Ratish Pandey of Ethique Advisory on People-First Business Coaching, Brian Tracy Solutions Integration, and Building Execution-Driven Leadership Cultures

StartupTalky presents Recap'25, a series of exclusive interviews where we connect with founders and industry leaders to reflect on their journey in 2025 and discuss their vision for the future.

In this edition of Recap’25, StartupTalky speaks with Ratish Pandey, Business Coach and Founder of Ethique Advisory, who reflects on the rapid evolution of business coaching from a “soft” support function into a strategic performance lever for organizations navigating volatility, talent challenges, and faster decision cycles. He shares how Ethique Advisory is built on a people-first philosophy—rooted in the belief that sustainable business success is less about strategy alone and more about leadership depth, execution discipline, and team ownership.

Pandey explains how Ethique Advisory has expanded its impact by integrating globally recognised Brian Tracy Solutions into its practice, enabling structured training programs focused on measurable transformation in productivity, accountability, and performance culture. The conversation explores the growing demand for coaching among Indian MSMEs and family businesses, especially during scale and transition phases such as succession planning and professionalisation. He also discusses how AI has reshaped perception in the advisory space often creating the illusion that information can replace judgment while reinforcing why coaching remains fundamentally human-led, rooted in context, behaviour change, and accountability. Looking ahead, he outlines Ethique Advisory’s plan to scale with sharper customer segmentation, certified coaching talent, and system-led delivery while staying aligned to the mission of building scalable excellence rather than fast expansion.

StartupTalky: What service does Ethique Advisory provide? What was the motivation or vision behind starting it?

Ratish Pandey: Ethique Advisory offers business coaching and structured training programs for corporates, entrepreneurs, and leadership teams.

Business coaching was not a career choice for me, it was a calling. After spending decades leading and building successful businesses, I came to a fundamental realization: true success is not driven by strategy alone, but by people.

As an executive and business coach, I discovered that I could make a meaningful difference -not just in organizational outcomes, but in people’s lives. Being a people-centric leader throughout my career, coaching became a natural extension of my journey, allowing me to unlock the potential of both individuals and businesses.

Ethique Advisory is not just another coaching firm. It exists to empower leaders, strengthen teams, and create lasting impact. Our work goes beyond short-term fixes we focus on sustainable growth, accountability, and leadership depth.

Last year, we expanded our vision by bringing Brian Tracy Solutions into our fold. This partnership enables us to deliver world-class, structured training programs that move beyond theory into real, actionable transformation. These globally recognized programs help organizations improve ownership, productivity, leadership effectiveness, and performance discipline.

At Ethique Advisory, coaching and training are not standalone interventions—they are tools to build a culture of continuous growth and excellence, whether for an individual leader, a growing enterprise, or a large organization.

Whether you are an individual seeking clarity, an entrepreneur navigating scale, or a business aiming for sustainable performance, Ethique Advisory partners with you at every step of the journey.

StartupTalky: What new services were added in the past year? What are the USPs of your services?

Ratish Pandey: In the past year, we expanded our offerings by integrating Brian Tracy Solutions into our practice. This enabled us to launch globally recognized, structured training programs that focus on execution, ownership, productivity, and leadership effectiveness—moving well beyond theoretical or motivational learning. The key USP is actionable, measurable transformation inside organizations.

Additionally, we introduced a dedicated business coaching vertical for family businesses, addressing challenges such as succession planning, role clarity, and professionalization while preserving family values and legacy.

Our core USPs lie in people-first, results-driven coaching, structured frameworks with strong accountability, and long-term capability building. We don’t offer one-off interventions—we partner with leaders to create sustainable growth and performance cultures.

StartupTalky: How has your industry changed in recent years, and how has your company adapted?

Ratish Pandey: The rapid growth of business coaching reflects a structural shift in entrepreneurship. Founders are younger, decision cycles are shorter, and market volatility is now the norm rather than the exception. Multiple global studies show that organizations with structured coaching and leadership development demonstrate higher execution discipline, stronger team alignment, and faster adaptability—making coaching a strategic necessity, not a discretionary investment. As Richard Branson famously predicted, every business will eventually have a business coach.

At Ethique Advisory, we have aligned our model to this reality. We combine blended learning, digital engagement, and AI-enabled tools with globally proven frameworks from ActionCOACH, adapted specifically for Indian MSMEs and family enterprises. The result is measurable leadership effectiveness, stronger ownership culture, and sustainable performance in complex markets.

StartupTalky: What key metrics do you track to measure growth and performance?

Ratish Pandey: We track a combination of scale, engagement, and impact metrics. Core indicators include the growth in the number of active clients, increase in coaching and training hours delivered, and the number of seminars, workshops, and structured programs conducted across segments.

Beyond volume, we also look at client continuity, repeat engagements, referrals, and depth of engagement, as these reflect trust and long-term impact. For us, performance is measured not just by activity, but by how consistently our clients progress and execute independently.

StartupTalky: What were the most significant challenges faced this year, and how did you overcome them?

Ratish Pandey: One of the biggest challenges this year was the rapid rise of AI-enabled advisory tools, which led many entrepreneurs to believe that platforms like GPT or Gemini could provide complete solutions to complex business problems.

What is often misunderstood is that only a small fraction of human knowledge is digitized, and even within that, large language models access a limited subset. More importantly, business success is rarely an information problem—it is a decision, execution, and behavior challenge.

We addressed this by reframing the conversation with clients. Instead of positioning AI as a replacement, we helped entrepreneurs understand the difference between information and insight, and why context, accountability, and leadership judgment still require human coaching. This shift led to more meaningful discussions and deeper engagements.

StartupTalky: What are the different strategies you use for marketing? Tell us about any growth hack that you pulled off.

Ratish Pandey: Our marketing approach is trust-led and content-driven rather than volume-led. We focus on building credibility before conversion.

Key strategies include:

• Thought leadership through long-form articles, interviews, podcasts, and speaking engagements
• Outcome-driven referrals, built on visible client transformation rather than incentives
• Strategic partnerships that add depth and authority, including ActionCOACH and Brian Tracy Solutions
• A strong mix of organic content, workshops (online and in-person), and performance marketing, all aligned to a single narrative

Our biggest growth hack has been clarity. We became extremely clear about who we serve, the problems we solve, and who we are not meant for. This sharpened our messaging, improved lead quality, and significantly increased conversion rates—without increasing marketing spend.

For us, growth has come not from chasing attention, but from earning trust and staying consistent.

StartupTalky: What opportunities do you see for future growth in your industry in India and the world? What kind of difference in market behavior have you seen between India and the world?

Ratish Pandey: The future of business coaching and leadership development is strongly aligned with the growing complexity of running organizations. As markets become more volatile, digital-first, and talent-constrained, the demand for structured leadership, execution discipline, and people-centric growth models will continue to rise globally.

In India, the biggest growth opportunity lies in MSMEs and family-owned businesses that are transitioning from founder-led operations to professionally managed organizations. As Indian enterprises scale, there is a clear shift from viewing coaching as a “soft” intervention to recognizing it as a strategic enabler for governance, leadership depth, and sustainable performance.

Globally, particularly in mature markets, business coaching is already well institutionalized. Organizations are more outcome-driven, data-led, and comfortable investing in long-term leadership development. Coaching is integrated into performance systems, succession planning, and leadership pipelines rather than being used as a corrective measure.

The key difference in market behavior is intent. In India, businesses often adopt coaching reactively—during scale, transition, or stress. Globally, coaching is adopted proactively—as a continuous leadership advantage. This gap represents a significant opportunity: as Indian businesses mature, their approach is rapidly converging with global best practices, creating sustained demand for structured, measurable coaching and training solutions.

StartupTalky: How are you using AI in service delivery, internal processes, or customer experience, and what impact has it created?

Ratish Pandey: We use AI intentionally and with clear boundaries. It is primarily applied to simple, well-defined tasks such as research support, content structuring, documentation, and internal process efficiency—rather than complex or sensitive decision-making.

Internally, AI has helped improve speed, consistency, and productivity. From a customer experience perspective, it enables quicker responses and better-structured communication. At the same time, we are very mindful of data sensitivity and confidentiality—not everything should be shared with AI systems.

Used responsibly, AI has enhanced efficiency and focus. However, the core value we deliver continues to come from human-led coaching, judgment, and accountability, which remain irreplaceable.

StartupTalky: How do you plan to expand the Customers, service offering, and team base in the future?

Ratish Pandey: Our expansion strategy is deliberately focused and sustainable, built around depth rather than rapid scale.

Customer expansion will come from sharper segmentation. We are doubling down on MSMEs, family businesses, the service industry, manufacturing enterprises, solopreneurs, and leadership teams in growth or transition phases, while also expanding our corporate footprint through structured training engagements. Referrals and strategic partnerships will remain key growth levers, supported by strong thought leadership and outcome-led visibility.

In manufacturing driving operational excellence and sales discipline to improve throughput, reduce wastage, strengthen shop-floor leadership, and deliver higher productivity, healthier margins, and predictable growth.

In services building execution consistency and sales excellence in people-led businesses—enhancing delivery quality, utilization, and client acquisition to increase sales velocity, customer retention, and profitability.

For Solopreneurs creating structure where chaos exists—helping solopreneurs systemize operations, sharpen sales focus, and leverage time effectively to achieve faster revenue conversion, sustainable workloads, and scalable income.

Helping Family Businesses align legacy, leadership, and performance by professionalizing operations, strengthening governance, and clarifying roles to enable smooth succession, reduced conflict, and long-term value creation. 

For team expansion, our focus is on building a high-quality bench of certified coaches and trainers with strong execution and industry exposure. We are prioritizing capability building, certification, and cultural alignment to ensure depth, consistency, and measurable impact as we scale.

Our objective is not rapid expansion, but scalable excellence, helping businesses and leaders perform better, sell better, and operate with clarity, regardless of size or sector.

StartupTalky: One tip that you would like to share with another Service company founder.

Ratish Pandey: One sentence it would be “Build systems before you chase scale.”In service businesses, growth often depends heavily on the founder or a few star performers. Document your delivery, sales, and client-management processes early, measure what drives outcomes, and build accountability into the system. When your business can deliver consistent results without your constant presence, you unlock higher productivity, faster sales velocity, and sustainable profitability.

Explore more Recap'25 interviews here.