FROM BOARDROOMS TO BREAKTHROUGHS: MARIANNE BATTIKHA ON WHY SHE LEFT A DECADE-LONG MEDIA CAREER TO CHANGE LIVES THROUGH COACHING
Dubai-based entrepreneur, coach, and Founder of Kaizen Torch shares the story behind her transformation — and why she believes coaching is the most powerful tool of our time.
Marianne Battikha did not plan to become a coach. She planned to keep climbing. To keep building. To keep doing what she was good at — and for nearly a decade, she was very good at it.
It has been previously stated that Battikha served as General Manager at SpotOn Media in Dubai, where she worked alongside Fortune 500 companies, led major media events, and operated at the kind of pace that looks impressive from the outside and quietly costs you everything on the inside.
Then life did what it does best. It stopped her.
Not gently.
She found herself having to heal from experiences she never expected — and in searching for answers, particularly at a time in her life when everything was supposed to be falling into place, not falling apart —
she returned to the world that had always called to her.
Because the truth is, coaching, psychology, and spirituality were never new to Battikha. They were home.
At the age of twelve, every Sunday after church, she would stop at the supermarket with her father — and without fail, he would gift her two magazines,
she would pick 1 psychology magazine (sometimes French Edition, sometimes US edition)
& 1 Science et Vie magazine when found.
She read every word.
She came back for more the following week. While other children were drawn to comics and cartoons, playing with Barbie and Ken or simply running around.
Battikha was quietly building a foundation that would one day change her life — and the lives of hundreds of others.
What she discovered in those pages didn't just fascinate her. It shaped her.
So when life brought her to her knees decades later, one last time.
She didn't stumble into the answers.
She already knew where to look.
What she found didn't just help her cope.
It transformed her.
Faster than she thought possible.
More completely than she had hoped.
She became obsessed — in the best way.
She studied everything she could.
She built a process.
She applied it to her own life.
In her own words…
And somewhere in the middle of all of that,
she made a decision that scared her and thrilled her in equal measure:
She left the industry she had built her career in, to do the work that actually mattered to her.
She has never looked back.
Today, Battikha works with people who are ready for that kind of shift — the kind that touches every part of life at once.
Not just their career.
Not just their health.
Not just their mindset.
All of it, together, because that's how real change actually works.
She is also the Founder of Kaizen Torch, a global platform dedicated to raising the standards of coaching worldwide — because she believes the quality of the guidance you receive changes the quality of everything that follows.
She also believes, deeply, that coaching is the future.
We are living in a time of rapid evolution — where AI is reshaping how we work, how we think, and how we see ourselves —
and yet the most profound shifts Battikha has witnessed have nothing to do with technology.
They happen in a conversation. In a moment of clarity.
In the space between who someone was and who they're choosing to become.
Coaching delivers transformations that once took years in a fraction of the time — and in a world that is moving faster than ever,
that matters more than most people realize.
And the souls who have been doing this work for decades — long before the world had a word for it, long before it was celebrated or recognized — deserve to be seen.
Their dedication, their craft, their quiet impact on thousands of lives — that is exactly what Kaizen Torch was built to honor.
Battikha's background in business gives her the strategic mind.
Her years in personal development give her the tools.
And her own lived experience of rebuilding from the inside out gives her something no certification can teach: she knows what it actually feels like to start over — and she knows what it feels like to come out the other side.
But her message to every person she works with remains the same: "You're never starting from scratch. Remember now, you're starting from experience."
Every version of you that got it wrong, pivoted, fell apart, or began again — that's not baggage.
That's wisdom. And wisdom, in the right hands, becomes your greatest advantage.
That is what Marianne Battikha brings into every session.
MD (not the medical kind 😉),MBA
I started my coaching journey to find harmony in my life. After seeing the results and how fast I was able to heal from traumatizing experiences while studying it for myself,
I have decided it was time I leave the media industry and fully focus on that, which is something I was always passionate about.
I also decided to create a process using the same methods I have learnt with one goal in mind: to help people find happiness in their work, relationships, and life, and live life in harmony.
My background in Business,
Previously GM OF Spoton media;Dubai working with Fortune 500 companies for nearly a decade, combined with my personal interest in psychology and spirituality help others focus, reflect, and refine their lives to your highest possible timeline.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE Marianne
"Whatever you're thinking about is literally like planning a future event. When you're worrying, you are planning. When you are appreciating, you are planning. What are you planning?" — Abraham Hicks
I want to ask yoU something, and I want yoU to sit with it for a moment.
What brought yoU here today?
Not to this website specifically — but to this point in your life.
The one where something inside you quietly said: there has to be more than this.
Maybe you've been carrying a version of yourself that no longer fits.
Maybe you've been productive on the outside and quietly exhausted on the inside.
Maybe life handed you something unexpected — and suddenly the old way of doing things just doesn't work anymore.
I know that feeling. I've lived it.
And I want yoU to know something: nothing is permanent unless yoU decide it is.
I work with people who are done settling.
People who are smart, capable, and full of potential — and yet somehow stuck.
Stuck in a body they don't recognize.
Stuck in a career that drains them.
Stuck in a version of their life that was built for someone they used to be.
Here's what I've learned: you don't need more information. You need clarity, accountability, and someone in your corner who actually believes in you — especially on the days you forget to.
The mind is brilliant, but it's also a master storyteller.
It will hand yoU a very convincing script about why change is hard,
why now isn't the right time,
why other people get to have the life they want but somehow yoU don't.
Your heart already knows the next step.
My job, which I call play and my passion is to help yoU hear it above all the noise.
Together, we work on all of it — because yoU are not a collection of separate problems.
You are a whole person.
Your mindset shapes your health.
Your energy shapes your relationships.
Your relationship with yourself shapes everything.
Whether you're craving more vitality, more purpose, more freedom, or simply more yoU — we start exactly where yoU are.
No judgment.
No template.
Just a real conversation, real tools, and a real commitment to getting yoU where yoU want to go.
Things can change faster than you think.
I've seen it happen time and again. In my clients. In myself.
It can happen for yoU too.
So — what are yoU planning?
Let's make sure it's something worth looking forward to. 🤍
& I doOoOO LeuuUuoooovE Challenges.
— Marianne Battikha