Lina El Assaad
United Arab Emirates
Executive and team coach; Chairperson, ICF Governance Committee; past President, ICF UAE
Executive, leadership and team coach with more than two decades supporting C-suite leaders, senior government officials and members of royal families, with work across Fortune 500 organisations. Past President of ICF UAE, Chairperson of the ICF Governance Committee, an AoEC coach trainer and a Harvard Business Review Council contributor.
Why this placement
She holds the only ICF global individual award ever made to a GCC-based coach. ICF's own past-winners archive lists "Lina El Assaad, PCC (UAE)" as an Accomplished Coach for 2023 — and a sweep of that archive from 2005 to 2025 turns up no other person based in the Gulf. On independent third-party recognition, which this methodology weights above self-description, nothing else in the region comes close.
Two decades of practice at head-of-state and royal-family level is a tier of work almost no one in this study can evidence, and her governance roles at ICF are elected by peers rather than purchased.
Editorial notes and exclusions
- ICF's profile also describes her as the first PCC to receive its Coaching Impact Award. That is ICF referring to the same award family, not a second honour, and it is not double-counted here.
- She has no personal website, which is a genuine gap for a public ranking and the main reason she is not ranked first.
- Holds PCC rather than MCC; no other credential is stated on ICF's page. No books.
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