Everything looks familiar. Nothing feels the same.
You took a senior role in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. You showed up prepared. And something still isn't clicking — the team, the decisions, the energy it takes to perform in a context that doesn't yet know you.
This is the layer most organizations don't have the resources to address.
That's exactly what I do.
I'm Derek Lauber — executive coach and leadership facilitator, dual citizen, based in Munich.
I've navigated this from both sides: American leadership identity and European organizational logic. That's not something you get from a cultural briefing. It's something you earn by living it.
For more than 20 years I've worked with senior leaders in multinational organizations — helping them lead more clearly, more honestly, and with less cost to themselves.
Experience includes work with leaders and organizations across PwC, Salesforce, Colgate-Palmolive, European Union, Fannie Mae, UNC, The Energy Project and other multinational, public, and executive education contexts.
The Work
1:1 Executive Coaching
You've taken the role. You're doing the work. But leading here — the way you need to lead here — is costing more than it should. The team reads differently. The stakeholders operate differently. The instincts you've relied on for years aren't quite landing.
This is a private, six-month coaching engagement. Built around your actual situation — not a generic program.
Leadership Facilitation
You have a program and a population. You need a facilitator you can trust with your people — someone with lived cross cultural experience, who reads the room, doesn't need managing, and makes the content actually land.
Senior populations, EMEA and global. Twenty years of reps.