About
Why does Sofija work like this?
I work privately with people. Over time I kept seeing the same thing: already capable people becoming smaller when the language, the pressure, or the room changed.
Fluency was not the whole story. What failed was transfer — judgment, authority, personality arriving intact when it counted.
So the practice is built around the person in front of me. Not a programme I reuse. Leaders and families are different doors. The way I work is the same.
Who this is for
People who did not become less senior when the meeting switched to English.
I work with founders, members of founding families, ownership-level clients, senior leaders and international-facing teams. People who already know how to communicate — and who still feel something slip when the stakes rise in a language that is not their first.
The work is private. It is not a class, and it is not a cohort with a shared syllabus. We take the conversations already on the calendar: negotiation, presentations, board discussions, difficult meetings, disagreement, the moments where the room is watching and fluency alone is no longer enough.
I also work with families, through a different door. That work is built around the child, not around completing another workbook. This page is about why the practice exists at all. If you want the leaders’ door, start on Leaders & Teams.
Who it is not for
If you want a programme you can reuse without me, this is the wrong room.
I do not take people looking for a course, a group workshop, or generic material with a certificate at the end. Nothing here is off the shelf. If that is what you need, there are many places that will sell it to you.
I also do not take work in order to publish it. There is no logo wall on this site, and there will not be one. Some of the strongest work will never become a case study. Names are not marketing material. Discretion is part of how the work is possible. A large share of private work has come by introduction. I intend to keep it that way.
Fluency and transfer
Most people who write to me already speak English well enough to hold the meeting.
They can write the email. They can get through the call. What they cannot always do is arrive as themselves when the pressure goes up.
That is not a vocabulary gap. It is a transfer problem. Fluency is whether the sentences come. Transfer is whether judgment, authority and personality survive the switch — whether you still sound like the person who got the seat at the table, or like a slightly smaller version of that person, waiting to finish.
We work on the second. The situations are the ones already on the private calendar, not hypothetical exercises from a textbook. The next meeting. The next negotiation. The next presentation. When those change, the work changes. That is the point.
Between sessions, everything stays connected in a private client space — progress, materials, notes, focus and what comes next. Included when we work together. That space is not a public product. If we do not already work together, the door for you is a note to me, not a login.
I am based in Istanbul. The work happens worldwide online. In-person work in Istanbul is by arrangement, not a default. An MBA sits behind the practice; it is not the product.
If you already know the conversation that matters, start there.
Leaders and teams have their own door. Writing to me is the other. I read those notes myself.