The challenge of leadership
COACHING CEOs AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS
Being a CEO can be lonely. Inhering the mantle for the first time can be daunting. Transitioning into a CEO role in the non-profit sector from the world of business or government is fraught with challenges.
Good coaching makes it easier to be effective as a CEO. Well-structured episodic coaching can help improve the quality of decisions and optimize our professional and personal lives.
Good coaching enhances individual and organizational performance and the potential to thrive as a CEO and as a human being.
Yves is an inspiring and strategic leader who creates a shared and ambitious vision of what is possible and then engages people in making it a reality. As a colleague, I appreciated his compassion for staff and volunteers, his humility, and his strong commitment to inclusion and diversity. He is a values-based leader. I remember him most for being a strong mentor to many people with a gift for developing talent.
My approach
Practical approaches to exploring key leadership issues
My approach is very practical. It is well anchored in formal training with two graduate degrees in management and a hunger for continuous learning, I am known for an uncanny ability to make connections and for deep strategic insights.
My coaching practice is intentionally focused on CEOs and Executive Directors and on those who aspire to a leadership role. CEOs often face issues in common but have no peers with whom to explore those key issues — building teams and leading top people, developing a strong board that is well aligned and cohesive, and building and executing a strategy that works.
Because the link to the chair of the Board can be a ‘make or break’ deal for the CEO, I will often encourage CEOs to consider occasional 3-way coaching conversations with the chair of the Board as part of the CEO coaching process.
My experience
Successful former ceo, recognized sector leader with deep sector understanding
I am a values-based leader. I bring experience in leading highly skilled executives and large teams. I have also served on numerous boards including in leadership roles and currently chair Imagine Canada’s Standards Program Council.
I understand the challenges facing CEOs and senior executives because I faced them myself.
With a deep experience in major gift fundraising, a solid understanding of our sector and of the legal and technical issues related to nonprofit governance, I am well suited to coaching CEOs and Executive Directors of mid- to large-size nonprofits and charities.
I have had the benefit over decades of mentors and coaches who have been a fantastic sounding board and have offered advice on some of the toughest decisions I had to make – often at a stage where the options were not fully resolved.
MY EXPERTISE
Creating capacity for leading and growing a successful organization in today’s rapidly changing environment
Coaching is offered with an introductory in-person meeting and telephone engagements in the Waterloo-Toronto-Ottawa-Montréal corridor, and by telephone only elsewhere.
A minimum of eight hours of coaching is required to start.
The cadence of sessions can vary to as little as 90 minutes of meeting time per quarter (not including preparation time).