The Changemaker Series: Evergrowth Coaching’s Sabrina Wang

Welcome to The Changemaker Series, where we highlight fascinating entrepreneurs that you should know. 

We all know how critical a CEO is to a brand. Whether it’s a pre-seed startup or a Fortune 50 company, the face of your organization can make or break your business. Charismatic CEOs can charm away negative press with ease, while visionary leaders can transform operations and inspire employees to achieve extraordinary results. With CEOs playing such a pivotal role, companies need the talents of executive coaches like Sabrina Wang.

Wang is the founder and lead executive coach at Evergrowth Coaching, where she helps senior leaders and CEOs achieve greatness. We had the pleasure of speaking with Wang about what makes a CEO truly great, her journey from studying accounting to excelling as a product manager, and her ultimate pivot to becoming a sought-after executive coach.

While we enjoyed a far-reaching and very fun conversation, the below Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. 

Can you describe what you do in layman terms?

I’m a coach, and I like to think of myself as a coach of someone’s potential. There are different types of potentials – potential for joy, for uncertainty, for difficult emotions, and most commonly, people think about the potential for success and how big they can make a company and how much money they can make. But from my experience, how you do one thing is how you do everything. So I really am in the business of growing people’s potential on the executive level.

How long have you been operating Evergrowth Coaching?

I’ve had it for a little over a year, and I’ve been a coach for about four years. So this is my second coaching business.

What made you decide to start your own business?

I was a product manager, and I thought that was something to be proud of—a reputable career, well-paying, and something I had worked hard to achieve. But even after fighting so much to get there, something still didn’t feel quite right. That’s when I decided to hire a coach. Working with her was transformative. For the first time, I felt like I was truly discovering who I was—my values, what I wanted out of life—and realizing that I didn’t have to live according to other people’s expectations. I could take agency in creating the life I truly wanted.

At that point, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to start a business. I just knew I wanted to be a coach. Honestly, if I’d known everything I know now, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to start. But at the time, I thought, Why not give it a try?

While working my nine-to-five, I was already coaching part-time, and I was fully booked. I couldn’t take on any more clients, and there was more demand coming in. I realized the only way to create more time was to quit my full-time job. I was also in a good place financially to take that risk, so I went for it.

What did you study in your schooling? 

Accounting. 

How does accounting lend itself to what you currently do or not at all?

I think it’s actually in spite of accounting. Going through something that felt so unlike me—something I thought I was supposed to do, something expected of me—a safe, predictable career, was pivotal. I reached the point of arriving at a Big Four accounting firm, passing my CPA exam, and imagining the life of a partner, thinking, This is what my next 10 to 15 years will look like. But I realized, I can’t do this.

It took courage and the right skill set to leave accounting. Even before that, moving away from China and acclimating to the U.S. without my family shaped me profoundly. It would have been easy to stick to what was expected—the path of least resistance—but I chose the path of resistance to get to where I am today.

I think my life is the best example of why I truly believe in the core of coaching. Coaching isn’t about the coach; it’s about asking great questions and confronting yourself. That’s exactly what I’ve always done.

Who are the types of executives that you excel at working with? 

Right now, my client base is like 95% CEOs, and then other founders in C suite, CTO, COO and  other types of leaders. Most recently, I’ve started to do a little bit of coaching with coaches as well. It’s a new category that I’m trying to develop, because these are entrepreneurs that are mission-driven. By mission-driven entrepreneurs, I mean people who decided to take on a risk because they’re really passionate about something, and there’s something driving them, and they usually encounter a few challenges and decide to look for coaching. Challenges like imposter syndrome, suddenly managing people you weren’t used to, being severely burned out and  personal relationships are falling apart, or your senior exec team is fighting with each other constantly. 

What do you think makes a great CEO? 

I would say what comes to mind is a combination of great energy, discipline, and boundaries. I’ve had people come to me saying, ‘I built this company over 10 years, and I loved it, but now I don’t even want to show up to the office anymore.’ A great sign of progress is when we can help them reconnect with their work and start enjoying it again. They show up with renewed energy, excited about their job, and that enthusiasm spills over into their personal relationships, hobbies, and other areas of their life. You can see their life force coming back.

The first piece is energy, but it’s intertwined with discipline and boundaries. Discipline, for instance, is about knowing how to create focused time and prioritize effectively. In a world full of distractions—especially in roles that inherently involve constant interruptions—people need to develop systems, processes, and a mindset that allows for deep, focused thinking. Without that, they’ll be constantly reacting to whatever is most urgent or visible, rather than working on what truly matters. Discipline also extends to physical health, like getting enough sleep, which supports overall performance.

The third piece is boundaries. Many people struggle to communicate effectively with their direct reports or peers. They hold back from saying, ‘This isn’t working for me,’ or ‘This is what I need.’ But when they’re able to express themselves clearly and productively, they feel a greater sense of agency in their lives. They become more energized and confident, which reinforces their discipline and helps maintain their energy. These three elements—energy, discipline, and boundaries—work together, creating a positive cycle that improves their work and personal life.

What would make a successful relationship for you when working with a client? What do you do to ensure that it will be a healthy working relationship, where they will get what they need from you?

I think your question is great because it has two parts: What do I do, and what do I look for to determine if it’s a great fit for me?

First, there’s an evaluation process. We typically have one or two calls to get a sense of things, and I’m very upfront—if something doesn’t feel right, I’ll let people know. Chemistry is really important.

Then, once we start working together, I have a safeguard in place for the first two months. My engagements usually last six months, but if something feels off during those first two months—no questions asked—I’ll refund the full amount they’ve paid. I don’t make any money, but I think the relationship and mutual respect are far more important than anything else.

That said, I’ve never had to issue a refund because the discovery process usually helps us identify whether it’s a good fit. But having this safeguard ensures that neither of us feels stuck in sessions that aren’t meaningful or productive.

Who are some CEOs that you admire, that you think are doing things right?

Kevin Lee, CEO of immi. I see his posts and I can tell that he’s very thoughtful about his planning, reflection, his leadership etc. I really love working with people like that. Thinking about people I’ve already worked with, I really love the cofounders of Revenue Cat, a Series C Company, and I’ve worked with both of them. They have the best chemistry with each other, so much trust, so much openness, and they’re both engineers turned founders who learned how to lead, which I think is really, really difficult, and they both do it with young kids at home.

How do you view AI as helping or hurting what you do in particular?

I’ve started trying out ChatGPT as an adjunct therapist and coach, after getting prompts from people, and it is very, very good at analyzing, and it’s very good at pattern recognition. So if I tell it a story and I tell it things, it’ll come back to me with insights that I also heard from my therapist. But information is not the same as change, and I’m actually currently reading a book called Stolen Focus. It’s a fascinating book, and one of the insights around research is how having a lot of information is the biggest problem in our attention and focus. If we don’t have focus, then we can’t do the thing that we want. So having a lot of information about what my patterns are is not the same thing as making change. So I think it could help [with certain things] like with my note taking. It could help with, if I’ve been with a client for two years and he wants to ask that database what are his patterns. What should he be reminded of? And if the AI can prompt him to do certain things, it could create systems to make this easier. But a lot of times that change comes in silence, of me sitting with my client, of me sitting with my friend, of someone just looking deeply into my eyes and telling me, I get you, and I don’t know how we can do that with AI. It would be fascinating and terrifying if we could do that. 

What’s your go-to inspiration (song, book, movie) that you turn to when you’re feeling creatively stuck?

For me, it’s going outside in nature by myself, not listening to anything, just being outside, being with my thoughts, and doing a hike. That’s probably the best thing for me. But I will say something I watched lately that was very, very, very good was Shrinking on Apple TV. 

Thanks to Sabrina for her time and insight! Learn more about Sabrina and Evergrowth Coaching by following Sabrina on LinkedIn, or contact her at her website.