Leadership & Burnout Coaching In Motion, Hike the Swiss Camino
Somewhere on the way up to the Etzelpass, the noise starts to thin.
Not all at once. First the phone goes quiet in your pocket. Then your steps find a rhythm. Then a question you have been carrying for weeks, the one that never got answered at your desk, begins to move.
The Jakobsweg is the Swiss stretch of the Camino de Santiago. Pilgrims have passed through Einsiedeln for centuries, not because they had to, but because something in them needed to. On Sunday, 25 October, we walk it together.
THIS IS NOT JUST A HIKE
You will not be listening to a lecture or sitting in a circle. You will be walking, talking and thinking out loud.
Before we set off, I pair you with someone carrying something similar to what you are carrying: a career crossroads, a role that has outgrown you, a decision you keep circling. As we walk, I guide the conversation between you. A peer who understands, the landscape holding the silence in between, and me listening for what sits underneath the words.
And then there is the time you walk with me alone.
No agenda, no structure, no one else nearby. Just the path ahead and a question I will ask that you probably have not let yourself answer yet. In twenty years of sitting across from senior leaders, I have learned that the real question is rarely the one people arrive with. Movement loosens what we keep defended in stillness. Things surface on a walk that would not surface in a year of meetings.
This is not a session at a desk or a hike with a view. It is coaching in the oldest sense: two people in motion, one question, and enough space to finally hear yourself think.
THE ROUTE
12.7 km through forests, meadows and old hollow lanes, with around 660 m of ascent. We pass the St. Meinrad Chapel on the Etzelpass and descend into Einsiedeln, to the Gnadenkapelle and the Black Madonna, one of the most powerful pilgrimage sites in Central Europe.
THIS WALK IS FOR YOU IF
You are a high achiever, performing well on the outside and running on empty within
You lead, carry or hold things together for others, and it has been a while since you heard your own thoughts
You are standing at a threshold: a change of role, of direction, of season
The Camino has been calling you, but fifteen days is a lot to ask of your calendar. This is a way in
YOU MAY LEAVE WITH
A clearer view of the question you brought. With words for something you had not yet found a way to say. And with the felt sense that walking is not a break from thinking. It is how some of the most important thinking actually happens.
CARMEN BALACIANU:
Executive and Awakened Leadership Coach. Former SVP of Marketing at Roche Diagnostics. ICF certified. Camino de Santiago pilgrim.
I know the high achiever's life from the inside. I became the first woman under 40 to lead the largest division of Roche Diagnostics, and I was running on empty until a severe burnout stopped me. Not a breakdown. A threshold. That burnout was my turning point, and it led me to the work I do now.
Nature, motion and coaching are the foundation of it, and the Camino is where they come together for me. Walking it changed me, and I watch it change the leaders who walk beside me. The pace slows, the noise settles, and what matters rises to the surface.
I guide leaders through that same threshold. I have walked the Jakobsweg with clients, and this July I guided a small group for 15 days from Porto to Santiago de Compostela. I do not coach a path I have only read about. I walk it with you.
TWO WAYS TO WALK WITH ME
The Walk: A morning on the Jakobsweg with a small group. Peer coaching between participants and 45 minutes walking one on one with me. A complete experience in itself, for those ready to think in motion.
The Deep Dive: Everything in The Walk, plus two private online coaching sessions with me before and after we walk. For those who want to arrive already in the work, and leave with a thread to continue pulling.
THE DETAILS
Date: Sunday, 25 October 2026
Start: 9:00, at the train station in Pfäffikon SZ
Distance: 12.7 km, approx. 660 m ascent, moderate level
Group: small on purpose, limited places
Bring: sturdy walking shoes, weather-appropriate clothing, water, a snack, and one question you would like to explore
No coaching experience needed, just regular walking fitness and a willingness to be present.
The group stays small so that every conversation has room. If something in you stirred while reading this, that is worth listening to.
Register here to express your interest
Come home to yourself.
Carmen