For a life abroad that truly feels like home.
Simon Faust
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Who I Am
A bit about my journey
For nearly twenty years, I've worked with people, many of them young, helping them move toward their goals and feel more at ease in how they interact with others. That path eventually led me to lead a school, where I saw up close how much communication shapes everything: a team, a relationship, a career, a life abroad.
Over the years, I trained and certified in several complementary fields to understand this at a deeper level cognitive neuroscience, non-verbal communication, executive coaching through IMD Business School, and mental health training. And this region is where I'm from, Lausanne isn't just where I work, it's home. That's part of what Swiss Coaching Buddy is really about: not cultural codes from a book, but a place I know intimately, shared the way a local would.
Outside of coaching, I stay active, love a good conversation on just about any topic, and I'm always up for trying something new which probably explains why I enjoy this work as much as I do.
Why I Started This
This comes from experience
Arriving in a new culture is never easy, no matter how prepared you think you are. Schools do their best — orientation days, welcome packs, practical guides — but there's always a gap between that and actually living somewhere. And feeling alone in a country and a region you don't know yet can be genuinely destabilizing.
I know this firsthand. I spent several months abroad, on my own, and even with everything my school offered to help us explore the region, there was always that gap between what was organized for us and the real, local life happening all around. I remember wishing I had a buddy: someone who actually lived there, who could help me understand the culture from the inside, instead of feeling like a stranger to the life around me.
Integration has stayed close to my heart ever since. That's what convinced me this deserved to be built properly, drawing on nearly twenty years of experience in young & adult education and communication training.
That's how Swiss Coaching Buddy came to be.
How I Work
What working together looks like
There's no fixed script. Every student arrives with a different background, a different personality, and different worries so before anything else, we talk. What do you actually need: someone to walk through the city with, a sounding board for a specific situation, or just consistent support over your first few months?
From there, it's real time together in person whenever possible, sometimes a call, sometimes a walk through Lausanne or a shared meal. We don't just talk about things, we practice them a difficult conversation, a way of introducing yourself, reading a social situation as it happens. I bring my background in communication coaching into all of it, along with a genuinely empathetic approach: this isn't about being told what to do, it's about being understood first, and guided from there.
It can start before you even leave home, or once you're already settled in Lausanne whichever makes more sense for you. The program typically runs one to two months, covering exactly the period when it matters most but it can extend further if that's what it takes for you to genuinely feel at ease.