The Professional Chops

…Or more than you’d ever want to know about how Jennie became The Audacity Coach.

The Goods

I’m an expert in organizational development and leadership development and I have a solid academic and professional credentials to back up that statement. I got my start in the federal government working first at the US. Department of Labor in leadership development while still in graduate school (good stuff). From there I was one of four Presidential Management Fellows selected to work at the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute where I established a comprehensive workforce development framework consisting of customized programs to help both scientific and administrative managers optimize their organizational performance (pretty damn cool work). I then parlayed my impressive government experience into the management consulting world at two different boutique consulting firms. The now defunct Oxley Enterprises gig focused on supporting the Pentagon’s information systems people meet their strategic human capital goals as well as facilitating business process engineering (yawn). I followed that role up at SRA/Touchstone Consulting Group where I developed and implemented organizational development processes and solutions for federal, state, and local public safety practitioners, supported in strategic planning and implementation for improving public safety communications interoperability, and managed and facilitated multi-functional working groups (shoot me).

The Failure

So I did some amazing things in my 20s to build a career as a high powered government consultant, but it turns out, I failed. I hated every minute of consulting…and it showed. I abhorred having to suck up to government big wigs and appointees. I also hated the constant focus on “billable hours” and “business development” to keep climbing the ladder. But mostly, I hated that my job was pretty much an exercise in making snappy executives come off snappier. YUCK!

The Epiphany

I spent the remainder of 2006 unemployed, broke, and completely freaked out. I had just turned 30, despised my chosen career, and had no idea what I really wanted to do. I reached out to my friends, classmates, PMF colleagues, and others who were all turning 30 that year, too. We had followed all the rules, done the college thing, perhaps the grad school thing, went above and beyond with fellowships and internships, all in pursuit of some fabulous career. But 9 out of 10 of my peeps were absolutely miserable! I began to search for the connection. Why were all these highly competent, super driven people so frustrated? What was it we were feeling?

The conclusion: we were all STUCK!

Once I had this mini-epiphany, I went to work looking for solutions. I reached back to the coaching community that I had dipped my toe into years before. There were tons of life coaches who worked with people to get them unstuck, but I struggled to find one that “got me” because they were all my parents’ age or older. There was a huge void of coaches for my age group – people who felt stuck because of what they had chosen in college and completely clueless as to what they really wanted – people who didn’t want to wait until retirement to start answering these major life questions.

That fall, I launched my own life coaching practice designed with my age peeps in mind. Nearly four years into my business, I’m also a motivational speaker delivering workshops and keynotes to high schools, colleges, associations, and other organizations on Audacity – the most important quality of fabulously successful people in today’s world.

The rest is history…in the making!

The Nitty-Gritty Credentials

My academic credentials include a Master of Public Administration degree and a graduate certificate in Organizational Development and Change from American University. My undergrad degree is a Bachelor of Arts in American History with a specialty in Deaf/Disability studies. I’ve studied organizational behavior, leadership, management, and psychology academically. I began coaching as part of my career in 2001 and studied multiple coaching methodologies in graduate school. I have completed formal coach training through Coach University and continue my own education through several other coach training organizations. I am committed to the continued success of the coaching industry and as such, I do not subscribe to any one method of personal or career coaching over another. I have tailored my coaching methodology and approach to fit my style each individual client interaction drawing from the fields of business, psychology, philosophy, organizational development/behavior, and cultural studies. Most of all, my clients and friends and colleagues are the people who have taught me about coaching and about life, and I continue to learn from them everyday.