I create Thinking Partnerships with leaders to improve performance

David is Co-CEO of fassforward Consulting Group. He partners with clients to improve their leadership, culture, productivity, and life/work balance. He leads fassforward's Executive Coaching practice, oversees finance and is focused on developing FCG’s biggest asset, its people and culture.

Prior to joining the fassforward, David spent 20 years on Wall Street. He worked at Morgan Stanley for 9 years in Institutional Equity Derivatives where he managed Hedge Fund Sales Trading. David was also a leader in the firm’s recruiting program, taught in the training program, and was a significant contributor in the growth of the firm’s derivative platform for hedge fund clients. In 2008, David joined New Mountain Capital to launch a risk management strategy and start a trading desk for the firm’s hedge fund with assets of approximately $1 billion. In 2010, he was promoted to Portfolio Manager, co-managing the hedge fund, which had grown to over $2 billion in assets. 
Through his work at fassforward, his yoga studio and his charity, David has enjoyed being focused on "doing good things for good people". David received his A.B., magna cum laude from Princeton University.

David Frost

More companies are hiring culture coaches and that's a meaningful shift.

What stood out to me in this article is how closely this increased emphasis on culture mirrors a big focus of fassforward's executive coaching:

• “Culture is the invisible machine that creates all future things”
Gavin McMahon in his new book Story Business (see first comment). Culture isn’t catchy lines on the wall. It’s a system. It need stewards, storytellers, and coaches. If no one is reinforcing the culture story, something else will.

• Outside perspective creates movement.
Progress accelerates when leaders have someone who isn’t embedded in internal dynamics offering challenge, clarity, and context.

• Leadership capability is the real lever.
Culture doesn’t change through values statements. It changes through how leaders show up under pressure.

• Trust determines depth.
People tend to go further when they believe the coach is fully in service of their growth, not balancing that with internal agendas.

• Internal ownership and external coaching works.
One of our clients has a Director of Culture we partner closely with, clear stewardship inside, supported by trusted outside coaches.

Interesting to see culture investments catching up to what coaching has long emphasized.

What are you noticing in how organizations are approaching culture differently?

#fassforward #Leadership #Storytelling #ExecutiveCoaching #OrganizationalHealth

Open article: Why more companies are hiring ‘Culture Coaches’ by fastcompany.com

Why more companies are hiring ‘Culture Coaches’

Top leadership lessons from 2025.

Reflecting on 2025 as we head into 2026, three lessons stand out to me:

1️⃣ Trust is under strain.
In 20 years on Wall Street and 8 years working with leadership teams, I do not think I have seen a bigger trust deficit.

Some factors driving it: Post COVID distributed work with less in person contact. More short termism/performance pressure without psychological safety. Change fatigue. AI entering the mainstream. An increasingly divided geopolitical landscape.

As Patrick Lencioni reminds us, trust is the foundation of every effective leadership team.

At fassforward, we see trust grow with the teams we work with when leaders stay disciplined around the 3 Cs: Clarity. Communication. Consistency.

2️⃣ Simplicity over complexity.
Less is more, especially when it comes to purpose, vision, mission and strategy.

The more you distill, the more alignment you create.

Research consistently shows teams can remember three strategic priorities. Not four.

If people cannot repeat it, they cannot execute it.

Look at the simplicity of the United States Military Academy at West Point approach below. 

3️⃣ Prioritizing self care.
The same forces eroding trust are also driving stress and burnout.

For most leaders, work and family take priority with a very wide gap for personal time. I recently restarted Hot26 Yoga, which saved me on wall street. Find your preferred self-care practice, prioritize it and narrow the gap. 

When leaders take care of themselves, their teams and families feel it first.

Bonus lesson: leadership takes practice.
Over the holidays, I reread "Story Business" by my partner Gavin McMahon. 

It is a great reminder that the best leaders practice on improving how they communicate, not just what they say. Link in the first comment. 

Effective leadership in 2026 will not be about doing more.
It will be about building trust, simplifying relentlessly, prioritizing self care, and communicating with clarity and purpose.

What would you add to the list?

Happy New Year!!!

THELABh

At THE LAB h, we believe communication is the foundation of all success. Our success as an executive coaching firm. And your success as an executive, manager, and leader. Everything we do at THE LAB h is grounded in this principle: You’ve made it this far for a reason. Founded in 2007, THE LAB h is the brainchild of Dr. Hoh Kim, workshop facilitator, executive communication coach, published author. From crisis communication to leadership coaching to organizational development, THE LAB h is guided by a “one table, one chef” philosophy. That means every client receives one-on-one counsel from Hoh—paired with a flexible staffing approach designed to source experts best suited to each client’s individual needs. THE LAB h believes you can lead, manage, and organize your way through any crisis, transition, or “new reality” set off by societal shifts in this digital age. But that kind of influence always begins with good communication. Whatever the solution to your unique objective, we’ll find it within you. We can’t sell our clients a one-size-fits-all solution. Because a one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t exist. Our competition might attempt to sell you on that. We won’t. And that’s what makes THE LAB h different. In the last 20 years of coaching high-level global executives, we’ve learned that successful communication doesn’t begin with the right answer. It begins with the right question. How can THE LAB h help you achieve the clarity and focus required to move forward today?

Founder, Executive Coach and Facilitator

Team Management Systems

Hoh Kim, as Team Management Profile (TMP) Master Trainer, is a member of the globally recognised as TMS-endorsed experts in the Team Management Profile. He is authorised to accredit new practitioners in the TMP and have the skills and knowledge to lead practitioner training programs. As Master Trainers, they support the professional development of TMS practitioners and help organisations leverage the Team Management Systems framework to enhance team performance and self-awareness.

Master Trainer, Team Management Profile (TMP)

TMS Associate

WOODCRAFT h

For Hoh, making artworks is another way of asking questions to audience. While taking woodworking classes and training in Korea, U.K. and the U.S., he realized that
dozens of spoons and small objects he had made could be used as materials for
self-portraits. He creates works that explore the meaning of psychological adult using various
media and materials. His first solo exhibition, “Adult,” was held at Gallery IN HQ (Seoul,
2023), and the second one “Obituary,” was held in Gongganare (Seoul, 2024)

Woodworker

Cialdini Institute

As a faculty member leading Influential Coaching practice at the Institute, Hoh teaches Cialdini Institute trainers/coaches worldwide through monthly faculty calls.

Faculty Member, Influential Coaching

Institute of Coaching

Fellow Member

INFLUENCE AT WORK

In 2008, as the first and only Korean CMCT and one of the 12 CMCTs worldwide(as of Jan. 2025), I successfully launched the Principles Of Persuasion(POP) workshop by Dr. Robert Cialdini in Korea. Since then, I have been facilitating POP workshops (each workshop takes two full days) for CEOs, executives, and managers from companies, government, NGOs, hospitals, etc.

Cialdini Method Certified Trainer (CMCT)

Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching

"The major challenge faced by executives today is not understanding the practice of leadership, it is practicing their understanding of leadership". (Dr. Marshall Goldsmith)

Through the partnership with Marshall Goldsmith, we provide their highly effective and successful Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching program for our clients. This coaching program is unique as:
1- It guarantees measurable results for executive leaders and the organizations they work for
2- Our payment is based on the leadership effectiveness growth of your leaders
3- The coaching program is a real time on the job process that is highly effective and time efficient
The whole program is focused on behavioral change to enhance leadership effectiveness.

Advanced Coach

Conversant

Founded in 1991, we work with Global 1000 businesses and other complex organizations to leverage the power of conversation to allow them to get more done with less time, money, and stress. With offices in the United States and Australia, we are well positioned to serve clients all over the world.

Consultant

Burson-Marsteller

Senior Advisor, Global Strategy Team

Ogilvy Health

I advised and counsel PHARMAX Ogilvy Healthworld, the Korea's largest healthcare marketing agency, to newly establish its own PR division, Ogilvy Health.

Partner

Senior leaders and C-suite executives from six Continents have worked with Hoh as a strategic and constructive LISTENER. Hoh's mission is to help clients ask better questions to make better decisions. 

With over 25 years of coaching and consulting experience at the upper echelons of public relations, communications, and crisis management, he has learned that asking better questions is the cornerstone of leadership in the AI age. As a sought-after executive communication coach, Hoh draws from a vast supply of wisdom gathered at universities in Korea, Europe, and the United States through influential programs, including the Cialdini Method Certified Trainer program, and from many highly productive years at Edelman—the world’s largest independent PR firm—where from 2004 to 2007 he led the Korean office to record revenues. 

Hoh has authored 9 titles(including 3 co-authored books), and his book <From Office Worker to Independent Professional> (2020, Gimmyoung Publishers, Seoul) has been translated into Vietnam and Taiwan. In 2023, he contributed a chapter for <The Handbook of Crisis Communication> 2nd Ed. (Editors: W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay). As an artist, he had two solo gallery exhibitions ('Adult' in 2023 and 'Obituary' in 2024) in Seoul.

He lives in Seoul, Korea where he runs his woodshop, writes, and guides high-level executives from around the world to find their most persuasive voices.

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