About me

A coach committed to helping people uncover options and step into choices that feel genuinely theirs.

Jonas Jacobson

I'm Jonas, an executive coach, digital strategy advisor, and gender equality advocate based in Geneva, Switzerland. I work with senior leaders responding to opportunities and emerging female professionals building careers on their own terms.

What drives my work is an understanding, based on research and experience, that while we all have experienced disappointments, what's often holding us back is how we have internalise them, as well as the unexamined beliefs and inherited expectations we carry without realising it. My role is to create space where you can see these barriers clearly, question them honestly, and make conscious choices to live your fullest life and be successful.

I bring two decades of leadership experience, a deep curiosity about science, philosophy, and psychology, and a commitment to helping people reconnect with conscious and authentic choice.

My Story

Having seen colleagues and friends struggling with tough choices, but then being helped by talking through their situation, has really inspired me to become a coach.

Why Coaching?

Through-out my career I've always enjoyed growing those around me. Mostly through one to one coaching and mentoring, but also setting up the right organisation and providing opportunities. As I found myself with the opportunity to start a new career, coaching came very naturally - which was reinforced by colleagues' and friends' positive reaction to it. By focussing on it deliberately, I can both serve more people and increase my coaching skills to provide real value faster for my clients.

What Informs My Approach

We all make choices in life. From partners, to careers, to where to live - with additional complexity as they influence each other. In my case, I was lucky to meet my partner early in life and that we could talk through and make choices jointly, from living together as students, to prioritising careers and choosing a remote relationship, to then reprioritising living together again, to now my changing career. In all of these choices, I pride myself on having made them very consciously, and through-out my coaching and mentoring I've tried to ensure others also make informed, conscious choices instead of simply jumping on the next thing.

I am also a student of human nature, understanding the biases that may help us and which ones hinders us, how we respond to perceived threats and what we need to feel content. While each situation is unique, there are many models from science, philosophy, and psychology that can help us gain new insights and frameworks to use when we're presented - or confronted - with an opportunity.

My Relationship with Norms

As part of making informed choices, we need to be aware of things that are so natural they're invisible to us. Does the next job really have to mean taking on more responsibility? Is relocation worth the strain on your relationships? Would additional income improve your everyday life? The answer to all of these question may be an emphatic and honest "yes" - the key is to have asked them. Throughout our upbringing and the culture we surround ourselves with (professional and societal), we are given role models and standards of what is best and right. I want you to see those for what they are - optional norms that can you choose, or not, to abide by.

My Approach to Coaching

Coaching with me is about more than solving immediate problems—it's about developing the capacity to see patterns, recognise choices, and make decisions aligned with who you truly are.

Uncovering, Not Prescribing

I don't hand over ready-made solutions. You're the expert in your own life. My role is to help you see what you might be missing—the assumptions you're carrying, the patterns that keep repeating, the choices that are actually available to you. My deepest passion is helping people realise they always have choices, even when circumstances feel constraining. Once you understand that you can choose—consciously, rather than by default—you unlock a sense of freedom and agency that transforms how you approach your work and life.

Care and Challenge in Equal Measure

You'll experience me as someone who listens deeply and creates a safe, confidential space. But I'll also ask the questions that push you into new territory. Good coaching isn't comfortable—it's the right kind of uncomfortable that enables growth and insights. I balance deep listening with tough questions, creating the kind of thinking partnership where you can examine the full range of options you have.

Making the Invisible Visible

Often the real barriers aren't the ones we first identify. They're deeper—unexamined beliefs about success, inherited expectations about career, subtle ways we've limited ourselves without realising it. While external constraints are real, it's often how we've internalised them that constrains us most. I help you surface these invisible patterns so you can decide consciously whether they still serve you—and what you're ready to let go of to move forward on your own terms.

Credentials & Background

IMD Executive Coaching Certificate Program

In Progress • Expected Completion April 2026

Comprehensive executive coaching training focused on working with senior leaders and C-suite executives navigating diverse challenges and strategic choices.

ICF Accreditation

In Progress

Pursuing International Coaching Federation accreditation, demonstrating commitment to professional coaching standards and ethical practice.

Board member since 2017, Chair since 2022 - Swedish International School of Geneva

Non-profit association with a 50 year history in Geneva, covering pre-school and primary school (ages 3-12) for over 120 children, following both Swedish and Swiss curricula in a tri-lingual setting. During my tenure on the board of the association we have overseen a physical relocation of the school to new premises, rewritten statutes and made the board more effective, and recruited a new principal / managing director.

Multiple leadership roles, 2003-2025 - P&G

Multiple assignments across various domains, driving transformations with digital strategies. Worked in Germany and Hungary before settling in Switzerland 2008. Led global organisations of 100+ resources to drive impact across P&G, most recently in Media. There I worked with our internal marketing and media partners on the strategy and led the IT organisation to implement changes that impacted P&G's multi-billion dollar annual media investment and associated processes serving thousands of users.

Formal Education

  • Executive Coaching Certificate Program 2025-2026 IMD
  • Executive MBA 2010-2012 University of Geneva
  • M.Sc. Engineering Physics 1998-2003 Uppsala University with exchange semester at ETH Zurich
  • Military Service: Squad leader Military Police 1996-1997 K1 Livgardets Dragoner

    • More on my LinkedIn profile

    Beyond Coaching

    While I'm originally Swedish, I had an international childhood and my first assignments at P&G were in Germany & Hungary. Since 2008 I live in Geneva, Switzerland, with my wife and two daughters.

    My wife works full-time and in hindsight, I'm still not sure how we managed two full-time demanding corporate careers while also trying to raise kids without extended family nearby. Safe to say is that we feel very privileged (and less stressed) now that only one of us focusses on a corporate career, while I spend more time managing the home and pursuing more flexible work engagements. This didn't happen by chance, but through smart choices, deliberate conversations, hard work, and my keen interest in personal finance (inspired by the FIRE movement).

    During the week we navigate work and commitments with the joys and challenges of raising children to be caring and strong adults. To recharge, we leverage our proximity to the French Alps during the weekends, stay connected with family and childhood friends in Sweden, host and visit friends from around the world, and make at least one intercontinental family trip per year to see the world and learn about different cultures.

    For me personally, I also work on taking time for my hobbies of staying on top of global news and economics, buying more interesting books than I have time to read, find time for a driving experience every year, planning the family finances long term, playing video games (after almost a 20 year hiatus), and reading for leisure - primarily science fiction. And to be able to take the time, I continuously work on keeping healthy habits around sleep, exercise, nutrition, and mental health.

    I feel I have been able to build the life I want, which includes working on it every day. This is to me why conscious and authentic choice matters — not just in boardrooms and career decisions, but in how we show up for the people we love and the lives we're building together.

    Family time in the mountains

    Weekends recharging in the French Alps

    Let's Talk

    Whether you're a senior leader facing an opportunity or an emerging professional building your career, I'd welcome a conversation about how coaching might support your journey.

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