About Rudi Doku
Where competence stops being the thing holding someone back
A new role, a conversation that went wrong, a team pattern nobody can shift. Ways of leading that worked for years stop working, and the reason is rarely a missing skill.
Book a scoping call- Melbourne, working across Australia and internationally
- ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC)
- INSEAD Executive Master in Change
- Certified Integral Coach, New Ventures West
- Somatic Experiencing Practitioner
The person behind VDC
Experience with leaders, and with the systems they work inside
Rudi Doku is the founder and principal of Vertical Development Consulting, an executive coach and leadership development consultant based in Melbourne, working with clients across Australia and internationally.
He works with senior leaders, leadership teams and the sponsors paying for the work, usually where authority, complexity or sustained pressure have made a familiar way of leading stop working. Fifteen years in management consulting came first, including time at Accenture and Deloitte, then a decade coaching leaders across five continents.
Engagements have included leadership development and coaching associated with Standard Chartered Bank, SAP, Oliver Wyman and the University of Melbourne, alongside work in cross-cultural corporate settings.
The lens is developmental rather than remedial. Instead of treating each difficulty as a missing skill, the work looks at how a leader is making sense of the situation and what becomes hard to reach once the pressure is on.
What shapes the work
Different situations call for different approaches
The starting point is the situation, not a technique chosen in advance. These six inform how an engagement gets designed.
Adult development
Familiar ways of thinking stop being enough as a role gets more complex.
Adaptive leadership
Challenges that no amount of technical expertise or planning will settle.
Systems psychodynamics and systemic constellations
Recurring patterns, roles and authority dynamics inside an organisation. Constellations explore a pattern and are never used as a diagnostic test.
Somatic approaches
How pressure changes attention and behaviour, and blocks skills a leader already has.
Leadership communication
Executive presence, influencing people with more authority, and the conversations that matter.
The Thinking Environment
Nancy Kline's work on attention, independent thinking and meetings that reach a decision properly.
The Thinking Environment is Nancy Kline's work, set out in her book Time to Think. The work above draws on it and is not an accredited program.
Professional background
Training that earns its place in the work
Qualifications are worth listing for what they let the work do, rather than for their own sake.
Leadership development and organisational change
INSEAD Executive Master in Change, with experience facilitating leadership learning inside complex organisations.
Executive coaching
ICF Professional Certified Coach and Certified Integral Coach, through New Ventures West. Coaching has centred on senior leaders and leadership transitions.
Developmental assessment
Lectica LAP-1 training, completed in 2022, which supports a developmental read on leadership capability.
Embodied and systemic practice
Certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, with Gestalt group dynamics training and a group relations background behind the systemic work.
How the work runs
From the situation in front of you to something you can practise
Work starts with a conversation about what is happening, why it matters now and what has already been tried. For an organisational brief, that widens to the sponsors and the conditions producing the problem.
Depending on the assignment it may involve stakeholder interviews, a 360, coaching conversations, rehearsal of real situations, or facilitated work with the whole group. Progress gets reviewed against what was agreed at the start rather than assumed from attendance.
Ways to work together
Where might we begin
For a senior leader
Executive coaching, when more responsibility, a difficult relationship or plain uncertainty has made a familiar way of leading less effective.
Executive coachingFor an organisation
Development programs, communication work and facilitated days for teams that need to think and decide together more effectively.
Organisational servicesNext step
A conversation is a useful place to start
Tell me what brought you here, what you want to change, and we can work out whether this is the right kind of help. Forty-five minutes, no charge.