CFI's Graduate School
of Coaching
Batch
#38
Duration
12 months / 300 hours
Dates
July 2027 to August 2028
Format
Hybrid – In-person (Chennai)
+ Live-online
Overview
For more than two decades now, CFI has been India’s pioneer in Executive Coaching. The first institution in the country to dedicate an entire programme to building a cadre of world-class executive coaches. The Programme, PGPEC is a rigorous, evidence-based, practice-led certification that has shaped 345+ certified coaches across 37 batches.
Participants join from some of India’s most distinguished leadership ranks – CXOs, Presidents, Directors, and Senior leaders.
What brings them together is a shared conviction: coaching is one of the most powerful levers for transforming individuals, organisations, and communities. There is also a deeper motivation, to give back by sharing the wisdom, experience, and learning gathered over an illustrious career. To use what they have learnt to support the next generation of leaders and contribute meaningfully to society.
Over 12 months and 300 hours of hybrid learning, participants don’t just study coaching. They practice it. They are mentored through it. And they are rigorously assessed on it.
They emerge with both the competence and the confidence to coach at the executive level and to make their experience count for the leaders and generations that follow.
India's first
dedicated executive coaching certification programme
20+ years
of coaching and leadership development expertise
37 batches
345+ certified coaches
30 years
median work experience among participants
The PGPEC programme has pointed so much of the mirror inwards. Not only do I learn a skill on how to help people develop, I develop my own self-awareness and areas of growth.
Is PGPEC right for you?
PGPEC is designed for distinguished leaders and practitioners ready to build a serious coaching capability:
- Heads of organisations – CEOs, CXOs, CHROs, directors, and senior functional heads
- Accomplished professionals and consultants in coaching and human development
- Consultants, advisors, trainers, and business leaders looking to strengthen their practice with coaching
- Anyone with a genuine passion for coaching, ready to make it their way of life
Our cohorts are intentionally small, with not more than 20 participants selected from over 200 applicants.
I recommend all of you to really see this as not just a career change but as a life-changing experience – and I highly recommend CFI for you to enrol and see a different self.
Programme Highlights
An India-Centric Coaching Model, Globally Benchmarked
Built from the ground up for the realities of Indian corporate leadership, while holding to global standards of coaching rigour.
Comprehensive, Commitment-Led Selection
Admission is a dialogue, not a formality, designed to understand each participant’s motivation and readiness to invest in the journey ahead.
Two Supervised Coaching Internships
Participants gain hands-on experience coaching real leaders, with structured mentoring and feedback along the way. Real clients. Real coaching. Real-world experience.
A Personal Development Coach
Every participant is paired with an individual coach who works intensively with them on their own growth journey, so they can bring their best selves to the coaching work they do.
Highly Experienced, Industry-Revered Faculty
Facilitators bring decades of experience across industries, with hands-on expertise in executive coaching and leadership development.
A Professional Community for Life
Access to the CFI Hub, an online platform connecting CFI’s coaching community for ongoing dialogue on coaching and leadership. Post-certification, graduates join CFI’s Continuous Professional Development programme.
The CFI coaching model is robust, systematic, and empathetic with solid rigour built into it. The best thing is the personal attention and handholding by the coaches till certification is received.
Pedagogy
The PGPEC Learning Journey
The PGPEC is designed as a developmental journey that enables experienced professionals to make the transition from being successful leaders and problem-solvers to becoming reflective, skilled and responsible Executive Coaches.
The programme combines self-development, conceptual learning, intensive skills practice, supervised application and real-life coaching engagements to help participants develop the competence and confidence to coach senior professionals.
The curriculum is anchored in CFI’s proprietary approach to Executive Coaching and progressively builds competence across five dimensions: managing self, living coaching values, building the habit of great conversations, leveraging psychological insights, and forwarding action.
Develop the self-awareness, mindset and values required to make the transition from an experienced leader to a reflective and responsible Executive Coach. Explore the CFI philosophy of coaching, personal strengths, coaching values, ethics and the foundations of professional excellence.
Master the essential skills required to engage in deep and meaningful coaching conversations. Develop empathic presence, active listening, responding, probing, challenging and other advanced conversation skills that help individuals gain insight and move forward.
Build the psychological literacy required to understand the whole person behind the presenting agenda. Explore strengths, beliefs, emotions, behavioural patterns, assessment tools and the boundaries of coaching practice.
Learn to navigate the complete Executive Coaching journey-from understanding the client system and identifying priorities to crafting goals, facilitating action, sustaining change and closing engagements effectively.
Apply learning through intensive practice and live coaching engagements. Receive feedback, guidance and supervision while managing real coaching journeys and developing your individual coaching practice.
Academic Calendar for Batch 38 starting July 2027
The CFI Coaching Competency Model
Every element of the curriculum is anchored in CFI’s five-part coaching competency model – the framework that defines what makes a coach truly transformative:
- Managing Self – the discipline and self-awareness a coach brings to every engagement
- Living the Values – embodying the integrity coaching demands
- Conversation Skills – building the habit of great conversations
- Leveraging Psychological Insights – applying behavioural science with rigour
- Forwarding Action – translating insight into real, measurable progress for the client
CFI offers a rich experience that comes from a combination of great faculty and members who come from a wide range of sectors, bringing depth and expertise to the table.
PGPEC Experience
Professional Certification
Graduate as a certified executive coach from India’s most respected coaching institution, ready to coach CXOs, directors, and senior executives.
Personal Transformation
Participants consistently describe PGPEC as turning the mirror inward – building not just coaching skill, but deeper self-awareness and personal growth that extends well beyond the professional.
A Lifelong Coaching Community
Membership in the CFI Hub – a professional community of 345+ certified coaches for ongoing dialogue, peer support, and shared practice.
Continuous Professional Development
On certification, enrolment into CFI’s annual CPD programme – practice development inputs, exposure to cutting-edge tools, and regular industry insight to sustain your coaching practice long after graduation.
Proprietary Tools & Platform Access
Access to CFI’s proprietary coaching engagement models, templates, and methodologies, plus CFI’s LMS (Moodle) platform to support your coaching practice post-certification.
Access to Coaching Opportunities
Inclusion in CFI’s talent pool – our exclusive pool of certified coaches for all coaching engagements, creating opportunities to coach organisations, leaders, and executives.
Faculty
PGPEC Snapshot
PGPEC Alumni
Testimonials
FAQs
PGPEC is designed for accomplished leaders and professionals – CXOs, directors, business leaders, HR leaders and consultants who want to build a rigorous, certified executive coaching capability, either as a career or as an extension of their leadership practice.
Admission is a two-way dialogue rather than a simple application. It’s designed to help CFI understand a candidate’s motivation and readiness to commit the time and resources the programme demands, and to help candidates decide if PGPEC is the right fit for them.
PGPEC is a 12-month, 300-hour programme combining in-person sessions in Chennai, live-online sessions, two supervised coaching internships and continuous review. Participants should expect regular monthly engagement across the year.
The fee covers hybrid learning sessions, support from a CFI-certified development coach through both internships, continuous assessment and feedback, courseware, and access to CFI’s proprietary coaching tools and LMS platform on certification.
On successful completion – including continuous assessment, submission of documents, journaling records and case studies, and a final in-person Viva Voce before a panel of coaches and industry leaders – participants are certified as executive coaches by CFI.
On being certified, you will be invited to become a member of the CFI Community.
Becoming a member opens up two pathways:
- Coach Competence Development: Coaches are continuously offered competence development programmes and refreshers to ensure their learning does not stop.
- Coach Practice Development: CFI works with organisations across the country to deliver leader development solutions, with coaching at the heart. We have worked with over 275 clients and carried out more than 3000 coaching engagements leveraging our member coaches. On becoming a CFI member, your profile is added to CFI’s coach database. When coaching opportunities arise, coaches are shortlisted from this database, based on the specific requirements of each client.
Opportunities to coach are offered when your experience and profile are a strong fit for the client’s needs, and a positive chemistry is established between you and the leader being coached. To help you succeed, CFI also provides you the option of engaging a peer guide for your early executive coaching engagements.
While CFI does not guarantee coaching assignments, all our client requirements are carried out only by CFI certified coaches.
Here is a partial list of companies that engage coaches from CFI.
Register now to start the conversation
For Any Further Queries
info@cfi.co.in
+91 7305947976
www.cfi.co.in
work well, live well
Coaching is a practice.
Becoming a coach is a journey.
For over two decades, CFI’s Post Graduate Programme in Executive Coaching (PGPEC) has been that journey for more than 345 professionals choosing to make executive coaching a serious practice. It is a journey of personal growth as much as it is a journey of learning to coach - because the deeper we encounter ourselves, the more deeply we can work with others.
Registrations are now open for the 38th batch, commencing in July 2027.
Explore the Journey