Julie Couret
Julie Couret
I get $5M–$50M and $100M+ owners and their leadership teams to trade the undisciplined pursuit of more for deliberate growth, ambiguity for clarity, and hesitation for ownership.
Leveraging her proven experience leading through high-stakes challenges, Julie drives the clarity and alignment necessary for rapid expansion. She removes operational bottlenecks, elevates leadership bench strength, and builds executive teams that execute against their commitments when growth is on the line.
Where others see stalled momentum or complex scaling hurdles, Julie sees solvable patterns and opportunities to build sustainable capacity. Her approach combines an uncompromising standard of execution with battle-tested experience navigating high-stakes environments, transforming friction into fuel for breakthrough performance.
Let me save us both some time: I'm not for every owner. I'm for the one who wants a no-nonsense push and is ready to act on the honest answer.
I work best with owners of $5M–$50M and $100M+ companies who are genuinely good at this, and who are lying awake wondering if the strong individuals on your team are the ones to get to the next level. The tension on the leadership team. The conversation you keep dodging. The fact that every real decision still routes back to you.
I've worked with hundreds of business leaders, and I'll tell you what it almost always is: a strategy, plan, and execution problem. It's that nobody on the team feels safe enough, clear enough, or permitted enough to make the hard call, so everything stalls and waits on you. You have so many opportunities, and success creates a blind spot about focus.
A person who should have been moved out of a critical seat a year ago is still in it, because dealing with it feels harder than absorbing the daily cost of leaving it alone. That's expensive. And it doesn't fix itself.
You're Julie's kind of client if:
- You actually want the truth about what I see, even when it stings, and a coach who cares more about your growth than your comfort in the moment.
- You're ready to address why your team is busy and exhausted and somehow not moving the number.
- Your leadership team doesn't share a clear answer on what winning looks like, a year out or next Tuesday.
- You can feel the cost of unplanned growth: turnover, stalled decisions, the energy it takes just to keep the peace, and you're finished managing around it.
Here's how I'd put it: most owners don't have a strategy problem. They have a permission problem. My whole job is to give leaders permission to lead, and the structure to actually do it.
Hundreds of business leaders in, this is the pattern I see every time. Owners want to do the hard work and have the hard conversations, but only if they have a structure to do it inside and a clear end goal to move toward. So here's what I do, and exactly what you're signing up for: I challenge outdated operating systems, diagnose root-cause inefficiencies, and hold leaders to the standard they set.
I'm direct. I'll tell you what I see. Sometimes you'll love it, sometimes you won't, and that's fine, because I've already decided your growth matters more to me than your comfort in this moment. That's the job. What I'm always driving toward is courage, because courage is contagious. The minute one leader models it, the whole team moves.
I've guided clients to their ideal exits, including positioning businesses to become valued roll-up portfolio companies that scale for major acquisition. I'm also adept at navigating complex family dynamics and succession planning, bringing second and third generations into the business to secure long-term growth.
The whole model, every coach: every EXM coach works the full 3D Momentum Model: Direction, Design, and Dynamic. Julie goes deepest on discipline, clarity, and ownership across the leadership team.
3D Momentum Model →I didn't build my coaching out of a textbook. I built it leading in crisis, rebuilding after disaster, and growing businesses from the inside out.
I'm a New Orleans native, and I came up the operational way, the hard way. My leadership career started at Walt Disney World in 1999, in Transportation Operations, which put me dead-center in the operational aftermath of 9/11: policy shifts, safety protocols, and frontline team morale, all under real pressure, all at once.
That season burned one truth into me I've never let go of: strong systems and courageous leadership are inseparable. You don't get one without the other, period.
From there, my strength in facilitation and culture-setting set me apart fast. I beat out hundreds to make Disney's elite "Traditions" Corporate Training Team, and I led corporate training to hundreds across multiple sites. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, I launched, built, and rebuilt the Gulf South region as multi-state head, under active Martial Law. When corporate suggested I freeze the region, I refused and delivered on my growth objectives.
I earned my B.A. in Business Management and my M.A. in Organizational Management while working full-time, the exact discipline I now expect from the leaders I coach. That's where I learned what leadership actually costs, and what it's for.
16 years as a C-suite coach and executive peer-group facilitator, founder of an award-winning executive coaching firm serving leaders across the private sector, government, labor unions, and Fortune 500 companies.
Former Walt Disney World Transportation Operations Manager. Managed monorail operations and led frontline teams through the operational aftermath of 9/11.
Disney "Traditions" Corporate Training Team. Led corporate training to hundreds across multiple sites.
In 2005, launched, built, and rebuilt the Gulf South region as multi-state head following Hurricane Katrina.
B.A. Business Management · M.A. in Organizational Management, earned while working full-time.
2018 Entrepreneur of the Year.
Sought-after national speaker and TV, radio, and podcast guest; International Executive Association leadership.
Don't take my word for any of it. I'd rather you decide on what actually changes.
Here's what the owners and leaders I've coached say about the work, in their own words.
★★★★★ EXM holds a 5.0 average across 216+ Google reviews, one of the strongest review profiles in the category. (Attributed to the firm, never to an individual coach.)
No mystery and no pressure. Here’s exactly how it goes.
We start with a conversation
You book a call, and you get honest, fast, about whether the fit is right. If it isn't, we'll say so.
The 3D Diagnostic
A focused session digging into your Direction, Design, and Dynamic. You can't see how big the mountain is while you're climbing it.
The Leadership Lab
Your leadership team in the room. Momentum is a team sport. You walk out with a clear, honest picture of exactly what to fix first.
Ongoing coaching
A steady rhythm and the whole system: clarity, cadence, scorecards, leadership development. Think championship team: practice and drills before the game.
Straight answers.
Who does Julie Couret work best with?
Owners of $5M–$50M and $100M+ companies who are good at what they do but are lying awake wondering whether the strong people on their team are the ones to get them to the next level. Revenue is up again this year, and they’re more exhausted than they’ve ever been.
Julie’s specialty is the human dynamic and direction. She helps owners and their teams trade the undisciplined pursuit of more for deliberate growth, ambiguity for clarity, and hesitation for ownership. From structure comes freedom, and with Julie, some fun along the way too.
Where is Julie based, and who can she coach?
Julie is based in New Orleans, LA, and serves clients across New Orleans, the Southeastern US, and Texas. Coaching is done in a rhythm that fits a busy owner’s and leadership team’s schedule.
What is Julie's coaching style?
Direct, candid, and warm, with your growth as the non-negotiable. In her words: “I’m going to be very direct with you. I’m going to tell you what I see. Sometimes you’re going to love it. Sometimes you’re not going to love it. And that’s okay, because I’ve already decided that your growth matters more to me than you being comfortable in this moment. That’s real coaching.” She’s known as “The Executive Coach for Real People” for exactly that.
What framework does Julie use?
EXM’s 3D Momentum Model, a triangle of Direction, Design, and Dynamic that all have to hold. Julie is strongest on the Dynamic side: the people, the culture, and the relationships that decide whether everything else works. Her starting belief: a business doesn’t have problems; it has people, and people have problems, and most owners have never been given permission to make the hard calls, which creates paralysis. Her job is to give leaders permission to lead, and the structure to do it.
What happens on the first call?
A straight, no-pressure conversation about where your business is, where you want to take it, and whether Julie is the right coach for the job. If she’s not a fit, she’ll tell you. If she is, she’ll walk you through how she’d approach your situation, starting with the 3D Diagnostic.
Does Julie have client testimonials?
Yes. Jared Freeman, CEO of OnPath Federal Credit Union, describes working with Julie as “a multiplier effect, she allows me to move faster, quicker, smarter, easier.” You’ll find more than 20 reviews from owners and leadership teams she’s coached in the Results section above. The firm she coaches with has a 5.0 average across 216+ Google reviews, one of the strongest review profiles in its category.
Julie Couret
If any of this is hitting close to home, let's talk.
The owners Julie works with are usually doing the work only they can do, because the business still runs straight through them. That's the real growth wall, and you don't break through it by working harder.
Book a call with Julie.
A straight, no-pressure conversation about where your business is and whether Julie is the right coach for the job.
Opens Julie's calendar. Takes about 60 seconds.
★ 5.0 average · 216+ Google reviews