What clients say
Affective Advisors has worked with leading names in the world of hedge funds, private equity, financial services, law and academia. Here is feedback from a small selection of clients past and present that we have supported. Verbatim: attributed as given.
Hedge funds and financial services
“Working with Trang has been a game-changer. Learning to define emotions accurately has helped me move from vague feelings to actionable solutions much faster. Her tools have provided deep insights into my mental models and habits. What stands out most is her infinite patience, real-world experience, and flexibility. I genuinely trust the process because it’s grounded in expertise and empathy.”
Working with Trang has been genuinely transformative for me as an investor. Before our work together, I made investment decisions in highly activated emotional states, without a clear process, and often felt I was simply guessing. Trang helped me see that, in trying to move fast by skipping parts of my process, I was actually slowing myself down and generating a great deal of anxiety.
Through our coaching sessions, Trang helped me completely revamp my approach to investing. Just as importantly, she gave me the tools to recognize and name my emotions as they arose and to manage them effectively in the moment. As a result, I’ve developed a level of comfort with deploying and managing risk that I never had before—one that holds up even in volatile markets like today’s.
I’m deeply grateful for the impact this work has had on both my results and my peace of mind. I would highly recommend Trang to any investor seeking to sharpen their process, master their emotions, and make decisions with far greater clarity and confidence.
“Trang’s insight was always astute and accurate. Her skill meant she could hone in immediately on where the bigger issues lay… and her intimate understanding of a banking environment, with its unique personalities and politics, meant she could relate easily to the context in which I operate.”
“The coaching sessions with Trang enable me to take my emotional intelligence and leadership presence to the next level. From day one, Trang challenged me to deepen self awareness and approach challenges from varied perspectives. Trang effectively probes in a supportive way which enables clients to stretch boundaries throughout each stage of the process. I have increased my capacity to influence and obtain genuine buy in from stakeholders by working with her.”
“I really appreciated your honesty and integrity. You pushed me to make me improve. You did not tell me what I wanted to hear but instead you looked to unlock all my issues to make me a better leader. The sessions were thought provoking, well constructed and had a clear goal. Throughout the sessions, I saw progress in the way I was able to understand the issues and other people. I am now a lot more sensitive to behaviour and I can manage more effectively and lead. This is a journey I would recommend anyone to take.”
“Things were going very well until the most recent volatility. Working with Trang made me much more aware of my stress levels and how I tend to ‘lean in’ when I should be ‘leaning out’, which pushed me back to a tight process and rebuilding p-n-l with much more discipline. I now realise that the trades that were out of process cost all of the money.”
“The emotion definitions have been a game changer for me both professionally and personally… the fact that you can define emotions in a detailed manner. “Feeling awful” can have so many definitions but narrowing that feeling has helped me move towards solutions quicker.”
“Trang helped me break the cycle of stress-driven impulsive overtrading. Her tools gave me structure, helped me understand my negative behavioural patterns, and created distance at key moments. I now trade less and perform more consistently.”
“Working together with Trang has made it much easier to spot emotional states from an early stage and move past the biases they create. My trading has gained in discipline, with a greater level of detachment from short-term P&L and emotional swings. Beyond the internal work, I have become better at managing professional relationships and extracting noise from signals in market-related or business conversations.”
“Trang’s input and insights proved to be invaluable to me, helping me build on my strengths and overcome some of my weak points. Her insight was always astute and accurate and her skill as a coach meant she was able to hone in immediately on where the bigger issues lay when I would relate day-to-day incidents with her. Her intimate understanding of a banking environment, with its unique personalities and politics, meant she was able to relate easily to the context in which I operate and consequently, she was able to offer me pragmatic suggestions and solutions which worked. The sessions weren’t always comfortable as Trang challenged me and pushed me but they were always productive and very worthwhile. I feel she has given me the tools to take my career to the next level. I couldn’t recommend her highly enough.”
“I initially didn’t understand the need for an executive coach, but after spending just an hour chatting with Trang, I recognised where I could improve myself and my behaviour. Trang helped me immensely to recognise quite a number of obvious flaws that, even though small, could have held back my career progress. She has the ability to understand not just what will make you successful in business, but what will help you to grow as a person in general. It was important to hear a voice that came without any spin that I could trust. Trang is very professional, has content expertise, emotional intelligence, a willingness to connect and extreme honesty in assessment.”
Private equity and portfolio companies
“Trang is excellent at her work. She is articulate, thorough, relatable, has keen judgment and cares a ton. Trang plainly “gets it” and gets results.”
“Thank you for your session on emotions and decision-making. In particular, I really appreciated how you tailored segments of it to our organisation based on the employee survey and the timeliness of it given the extraordinary and testing circumstances of the crisis. I myself found it very helpful to contextualise my own decision-making process and hope to apply some of the learnings. Likewise, the broader feedback from my team has also been overwhelmingly positive across functions and seniority levels.”
“I found my coaching engagement with Trang hugely beneficial and insightful. Trang was able to very quickly identify my strengths and weaknesses as a manager and leader. In particular, we worked on my areas of weakness that might derail my potential as a manager and, therefore, what might negatively impact my ambitions within the firm. Trang did not just identify and discuss these areas but gave me the toolkit to work on these areas and how to evolve to become a better manager. Trang has a warm and cordial personality. That, combined with her ability to translate the “theory” into practice through both demonstrated and worked examples, made the concepts easier to understand and put into practice. Trang’s experiences working within the financial services sector allow her to understand and empathise with the day-to-day issues that arise quickly. Overall, I would highly recommend Trang to anyone looking to understand their abilities better and improve as a manager and a leader.”
“I worked with Trang over a 12 month period during a transition of my firm from the owner manager to myself. During this time I was also preparing the business for sale (to PE). Trang worked with me to help my thinking in how to approach these two (sometimes competing) challenges. She really helped me clarify in my own mind what the key priorities were and how to ensure that my natural characteristics and behaviours were optimised in the various situations I found myself in during this period. She was challenging, yet supportive and after my sessions with Trang I always felt reenergised and ready to turn my ideas and long ‘to do’ list into focused, prioritised actions. She also gathered very detailed 360 feedback and utilised this output to help me understand my own leadership style, but more critically, my potential. Trang had pragmatic approach, and really understood the challenges a business like mine was facing as it evolved from owner manager to PE backed. But most importantly, I really enjoyed working with Trang. Our sessions and time together were always extremely productive, but also fun.”
“Working with Trang was invaluable in enabling me to understand career-derailing blind spots. She has helped me to identify the needs of my team and how my style has impacted my ability to build followership. I’ve realized how others view certain behaviors – and was often surprised by what was viewed negatively, but thanks to Trang’s help I was able to comprehend why. As a result of our sessions, I have been able to build up a toolkit that helps me to notice early on potentially derailing emotions / situations and help deal with them in a productive manner. The skillset learnt will be critical to my progress in my role over time.”
“I worked with Trang over a 12-month period to help me learn how to adapt to a new firm culture and help build a vision for a new team and mission. Her help has been invaluable in both understanding how to better manage my own time and focus, as well as understanding how to bring out the best of those around me. Her own background of being a professional in a similar industry, combined with her impressive academic credentials, means she really gets in and can help with extremely practical and insightful challenges and analysis.”
“Trang was able to accurately pick the areas I needed to focus on to increase my personal and professional effectiveness. She was able to tailor her input to my personal situation which I found very helpful. She contributed to a step-change in my level of awareness and impact. She is thoughtful, a good listener, aware, and direct. I would recommend her highly.”
“Working with Trang was very beneficial because she combines state-of-the-art cross-disciplinary academic research with her own senior leadership experience from investment banking. Through that, she understands the reality of what working in a fast-paced investing organisation is like and can ask the right questions and challenge your existing thinking and behaviour.”
“Thank you for your support this year. Your enthusiasm and passion clearly shows in your work and in the results.”
“When leading an organisation, we generally consider ourselves to be all-rounders; adaptable, focused individuals and open to change. Yet we know there is room for improvement! In early 2022 I was introduced to Trang, a leadership advisor. Working together, Trang provided challenge, insight, and opportunity to reflect on leadership, decision-making and development of talent to drive improved performance. Through this work, and by refining my approach, generated greater trust and engagement across our entire leadership, that cascades down through our teams. Trang created an inquisitive and reflective environment, and I remain grateful for this interaction, along with the continued support. I would highly recommend engaging, as we can all improve!”
“I found the time I spent working with Trang to be extraordinarily valuable. We met several times for two hours each time over an intense transitional and growth period in my career, and I intend to pursue routine check-in sessions with Trang for the long-term. Trang provided excellent frameworks and incisive insights on topics ranging from my approach to leadership, to my presentational style, to my communication with internal and external stakeholders, and beyond – we went both broad and deep. I had previously thought of myself as reasonably introspective, but Trang took my understanding of my own motives and drives to the next level – there were a number of “aha” moments while working with her. I recommend her enthusiastically to any others interested in this line of development.”
“I worked with Trang at a time when I was transitioning to a leadership role in my business following the departure of its long-term leader and founder. Her experience and strong intuition quickly allowed her to identify what I would need to change to be successful in my new role. Through clever questions and interesting exercises she pushed me to accept and understand these behavioural changes. Nine months on I feel I have made one of the biggest developmental leaps of my career. Working with Trang was challenging at times but it was also enjoyable as she has a warm personality and good sense of humour. I will definitely work further with her again in the future.”
“I wanted to thank you again for these sessions over the past half year. I’ve found them to be very helpful and a way to take a step back from day-to-day task execution to think about my longer-term career and objectives. I enjoyed these sessions and loved your instruction and listening as we shared our thoughts and insecurities.”
Law firms
“Trang has an excellent manner. She really challenged us to analyse and discuss our issues so as to come up with solutions. She was also prepared to share her views, which I appreciated. She has contagious energy levels, is patient and excellent at bringing all of us into the session and re-focusing on the client relationship, as well as picking up on and discussing practical routes to improve and navigate.”
“I worked with Trang following my retirement from my firm after many years as a partner. She had just the right balance of helping me figure out new goals which resonated with me but at the same time allowing me to realise I could take some time. She is insightful and challenging in the best way. She understands the legal industry and financial institutions so we could speak the same language. Perhaps most importantly, it was just a lot of fun to talk to her.”
“I found working with Trang enjoyable and valuable. In addition to her experience and dispassionate analytical skills, Trang is great at asking the difficult questions, holding one to account and pushing one to excel as well as bringing in her scientific study of neuro and behaviour science which creates very profound insights.”
“I thought our sessions were very useful, especially for a younger partner. Still, all of us could benefit from coaching as it allows you to have a different perspective and allows you the opportunity to reflect on how you react to certain situations. Trang was great at getting to the core of things and letting me make the connections by myself but also interjecting where necessary to guide the discussions. She also understands the clients, given her experience and background.”
“Trang is a fantastic coach and I feel privileged to have worked with her. Given her very senior banking experience, she really understands the environment we operate in and the challenges we face. She is very supportive and empathetic, but also probing. Trang really challenged me to address and confront my development needs, but also to recognise and believe in my strengths. She equipped me with practical tools that I can use in preparation for difficult situations but also day to day, and I feel far more confident and empowered as a result. The difference in my confidence is clear, and has been commented on by a number of colleagues. It has also been reflected in my business results, which is testament to Trang’s work.”
“Through my work with Trang I have developed greater emotional awareness, making me better equipped to deal with the pressures of ‘Biglaw’. By coaching me through the theoretical framework within which my specific negative thoughts and feelings of anxiety were operating, Trang has given me the understanding and tools to unpick problematic thought patterns and re-interpret physiological responses as they arise. Trang is the ultimate professional and will challenge you to achieve real results. I’m very grateful to Trang – my job is more enjoyable, my confidence has grown and I can now see a long career ahead of me.”
“I thought Trang was an excellent coach and found my coaching with her very useful and effective. Coaching has encouraged me to empower myself more than usual. I now find it easier to give my input or views on how things should be done, and coaching has empowered me with the confidence to do so. I contribute to discussion more now than I used to, and I do it in a more effective way.”
Universities and central banks
This was one of the most powerful, insightful and impactful sessions I have attended. It helped me join the dots and better understand why I react in certain ways to particular behaviours or events, while deepening my self-awareness as a leader. The focus on emotional agility, self-regulation and situational awareness was especially valuable—I came away with a much clearer understanding that leadership is not about being emotionless, but about recognising, naming and regulating emotions effectively. The exercises, practical strategies and real-life insights were extremely useful and have given me tools I can apply to become a more adaptable and effective leader. The session was brilliantly delivered, highly engaging and thought-provoking, and I left feeling better informed, more reflective and motivated to put what I learned into practice.
“Trang’s work is transformative for understanding human behaviour. She helped my students and me realise that effective decision-making isn’t about eliminating emotion, but understanding it with precision. Her perspective is essential for anyone who wants to master the psychology of performance.”
“Trang is top-class. I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions with her and the techniques and support she gave. She was brilliant at highlighting some of the blind spots of leadership. The concept of intellectual humility was quite a revelation.”
“Trang’s module on emotions and decision-making was very inspiring. She showed great knowledge and gave me inspiration for how I go about using my emotions and making decisions. Her session was relevant to the bank’s transformation needs.”
“This was a very interesting topic! I never knew about the power that emotions may have and to really realise how they could significantly impact decision making! One key message I got from the session is, “try to always involve other people in decision making, especially those who are ready to challenge your position.””
“This session was insightful, valuable and beneficial. Trang was skilful and kept the participants engaged in the discussion. This session, including some examples, are important elements in any leadership training.”
“I enjoyed the exercises and the presentation style by Trang. It was excellent and required quite a bit of intellectual and emotional honesty regarding our hidden selves. I loved the insights I gained from this lecture.”
“I learnt a lot in this session and will use the knowledge to impact my leadership behaviour. Ms. Chu’s personality and ease of delivery made it easy to engage and share with others in the session.”
“This was a very good session on developing leadership skills, understanding how the environment shapes the leader and the employee. My other main takeaway is the usefulness of being fearless when not knowing and being fearful when knowing.”
“This session was highly valuable for my leadership practice. It helped me recognise how doubt and emotion can be constructive rather than disruptive, and I learned practical techniques to respond more effectively in complex or uncertain situations. I feel better equipped to pause, reflect, and choose a more intentional response — strengthening both my decision-making and my relationships at work.”
“This was such an important topic, and Trang explained it so well. We know about emotional intelligence, but it enhances my knowledge in how you need to identify your emotions and how to use them in a positive way. The various emotions that you can feel and how they affect your behaviour.”
“Excellent — great combination of academic theory and practical, applicable guidance for new techniques that will be immediately helpful.”
“Trang was excellent. A lot of discussions around regulating emotions, your emotional responses, and how these could trigger your team you are leading. I found this session extremely helpful.”
“First, it felt like we were going to do science, but that was just the foundation of what translated into a brilliant exercise to step back and do a self-assessment, to know the inner self better and to relate the inner self with the outer world.”
“Excellent session with loads of insights. It was also very practical and provided relevant tools leveraged in the session. The session was thorough and insightful. The content would do great if shared with the entire team.”
“The concepts in this session were all new to me, especially utilising emotion as data rather than responding to its dictates during decision-making.”
“Trang was an excellent featured speaker for our Executive on Call on Excelling in Your Job. Her insights into successfully navigating competitive, fast-paced environments and what it takes for executive leadership were invaluable to our students and alumni. It was clear that Trang also has a heart for developing women executives, and she is a wonderful role model for aspiring women leaders.”