Deborah Gehrmann

Deborah is a business psychologist and ICF-accredited executive coach who helps founders and senior leaders elevate their performance under pressure, combining applied psychology with the commercial realities of building and scaling a business. As Founder Associate at CAIA, she works closely with CEO and Co-Founder Lara Menke on the firm's strategic direction across brand, product, client operations and business development, and designs and delivers CAIA's leadership team development programmes.

Before CAIA, Deborah spent a decade in strategic commercial and relationship management roles across global financial services and technology, partnering with senior executives through acquisitions, restructures and periods of fast growth. She has worked inside the high-pressure environments her clients lead in, which gives her a deep understanding of what those environments demand and where the pressure starts to show in performance and relationships.

Deborah works with the mindset, patterns, triggers and blind spots that shape how someone leads. Her clients find it easy to open up, and she moves deep quickly to what's actually driving behaviour. Her work is grounded in psychology, evidence-based models and practical insights, leaving leaders with real self-awareness and clear actions for change.

With founders and leadership teams, Deborah focuses on the dynamics that decide whether growth turns into sustainable performance: founder effectiveness, leadership alignment, emotional triggers and team conflict. Her work spans executive coaching, leadership profiling and leadership team development solutions, delivered to leaders across financial services, technology, retail and private equity.