"Leading with authenticity and impact with Alexandra Popkova”
| Career Coaching Secrets by The Purple Circle

David: Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches about how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way.

David: My name is David Win, and I’m the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I built several seven- and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and consulted for two coaching companies doing over $100 million each.

David: Whether you’re an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you’ll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business. Welcome to the Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. Today we are joined by Alexandra Popkova. She’s been a coach for more than 10 years. Welcome to the show, Alexandra.

Alexandra: Thank you so much for having me, David.

David: Let’s start 10 years ago. Tell me how you got into coaching.

Alexandra: I enjoy sharing my story because it’s something I couldn’t even dream about 10 years ago. I used to work for the international NGO AIESEC, and I had a one-year contract in Nicaragua as my last year with them. I used to get feedback that I was really good with people. Team members from other departments wanted to join my projects, and peer managers would tell me I was great with feedback, coaching, and team management. I was also really good at helping people from my teams get promotions after my projects ended. But when you’re naturally good at something, you often don’t see it yourself. For me, it felt obvious. I thought, “What do you mean? You just go and talk to people and it magically happens.” At one point, I realized I had been hearing this feedback for quite a while and thought maybe there actually was something special about it.

Alexandra: Then I had the opportunity to work with a coach in Nicaragua who became my mentor. He had his own firm and was transitioning from a personal coaching practice into broader corporate offerings. I helped him with everything he didn’t want to do: sales proposals, logistics, back office, co-facilitation, learning materials, everything. I looked up to him so much. He was a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coaching Federation, and I remember his office filled with diplomas and certificates. But that one ICF certification always stood out to him. He would say, “I have lots of education and courses, but this is the one that really matters.” I remember thinking, “I can’t even imagine myself there.” Fast forward 10 years, and now I’m a Professional Certified Coach myself. Last year, when I received my accreditation, I had this huge realization. I looked at the email and thought, “Wow. I became the strong independent woman I wanted to be 10 years ago.”

Alexandra: I think it’s really important to stop sometimes and recognize where we are. I see this with many of my clients and peers. It’s so easy to get lost in the next goal, the next achievement, the next chapter. Our standards keep growing as we gain experience and exposure, so what once felt like a dream suddenly feels normal. That’s why I think it’s important to pause and acknowledge milestones instead of constantly asking, “What’s next?”

David: What are you doing these days? Who are you coaching and how are you running your business?

Alexandra: Most of my coaching clients today are leaders, executives, experts, international professionals, and people who are either planning to move abroad or have already relocated and are trying to stay sane while figuring everything out. At first glance, these may sound like different audiences, but ultimately the core question is the same: how do you navigate complexity and uncertainty in your life and business while staying grounded, resourced, and connected to yourself?

David: What sort of problems do you notice people bringing into coaching?

Alexandra: A lot of my work focuses on cross-cultural communication and adaptation. One of the biggest themes I see is people trying to understand how to adapt to a new cultural environment without feeling like they’re losing themselves or betraying who they are.

Alexandra: I can share that from my own experience. I’m originally from Russia, but I’ve lived and worked in five countries across very different cultures: India, Bahrain, Nicaragua, and now Colombia. When I moved to Nicaragua, it was my first experience living in Latin America, and culturally it was about as far away from Russia as possible. The communication style, relationship building, ways of showing respect, politeness, and connection were completely opposite.

Alexandra: For example, in Russian culture, being respectful often means being direct and getting straight to the point because you don’t want to waste somebody’s time. If I call you, I assume you’re busy, so I’ll immediately say, “Hey David, I have a question.” In Nicaragua, that approach would be considered rude. You need to build connection first. There’s small talk, relationship building, warmth. People want to feel personally connected before business happens. The idea that “it’s your job and you’re being paid for it” is not enough there. Relationships come first.

David: How do people usually find you?

Alexandra: A lot of my clients today come through referrals, but building that network took time. Coaching originally developed alongside my corporate career, and I was lucky to have managers who trusted me enough to let me explore coaching internally within organizations. I built a reputation for myself there, and after leaving one of those companies, former colleagues started reaching out for coaching.

Alexandra: One thing that helped me tremendously at the beginning of my practice was offering free coaching to three carefully selected clients. I treated those engagements seriously. We aligned expectations, schedules, goals, and commitment because I wanted to experience the full coaching cycle rather than random one-off sessions. That experience helped me build confidence in my abilities and gave me proof that clients were actually benefiting from the work. It wasn’t only useful for external marketing. It gave me internal grounding and confidence in saying, “This is what I do.”

David: What has been one of the hardest parts about building a coaching practice?

Alexandra: One of the hardest parts of coaching is simply finding clients. Many coaches, myself included, want to focus only on the work we’re good at, but then we realize we also need to think about marketing, LinkedIn, Instagram, content creation, and sales. Sometimes you wish clients would magically appear at your door and wait in line for your availability, but unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Running your own practice means accepting that marketing and visibility are part of the job.

David: What kinds of coaching engagements do you offer?

Alexandra: I work across mentoring, coaching, and consulting. My consulting work focuses on organizational development, talent, learning and development, and HR because of my corporate background. In coaching, I do both one-on-one and group work, though group engagements are usually corporate contracts. My mentoring work is primarily focused on women in tech.

Alexandra: For private coaching clients, I usually offer two options: standalone one-time sessions for people who want to explore coaching first, and a package of nine sessions with midterm and final evaluations. The first session focuses heavily on defining the goal, intention, and success metrics for our work together.

David: Why nine sessions specifically?

Alexandra: In my experience, that’s often enough time for deeper transformation work to happen. Of course, clients can stop earlier or continue afterward depending on their goals and evolving circumstances.

David: What kinds of transformations have you seen in your coaching clients?

Alexandra: One of the first clients I coached was a woman who had spent several years on maternity leave and felt completely disconnected from her professional identity. Before becoming a mother, she had been a highly successful executive, and suddenly she no longer recognized herself. By the end of our work together, she launched her own marketing agency, which she still runs successfully today.

Alexandra: Another client came to me after receiving a major executive promotion. She struggled with severe imposter syndrome and believed it was only a matter of time before people realized she wasn’t capable enough for the role. Through our work, she developed confidence, internal stability, and tools to navigate pressure and leadership challenges. By the end of the engagement, the transformation was dramatic.

David: You mentioned working a lot with women leaders. What differences do you notice between men and women in coaching?

Alexandra: One thing I notice very clearly is the difference between how men and women often enter the first conversation. Men usually arrive saying, “I’m already successful and accomplished. What more can coaching offer me?” Women often arrive with a detailed list of all the areas where they feel they need improvement. Part of my role is helping them reconnect with their strengths and fully own them.

David: What are your goals for the future of your coaching business?

Alexandra: I want to continue expanding my international practice. I’ve now worked with clients from more than 35 countries, and I’m proud of that. Most of my work currently happens online, which offers flexibility and freedom, but I deeply miss face-to-face work. I would love to move a larger portion of my practice into in-person coaching, consulting, and facilitation because there’s something uniquely powerful about human connection in physical space.

David: What challenges are you navigating right now in business?

Alexandra: One of the biggest challenges I’m currently navigating is scaling. I’m a coach, not a marketing expert or salesperson, and I know I eventually need a team so that everyone can focus on what they do best. I’m starting to explore what that next level of growth could look like and what additional offerings I could create beyond one-on-one work.

David: What was the first major investment you made into your coaching career?

Alexandra: My postgraduate diploma in coaching. I studied entirely in Spanish, which was my fifth language at the time, and I wrote a 93-page thesis on using coaching and mindfulness tools to support leadership development in corporate environments. Looking back, that experience says a lot about how passionate I already was about this work.

David: What was one of the best investments you made after that?

Alexandra: Pursuing my ICF accreditation. When I transitioned from corporate work into my own practice, I struggled with professional confidence and with explaining what coaching actually meant. In Colombia especially, people often associated coaching with spirituality, angels, or mushrooms. I wanted a clear professional framework that communicated credibility and standards without requiring endless explanations. Getting accredited by the ICF opened many professional opportunities for me and significantly strengthened my confidence.

David: What’s one piece of business advice you think is overrated?

Alexandra: I think the idea that coaches need to define a niche immediately and stay there forever is overrated. I actually believe coaches should explore. Of course, you need clarity in your messaging and positioning, but many people discover their best work and audiences through experimentation and experience. I think it’s important to stay open, authentic, and connected to who you really are instead of trying to force yourself into a predefined category too early.

David: Final question. How can people find you and connect with you?

Alexandra: People can find me on LinkedIn under Alexandra Popkova or on Instagram at Empower Leaders.

David: Thank you so much for being here and for sharing your experience so openly, Alexandra.

Alexandra: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been my pleasure.