Evidence & methodology

Every number on this site, and how it was arrived at.

Four figures appear across these pages. This page gives each one its dataset, its observation window, the population it was computed over, the formula behind it, and — more usefully — what it does not establish.

Dataset owner
Nirvedha Executive Coaching Solutions
Source
Nirvedha engagement records
Observation window
1 January 2017 – 31 May 2026
Review
Internal
180+

Unique senior leaders coached since 2017.

Unit
Unique people, not engagements. A leader coached twice counts once. The practice has run roughly twelve sessions per leader on average across the window.
Eligibility
Any one-to-one coaching engagement inside the window, at any seniority, on any track.
Excluded
Workshop and keynote participants. Those are organisational rooms, not coaching engagements, and are never counted here.
103

Leaders who engaged specifically for promotion coaching.

Definition
Leaders whose stated objective at the outset was a promotion. This is the cohort the promotion figures below are computed over — not all 180+.
The other 77
Engaged for other reasons — behavioural change, transition, board readiness, scope expansion, founder work. They are not in the median, and were never intended to be.
Outcome
Every leader in this cohort attained the promotion inside the window. The median below is therefore computed over the complete cohort, with no exclusions — there is no group of unsuccessful cases sitting outside the figure.
5.8 months

Median time from kickoff to promotion.

Population
All 103 leaders in the promotion cohort. Denominator 103, numerator 103.
Statistic
Median, not mean. Half the cohort reached promotion faster than 5.8 months, half took longer.
How derived
From the recorded duration of each coaching engagement in the cohort, measured from kickoff to the point the promotion was attained. Some ran beyond six months; some closed inside it.
Not derived from
Independently verified HR records or employer confirmations. The figure rests on the practice's own engagement records, not on the employer's documentation.
Population label
Any promotion, though in practice these are senior roles. Earlier versions of this site labelled the figure “CXO / SBU-head”, which was narrower than the data supports. That wording has been withdrawn.
₹32 Crore

Added to combined client compensation.

Formula
The sum of each leader's annual salary increase at the point of promotion, across the 103 leaders in the promotion cohort.
Implied average
Approximately ₹31.1 lakh per leader. Stating the average matters: a large total across a large cohort is a different claim from a large total driven by a few outliers, and the arithmetic should be visible.
Counted once
The annual increase at promotion, counted a single time per leader. Not multiplied across subsequent years, and not compounded.
Not included
Bonuses, ESOPs, joining payments, long-term incentives, or any later increase unrelated to the promotion.
Source of figures
Reported by the leader in the course of the engagement. Not independently verified against payroll.

What these numbers do not establish.

A figure is only useful if its limits travel with it. These are the ones that matter, stated plainly rather than buried.

Why there is no external audit

The coaching agreements preclude disclosing engagement detail to a third party. An external auditor would need exactly what those agreements protect — who was coached, at which employer, into which role, at what compensation.

So the absence of an external audit here is a consequence of the confidentiality terms, not an unwillingness to be checked. The definitions above are published in full precisely because the underlying records cannot be. The First Discipline applies: no coaching client is named anywhere, ever.

Claims withdrawn

Two figures previously published here have been removed rather than defended. A “35% faster time-to-impact than open-ended coaching arrangements” comparison was withdrawn because no comparison group, method or window supported it. A 92% repeat-client ratio was withdrawn because it had not been given a definition precise enough to publish.

Both are recorded here rather than quietly deleted. A methodology page that only lists surviving claims is not a methodology page.