishna Kumar is an active member of the international coaching community. He is currently the President and a Member of the Governing Board of the International Association of Coaching (IAC), globally recognized as a premier coach credentialing association.
As a Founding Fellow of the Institute of Coaching Professionals Association (ICPA), an affiliate of the Harvard Medical College, he is keenly engaged in keeping pace with the latest research trends in the coaching world.
Over the past decade Krishna Kumar has been the Keynote Speaker at CEO, CIO/CTO and Leadership forums and conferences held in India and abroad. He has also been the Official Headline Panelist at the World Business & Executive Coach Summit (WBECS) for four consecutive years from 2012 to 2015. He has been profiled in leading publications, business journals and radio talk shows. A recording of a recent radio interview with him is available at http://isecindia.in/listen-audio.php
Academic Background
Krishna Kumar's educational qualifications include a degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from two of India's Ivy League institutions, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Management. He also has a general management certification from INSEAD.
He is certified by Harrison Assessment and Pearson Talent lens in the use of their psychometric testing instruments and has extensively used Belbin, Instinctive Drives, HBDI, 360 deg, PDI, MBTI and many others in his coaching practice.
Presently he is an Adjunct faculty at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, where he offers a popular bi-annual Leadership Development program titled, "Creating High Performance Organizations."
Social Initiative
Jointly with his wife, Nirmala, a certified Career Coach, Krishna Kumar founded Success Compass, a social initiative to help young adults discover the careers of their choice. In the past three years they have coached over 200 young people, which they consider to be amongst their most notable achievements.
