Most service-based founders didn’t start their business to run spreadsheets, chase team issues, or babysit backend chaos.

But that’s where they end up—wearing the COO hat, buried in operations, and stuck running a business they never meant to build.

That’s where I come in.

I work hands-on with founders to:
- Plug profit leaks
- Create clarity with cash
- Build simple systems that scale
- Reclaim time, margin, and control

My 8-week Profitable Growth Accelerator™ is built for service businesses doing $300K–$2M who are ready to grow on purpose, get paid properly, and stop the chaos—without adding more hours.

📊 We start with your numbers
📈 We fix what’s broken
🧠 You get your business—and your life—back

If that sounds like the kind of help you’ve been hunting for, DM me or visit the link above.

Damien Foglio

After coaching 30+ small business owners, one thing stands out: 
High performers do things differently.

They don't get caught up in the chaos. They have clarity. 

Every move they make is backed by a clear vision and sharp goals. 
They're not just waiting for opportunities; they create them.

Delegation? They master it. 

Instead of micromanaging, they trust their team. They empower others to own their work, innovate, and grow. That's how scalable businesses thrive.

They are perpetual learners. Whether it's industry events, online courses, or self-study, they stay ahead. They evolve. That's how they dodge the trap of stagnation.

Failure? They see it as fuel. 

Mistakes aren't setbacks, they're lessons that help them pivot faster. They don't fear failure; they embrace it.

Networking isn't just about exchanging cards. It's about building genuine relationships that open doors to new opportunities and fresh insights.

And they don't sacrifice life for work. They get that balance fuels sustained success. Family, health, passions, these are part of the game plan.

This is the blueprint for real growth, not just hustle.

I help $300k-900k service owners fix profit & cash flow by installing the operating system their business should’ve had from day one — So they grow on a plan, not hope | 8-Week Profitable Growth Accelerator™

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I hated to hear from my employees "I was too busy" or "I didn't have time" as if they weren't in charge of their time throughout the week. 

The truth? 
Everyone only has 40 hours a week.

And by the end of it, most of us look back and wonder what we actually accomplished.

Here's the reality: Each employee is a self-manager. 
They're managing their own time, their to-do lists, their priorities.

They add, do, subtract to it throughout the week, without checking in, verifying, that the right things are getting done. 

But if your to-do list keeps growing, that's not the problem. 
The problem is you're not prioritizing correctly.

If you only have 40 hours, those hours should go to the right things. 
Not just the urgent stuff, but the impactful stuff.

Here's a trick I recommend, whether you're the owner or the employee:

Review this week's to-do list every Monday. 
Look at what absolutely must get done before the weekend.

Then, decide: 
- Prioritize those items 
- Re-assign tasks that don't need your direct input 
- Discard the noise

Reset your priorities. 
Make sure the right things get done. 

The rest? Put on hold. 
Because doing everything means doing nothing.

Stop fooling yourself. 
You don't need more time, you need better focus.

You'll be surprised what gets accomplished when you cut the clutter.

What's the one thing you're going to prioritize next week?

I was tired all the time. Showed up drained for work, trying to force my body into gear it wasn't ready for.

It hurt my work.
It hurt my family.
It made handling problems feel impossible.

Then I realized something: 
𝗦𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲.

Getting a good nights sleep was more important than more hours at my desk. 

A well-rested person outperforms the smartest, most talented one tired out of their mind.

I'd rather work focused and sharp for 8 hours than stretch into 16 hours of exhaustion.

Because tired equals irritability.
Energy drops.
Problems seem bigger.
People like you less.

Getting good sleep isn't a luxury. 
It's a game changer.

Are you risking your success by ignoring your sleep?

Make rest your secret weapon. Start today.

DM me "Sleep" if you would like to know the items that I have made a part of my routine every single night.

Highly capable leaders don’t stall because they lack effort, intelligence, or ambition.They stall because they keep applying effort where leverage is required — and the system quietly rewards them for it… right up until it doesn’t.Early success trains this pattern.Promotions come from delivering under pressure.Credibility builds on solving what others can’t.Influence grows by being the person who figures it out faster than everyone else.Then scope expands.And effort stops compounding.The leader is still performing. Still delivering.But decisions carry more weight.Influence doesn't move as easily.And working harder produces diminishing returns.That's the inflection point I work in.I coach VP–C-suite biopharma leaders whose roles have outgrown the effort-based model that made them successful.I bring a rare combination to this work: a PhD in neuroscience, McKinsey training, and 20+ years in biopharma—including senior executive roles as Chief People Officer, Chief Learning Officer, and Head of Medical Affairs.I know this environment from the inside. That changes the conversation. You don’t have to explain the pressure — or defend the tradeoffs. We work on what matters so the impact is unmistakable.“25 years into my career, and the 6 months I worked with Angela was a transformative experience.” — Julie B., EVP, Human Resources“Angela is a rare strategic thought partner… coaching with her transforms how you think, act, and lead.”— S.M., Founder &amp;; CEO“I now know I have a rightful place at the decision-making table—and I’m showing up that way.”— Fiona I., VP, People &amp;; Organisation, Global Biotech“Having worked with several coaches, I can confidently say Angela is top-tier—smart, strategic, and pragmatic.”— JS, SVP &amp; Board Director

Angela Justice

The email went out at 11:47 p.m.

You know because you sent it.

And somewhere underneath the pace of it all, you know this isn’t really working.

But the requests keep coming.

From the CEO.
Colleagues.
Stakeholders.

So you answer.

Requests become priorities.
Priorities become urgent deadlines.
Urgent deadlines become late-night emails.

And the pressure doesn’t stop with you.

It lands on your team.

Plans get rearranged.
Other work gets pushed.
People start guessing what will matter next.

Before long, the work is spilling into evenings.
Then into the weekend.

The leaders who break this pattern don’t try to handle more.

They start deciding more.

Before responding, they pause long enough to ask:

What decision does this request actually serve?
What truly needs to move now?
What can wait?

That pause is small.

But it often determines whether pressure spreads through the team—
or stops with the leader.

Before you answer the next request, ask yourself:

Am I moving the work forward—
or just spreading urgency?

Angela Justice, PhD

Executive Coach to Biopharma Leaders | Former Chief People Officer

Your title says Senior Director.

Your calendar says middle manager.

I see this pattern everywhere in biopharma:

Titles that grew as the company scaled. Scope that shrank.

You were Employee 12 at a 60-person biotech. You sat in the rooms that mattered.

Then the company hit 300 people.

Your title moved up. Your access moved down.

Now you're looking for your next role.

And the market isn't buying it.

Here's what nobody tells you:

The market doesn't pay for titles.
It pays for capability.

And capability only grows in certain environments.

Some companies build it. 
Others starve it while calling it a promotion.

Six months into a job search is too late to figure out which one you were in.

I broke this down for BioSpace—what environments actually build vs. starve, and the three questions to ask before you stay or leave.

Read it: https://lnkd.in/g_HgVqTA

Because every job ends eventually.

What will you walk away with when yours does?

👉 Know a leader navigating this? Send it along.

Open article: Stop Optimizing Your Job, Start Optimizing Your Career by biospace.com

Stop Optimizing Your Job, Start Optimizing Your Career

The promotion conversation lasted 18 minutes.

She had earned it. She knew it. They knew it.

And somewhere in that meeting, she understood it was never coming.

That night, she updated her resume for the first time in three years.

Not because she had decided to leave.

Because she stopped assuming she had to stay.

That is the part many leaders miss.

The market can shift before the data feels dramatic.

And when it does, people start making different calculations.

Biopharma is in one of those moments now.

I wrote more about what that means in my latest BioSpace article.

Open article: The Job Market May Be Warming—What Does That Mean for You? by biospace.com

Illustration showing businessperson looking through telescope at potential growth

The Job Market May Be Warming—What Does That Mean for You?

Being right doesn't mean anyone will listen.

Early in my career, I heard this more than once: "You have a sharp edge."

I didn't quite understand it.

I could see second-order consequences clearly. 
Name tradeoffs most people wanted to avoid. 
Predict what a decision would set in motion three moves out.

I thought that was the value.

What I missed:

When you name consequences before people are ready to hold them, it doesn't land as insight.

It lands as judgment.

Not of the situation. Of them.

I was diagnostically right. 
But I hadn't built the relational foundation that makes hard truth bearable.

So the same insight that could have been useful felt like an attack.

I see this pattern constantly in biopharma.

We promote people for their analytical strength. 
Their ability to see around corners. 
Their diagnostic speed.

Then we're surprised when that same sharpness doesn't feel collegial.

It's not that they're wrong. 

They just haven't done the work that makes hard truth useful instead of alienating.

The leaders who scale impact aren't the ones who learn to soften their message.

They're the ones who do the relational work first.

They listen before they assess. 
They carry other people's context, not just their own read. 
They show up in the calm moments so people know they're invested — not just observant.

Once that foundation exists, the edge doesn't disappear.
It becomes useful.

The same truth that once felt sharp starts to feel relieving. Because people know you're naming the thing for them — not at them.

Senior leadership isn't about choosing between warmth and directness.

It's about earning enough trust that your directness can land.

Being right is the entry point.

Earning the right to be heard is the work.

You can miss a lot in a conversation without missing a single word.

Deep listening is not just hearing the words.

It is catching tone, intent, and what sits underneath them. 
The hesitation. 
The emotion. 
The part that tells you what really matters.

It's a skill. And it's trainable.

This month, SUCCESS Magazine featured me in its Guide to Coaching on deep listening, alongside 📚Michael Bungay Stanier and other leading voices in the field. Thank you to Kerrie Lee Brown the SUCCESS team for including me.

Most leaders hear the words. 
Far fewer catch what the conversation is actually telling them.

#SUCCESS

Executive Coach Angela Justice, PhD featured in SUCCESS Magazine Guide to Coaching, with a portrait of Angela and a quote about using silence and strategic pauses to appear more confident and in control than someone who answers too quickly.

Competence has a shadow side.

The better you are at something, the more it finds you.

It shows up in your inbox. On your calendar. In the meeting where someone says, "You're the best person for this."

And they're not wrong.

You are good at it.

But at a certain level, being the person who can do anything becomes the reason you're doing everything.

And slowly, without anyone intending it, you stop doing the work you're actually here to do.

I felt this myself this week. Sitting across from people I genuinely wanted to help, knowing I could — and knowing I shouldn't be the one to do it.

That tension doesn't get easier.

But I've learned to pay attention to it.

Because the discipline isn't protecting yourself from bad opportunities.

It's protecting your best work from good ones that belong to someone else.

Where is your competence pulling you right now — and should you follow it?

One of the hardest parts of senior leadership is being accountable for work you were never trained to do.

You can follow it.
You can value it.
But you do not know it in your bones the way you know your original domain.

And that can be deeply unsettling.

Especially for high performers.

Because when competence has always been your anchor, it is disorienting to lead in areas where your confidence can no longer come from direct expertise.

So people compensate.

They prepare more.
Study more.
Get closer to the details.
Try to earn confidence back through effort.

Reasonable instinct.
Wrong job.

Because at some point, that effort starts pulling you away from the work senior leadership actually requires:

Setting direction.
Making tradeoffs.
Building alignment.
Strengthening the leaders who do have the expertise.

That is why some senior leaders are working constantly and still feel behind.

They think they need more knowledge.

Often, what they need is a different relationship to not being the expert anymore.

What helped you make the shift from expert to leader?

“I thought I should just sit back and listen for the first few meetings.
I wasn’t sure what I could add.”

A board member said this to me recently, describing her early days in the role.

She assumed others were more informed.
More experienced.
Better positioned to weigh in.

So she listened.
She observed.
She waited.

Until she realized something important.

She hadn’t been invited into the room to observe.
She had been chosen to bring her judgment.

So she stopped holding back.

And the response wasn’t surprise or resistance.
It was relief.

As if the room had been waiting for her to use the seat she’d already earned.

I see this all the time with senior leaders.

They work hard to get into the room —
and then hesitate once they’re there.

A subtle shift happens once you finally earn a seat at the table.

The job stops being about earning credibility
and starts being about using it.

That’s uncomfortable for a lot of capable leaders.

They’ve spent years being rewarded for getting it right.
For proving their thinking before offering it.
For having the answer.

But senior roles don’t require certainty.

They require judgment.

And judgment withheld out of caution
has the same effect as judgment never offered at all.

The most valuable person in the room is often the one saying the least.

Not because they have less to add.
Because they are listening for what does not hold up.

The weak assumption.
The missing variable.
The risk no one has named yet.

I was featured in Heath Payer Strategist, part of the Financial Times, on introverts in business.

My view: quiet leaders do not need to become louder. They need to trust the value of their judgment and make sure it gets heard.

I shared some practical ways introverted leaders can make sure their thinking gets heard. DM me if you’d like a copy.

If you’re more introverted, what helps your voice carry weight when the room moves fast?

A lot of “yes” at work is reflex.

You want to be reliable.
Easy to work with.
The person who “just handles it.”

So you say yes.

Not because you should—
because you don’t pause long enough to ask what that yes is costing you.

And then your week gets chosen for you.

Your calendar fills up.
Your time gets spoken for.
And the work you actually care about gets pushed to “later.”

Before you say yes this week, pause long enough to ask:

What would this yes cost me?

A new VP I work with kept saying she trusted her team.

And she did.

But her team didn't feel it.

Because every decision still ran past her. 
Every message needed her review. 
Everything needed her approval.

She'd say things like, "Send it over if you want another set of eyes," or "I'm happy to review before it goes out."

She meant optional.
They heard expected.

So they started sending everything.

First out of caution. Then out of habit.

And that's how she became the bottleneck.

Nothing moved without her.

By the time she started coaching, she was working nights and weekends just to keep up with review work — and still not doing the work she was actually hired to do.

Her breakthrough wasn't "I need to let go."

It was: "Good" is trapped in my head.

So we made "good" visible — and got specific about what truly needed her eyes and what didn't.

Once that line was clear, the team could move without waiting — and she could stop being the process.

Where have you accidentally become the bottleneck?

I took my first executive job with zero expertise in most of the functions I was leading.

No technical background. No deep functional knowledge.

Everyone knew it.

It could have been a disaster.

It wasn’t.

In fact, it saved me from building a reflex I now see all the time in senior leaders. One that keeps them over-efforting, over-compensating, and working much harder than the role actually requires.

Tomorrow’s Practical Perspectives is about that reflex — and why it quietly gets in the way just when leaders need a different kind of confidence.

Subscribe to get it in your inbox tomorrow.

https://lnkd.in/evX8tHd8

P.S. If you’ve ever tried to study your way into feeling ready, this one is for you.

Open article: Practical Perspectives by pages.justicegroupadvisors.com

Your job is training you.

The real question is for what.

Most people think they’re choosing a job.

What they’re actually choosing is an environment.

And environments shape experience in very specific ways.

Some build breadth.
Some build depth.
Some give you real enterprise exposure.
Some keep you close to the work but far from the decisions that shape it.

Some teach you how to operate at scale.
Some teach you how to build with very little.

None of that is inherently bad.

But every environment develops certain strengths and quietly underdevelops others.

That matters more than most people think.

Because when you eventually go to market, employers are not just reading your resume.

They’re reading the complexity you handled.
The scope you actually owned.
The exposure you had.
The judgment your environment required.

That’s why a role can feel like progress internally and still leave you less prepared for what comes next than you expected.

Not because you failed.

Because the environment built you in a very specific direction.

I wrote more about that in my latest BioSpace article: https://lnkd.in/dNYThV8b

Before you decide whether to stay or leave, ask yourself:

What is this environment preparing me for next?

Stepping stones to success, progress or milestone pathway to achieve target, small step to overcome difficulty, development stages concept, confidence businessman stepping on stones across ocean.

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