Meet
Rachel

Rachel Treece is an executive coach, leadership expert, and CEO of The Henka Institute, an ICF-accredited coaching and leadership development organisation working with senior leaders and teams across Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region. With over two decades of experience spanning global financial services and leadership development, Rachel has built a reputation for getting to the heart of what is really happening inside organisations and helping leaders do something about it.

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Her work sits at the intersection of executive coaching, team coaching, and organisational change. She works with boards, executive committees, and senior leadership teams working through high-stakes transitions, cultural shifts, and the pressure to perform while developing the people around them. Much of her work centres on what she calls a Culture of Agency, creating the conditions in which people take genuine ownership of their performance, their relationships, and their growth, rather than waiting to be told what to do. Clients value her directness, her warmth, and her ability to hold difficult conversations with the same ease as the straightforward ones.

Rachel is the best-selling author of The Henka Effect: How Coaching is Transforming Leadership and Organisations, published in November 2022 and rated number one in the UK, USA, and France. The book makes a clear, evidence-backed case for coaching as a leadership necessity, drawing on years of work with executive teams. The title takes its name from the Japanese word Henka, meaning perpetual change, courage, and transcendence. It is a philosophy that runs through everything Rachel does.

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She is also the host of Flex and the City, a podcast now in its fifth year with over 80 episodes exploring leadership and culture in financial services. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

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Rachel holds the Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credential from the International Coaching Federation, the Advanced Certification in Team Coaching (ACTC), and the Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) designation. She is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM). These credentials reflect the depth of her formal training and her ongoing commitment to the standards of the coaching profession. In 2012, she was recognised as one of the Most Inspiring Women in Entrepreneurship. She co-founded Dress for Success Luxembourg, contributes to MBA and entrepreneurship programmes, and continues to mentor emerging leaders across international platforms.

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Before founding The Henka Institute, Rachel spent many years leading multicultural teams inside FTSE and Fortune 100 companies. That experience is central to her coaching work. She understands the environments her clients operate in because she has worked in them herself. The Henka Institute has now trained more than 30,000 people in over 30 countries, running ICF-accredited programmes for corporate clients and developing coaches through its professional pathways. Rachel also leads fts global, a learning and development consultancy focused on the financial services sector.

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Originally from the UK, Rachel became a naturalised Luxembourgish citizen in 2014. She is fluent in four languages and is based in Luxembourg, where The Henka Institute is headquartered. Luxembourg's position at the centre of European financial services is a natural fit for her work. Working across nationalities, languages, and regulatory environments has deepened her understanding of what good leadership actually requires when the context is genuinely complex and the stakes are high.