Helping High Performers Stay Human While Thriving

This edition of the Business Insights Series features Valentina Dolmova, founder of ILC International, a coaching and training company based in Bulgaria. 

With a background in management consulting at firms like Accenture and Capco, Valentina launched ILC in 2014 in London, later relocating the company to Bulgaria. Her company has been operating for over a decade, with the last five years focused on the Bulgarian market.

While ILC’s services fall under the traditional label of corporate development, their mission goes far beyond standard workshops and mindset coaching. ILC focuses on high performers, the people who create massive value within organisations, often without recognition or support. 

Over the course of our conversation, Valentina shared how her company innovates in human-centred leadership, operates in a changing digital world, and builds resilience among those who carry the weight of progress.

There’s a lot here about identity, responsibility, attention, and how to grow a business without losing your soul. Let’s dive in.

The people quietly moving the world forward

Valentina described ILC’s focus clearly. These are professionals who produce 80% of the results in an organisation, yet rarely see themselves as high performers. They often fly under the radar, preferring to focus on doing great work rather than seeking attention. 

She sees them as meaningful contributors who need a space to evolve without burnout or compromise, and without needing to play political games to move forward. 

Research from Suzi McAlpine highlights this risk clearly: a five-year UK study revealed that 20% of top-performing business leaders experienced corporate burnout. Burnout has even been described as ‘overachiever syndrome,’ and data suggests that high engagement can often lead to high stress.

“We tend to focus on the so-called high performers, people who would never consider themselves high performers, but people who basically are the ones that produce maybe about 80% of the output.”

This work started in London in 2014 but evolved significantly when the company shifted to Bulgaria. It became less about location and more about scale, adaptation, and experimentation. Valentina explained that this move almost felt like starting a new company, one that required a different level of depth and cultural awareness. 

But the core remained: to create high-quality impact through those quietly shaping organisations.

“If you help a person who is influencing at least 10-20 people around them, then it means that it will be basically pushed down because of their positions and their networks.”

ILC operates on a principle that many companies overlook. Coaching individuals at ILC means engaging with people who serve as powerful catalysts within their ecosystems, those whose influence can drive cultural and structural change beyond their immediate roles. 

These are the leaders of influence rather than title. When they shift, their teams shift. When they burn out, others follow. When they thrive, they lift their entire ecosystem.

Their belief is simple: help the people who help others, and the ripple effect will take care of the rest. The challenge is finding and reaching those people, and making sure they see themselves as worth supporting in the first place.

Finding the right people and speaking the right language

ILC doesn’t rely on traditional marketing funnels. Instead, they navigate the industry through direct recommendations, hands-on workshops, and intense in-person interactions. It’s a high-touch approach that values authenticity over scale, and trust over tactics.

“These are people who are already deeply engaged in their work. They’ve seen a lot, and they can spot inauthentic support a mile away.”

Valentina explained that high performers often avoid coaching. They don’t want surface-level advice. They need relevance, speed, and depth. Many of them are sceptical of the coaching industry in general, often because they’ve seen too much fluff and not enough substance. ILC builds trust by delivering intense, tailored experiences that speak to where these individuals really are.

“If you are the type of person that can resonate with that, usually those people then come to us later on, ask further questions, want to do a consultation.”

The real conversion happens through emotional alignment and intellectual rigour. Valentina often leverages workshops not just to teach, but to provoke. Her style is intense on purpose. It acts as a filter. If someone engages deeply, asks questions, and returns afterwards, it means they’re ready.

Rather than chasing leads, the strategy is about resonance. That only works when the signal is strong. Still, this comes with limitations. ILC operates in a seasonal cycle where only part of the year is commercially viable, making timing a critical factor. 

This unpredictability has pushed the team to explore more resilient digital marketing strategies, including shorter, high-impact content that aligns with today’s fast-paced consumption habits.

Valentina is continuously exploring ways to strengthen how ILC communicates its unique value, particularly in a market where coaching services are often misunderstood or generalised. Despite offering high-impact, specialised help, the broader coaching industry’s nebulous packaging continues to present a barrier.

“No matter how much you explain it, coaching and all these psychological support types of things are not ideally packaged… they still have that vagueness about them.”

This vagueness isn’t just a marketing issue. It also affects how buyers make decisions. Without tangible outcomes or clear paths, many high performers delay seeking help until it becomes unavoidable. ILC is trying to shift that timing forward by making its approach visible, relatable, and unmissable.

Speed and structure in psychological support

The sessions ILC runs aren’t open-ended explorations. They have a structure, a beginning, and an end. Six sessions are the average. The process starts with validation and ends with application. The idea is to cut through the noise and give high performers tools they can use immediately.

“First level is to actually make them feel that they’re not alone… Then you go through, you know, just reminding yourself why you’re doing it… Then basically apply new stuff.”

This model is built on three ideas:

• Isolation is common but optional
• Resilience is a muscle that needs training
• Strategy must meet emotion to work in real life

Each of these pillars feeds into a journey that begins with emotional recognition and ends in strategic capability. Clients are not simply talked to; they’re challenged, supported, and coached through real-world dilemmas. Valentina’s team helps them reframe their thinking while adding new skills to their toolkit.

The practical layer is just as important. Leadership communication, conflict resolution, and performance strategy all come into play. And clients are expected to work fast. That’s because ILC recognises that many of their clients don’t have the luxury of a slow process; they need sharp insight, and they need it now.

“Those people are clever, they have applied a lot of stuff… That lift to the skills, upskilling, it just gives them that differentiation, a little bit more than you can get from a podcast or a book.”

This is where the magic happens, not in theory, but in tailored action. Valentina also pushed back against the common coaching trope that “all the answers are within.” For her, this belief oversimplifies human complexity and ignores real gaps in knowledge and tools.

“There is this false statement that people have all the knowledge and all the potential in them… that’s not the case because a lot of people just need slightly different information. They need tools.”

In a world where content is abundant but depth is rare, ILC’s approach is refreshingly grounded. Breakthroughs don’t happen by chance; they emerge from environments that invite clarity, consistency, and thoughtful challenge. That’s what ILC intentionally creates through its coaching structure. As attention spans shrink, the challenge becomes not just how to deliver insight but how to make it stick.

Leading without becoming the bottleneck

One of the most candid moments in our discussion was about Valentina herself. She acknowledged the classic challenge: the founder who is both the driver and the limitation. Valentina remains deeply involved in all aspects of ILC, ensuring the company reflects the high standards she upholds. As a leader, she seeks out collaboration with others who share her strategic mindset and coaching approach.

“I want a clone of me. I want someone to coach me exactly how I would coach.”

She talked openly about trying to step back from sales and marketing decisions, handing over ownership to team members, and resisting the urge to be the face of the brand. Her desire is for ILC to outgrow her, to be known not as Valentina’s firm, but as a firm with its own culture and capabilities.

“I’ve made a clear choice to build ILC as a collective brand, not a personal one.”

Letting go is a skill. One that many founders avoid until it’s too late. Valentina is taking the slower route: delegating thoughtfully and designing ILC to be a company, not a personal brand. It’s a tough balance: keeping the soul of the business alive while allowing new leadership to take root.

“I’m working on the letting-go part.”

She reflected on this challenge emotionally, too, using metaphors and exercises like business constellations to guide her understanding of what leadership and detachment look like in practice.

“It’s like guiding a young adult: you stay close, but allow space for it to evolve with integrity.”

To help herself and her team stay grounded, she’s institutionalised growth inside ILC. Every team member receives monthly coaching. It’s embedded into ILC’s operating rhythm as a way to maintain alignment, self-awareness, and cohesion across the team.

“It’s very difficult to coach a coach… I want someone to push me so hard that it replicates how I would like to be treated.”

This expectation of intensity and transformation applies to everyone, including herself. Even if it’s hard to find a coach that meets her standard, she continues the search. That persistence reveals a key part of her leadership style: constant iteration, even when the results are imperfect. She’s building a company that learns from within, and that starts by holding herself to the same standard she holds for others.

Facing the future without flinching

Our conversation ended on a deeper, more philosophical note. Valentina voiced concern about the shifting digital landscape. Not just from a marketing perspective, but from a human one. The pace of change is no longer just a strategic problem but a spiritual one.

“I keep asking myself: what’s the role we want to play five years from now? If we can evolve, we should. But it has to be the right evolution.”

Valentina isn’t driven by fear of becoming outdated; her focus is on staying aligned with the deeper mission of her work. The world is changing fast. Attention spans are shrinking. People are detaching. 

And yet, the need for real connection, deep reflection, and human-first leadership hasn’t disappeared. For ILC, the question becomes: how do you stay vital when even self-development is competing with TikTok and 15-second dopamine hits?

“How do we make sure that we’re prepared for the future? That’s it.”

Valentina worries not that AI or tech will replace coaches, but that people under pressure may become less willing or able to seek the kind of long-form, introspective support that coaching offers. And this shift may be generational. She highlighted the Alpha generation as a signal that entirely new models of behaviour are forming.

In these reflections, we hear someone who’s not clinging to the past, but genuinely wondering what the next evolution should look like. She’s not asking, “How do I stay in business?”She’s asking, “is this the kind of help the future will even want?”

Valentina also brought attention to how a business’s funding model impacts leadership style. Whether you answer to a board of investors or bootstrap everything from savings shapes your urgency, your communication style, and even how you make ethical decisions.

“Huge difference between whether or not you’re working for investors and whether or not you’re bootstrapping… depending on where you are from a financial point of perspective, you will have to develop the necessary attitude to back it up.”

What ties all these threads together is a profound self-awareness. Even as she speaks confidently about strategy, growth, and leadership, Valentina admits the questioning never stops.

“I think every CEO, every director, every founder is thinking about their responsibility, like, nonstop… but that doesn’t mean you’re not questioning yourself.”

The future of leadership lies in the willingness to ask better questions and the courage to stay present with them long enough to uncover what truly matters.

Conclusion: The people at the centre of performance

Valentina and ILC have designed their approach around creating a meaningful support system for those who drive results quietly: individuals who influence progress from behind the scenes and often carry the unseen weight of leadership. It’s a quieter kind of ambition, focused not on fame or volume but depth and impact. And in today’s fast-moving, tech-saturated world, that might be exactly what’s needed most.

Performance without alignment leads to burnout. But performance with alignment, when people’s values, actions, and environments are working in sync, can change teams, companies, and entire cultures. 

That kind of transformation doesn’t happen with hype or surface-level tactics. It requires time, courage, and the right kind of support.

Looking ahead means choosing growth that honours our values, fosters meaningful work, and encourages thoughtful evolution in how we lead and support others. It’s about making room for real conversations, strategic reflection, and human resilience.

If you’re a founder, decision-maker, or leader wondering how to support your top people (or yourself), this conversation is a nudge to look closer. Because when you help the right people thrive, the impact doesn’t just ripple, it multiplies.