Narayan Thammaiah

Founder – The Coach Founder,

Founder – Explor42

Where leadership is trained like an endurance sport.

I am a coach shaped by two parallel worlds:

global leadership and extreme endurance.

For over two decades, I’ve worked across high-growth startups, global corporations, venture ecosystems, and leadership transitions, partnering with founders, CXOs, and leadership teams navigating scale, ambiguity, and pressure. My work has spanned strategy, organization design, culture, compensation, leadership assessment, and executive search, supporting companies from early-stage to pre-IPO across India, Southeast Asia, the US, Europe, Japan and the Middle East.

But leadership, I’ve learned, cannot be built only in boardrooms.

It is forged in long miles, thin air, fatigue, uncertainty, and commitment when quitting is the easiest option.

I am a Six Star World Marathon Major finisher, with 20+ marathons across the world, and a mountaineer who has climbed peaks above 6,000 meters in the Himalayas. Endurance sports didn’t just change my fitness—they fundamentally reshaped how I understand resilience, decision-making, energy management, humility, and purpose.

This philosophy sits at the heart of The Coach Founder.