At The Coaching Fellowship we celebrate women every day, and especially during Women’s History Month.

The challenges women still face are vast and deep-rooted, and they require continued action throughout the world on every level. Almost all indicators of women’s advancement took a strong turn for the worst in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A tiny snapshot includes: millions of women leaving the workforce either through layoffs as they largely work in the service sector, or leaving due to necessity to care take their families, it’s the so-called ‘pink recession.’ To one quarter of women owned businesses closing, to the increase in domestic abuse cases, to research from the Malala Fund which shows “an estimated 20 million girls in low- and lower-middle-income countries” may never return to school. The effects are chilling. One U.N. report finds women may have lost a generation of progress due to Covid-19, and even prior to the pandemic, the World Economic Forum had predicted that at the current rate of progress, it will take another 257 years to close the economic gender gap.

So where do we go from here? How do we not only get back on track, but also accelerate the progress of women and girls everywhere?

Firstly, it is important to reflect and see how far we have come. Our road to progress has not been linear and never will be. There have been twists and turns, lost ways, then found again, shortcuts and backtracking, and still much success.

The world for women does indeed look very different to just 50 years ago. When I think back on my four-some decades on this earth, I’ve seen gay marriage legalized in many countries, and the vast majority of the stigma surrounding LGBTQ disappear. I’ve seen blatant sexism on TV banished. I’ve seen gender stereotyping banned from adverts. There have been all-women spacewalks, a black woman won an Oscar for Best Actress, and just this year we saw the youngest self made billionaire at 31, and the first female, first African American and first Asian American vice president in U.S. history.

Is it enough? Of course not, but these are milestones to be celebrated. The genie is out of the bottle and isn’t going back. The essential part of a journey is to keep moving forward as our roads are converging, our ideas are melding, and our sistership is expanding.

At TCFS we have supported more than 1,000 young women social change leaders to date and soon another 150 will be joining our community. These incredible women continue to grow in scope and scale of their leadership capacities, and their impact for good across the globe.

We stand on the shoulders of generations of women who have fought with their very lives so that we might be in here in this moment to finally create irrevocable change.

A rising tide really does lift all boats. When you lift one woman, another is also lifted, and everyone gets to benefit.

We celebrate you all!

Celebrating Women’s History Month was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Happy New Year TCFS Community! As we step into 2021, how can we deeply trust in new beginnings with an abundant mindset…the limitless opportunities that we can receive and give in our personal and professional lives? Mindset matters. Actively choose to focus on the positive, surround yourself with people, things and environments that fuel you, dream bigger, support each other, and remain grateful for all that is in your life.

We have listed a few resources below to get you started on adopting or nurturing your abundant mindset, Please take a look and we would also love to hear from you during our monthly group coaching sessions, community-led sessions or on Slack.

Please join us for a virtual meetup on the topic of ‘Abundant Mindset’ with coach Wendy Edelstein on January 25, 9am PST/12pm EST. Note that this is a 75 min session. You can access our Calendly here to sign up.

Please also join the first community-led virtual session for 2021 on the topic of ‘Gratitude and Growth: Social Journaling’ with TCFS Fellow and Alumnae Committee Member Priyanka Rao on January 19, 7:30am PST/10:30 EST. Sign up here.

What We Love!

• Learn how to use these 10 steps to live a life of abundance and reap rewards even in adversity [PRACTICE].
• To explore the idea of a growth mindset watch Carol Dweck discuss The power of believing that you can improve [WATCH].
• How does gratitude make you a willpower pro? Where Gratitude Gets You by Hidden Brain [LISTEN].

What’s happening in the TCFS Community:

Join the Alumnae Committee:

Are you interested in giving back to the TCFS community or staying connected to the community beyond your coaching? Why not join the Alumnae Committee! We are looking for four new members to join our volunteer team and help us build, enrich and connect the TCFS community. You can find out more about the Committee and how to apply here. Deadline for applications is January 11th!

Community-led Sessions:

We launched our TCFS peer skills- and knowledge-sharing series as a way to tap into the breadth and depth of talents and expertise of the Fellowship community. These sessions allow members of our community to share skills, talents, expertise and knowledge on a range of topics in a safe space and sessions have ranged from Yoga, to Entrepreneurship to Finance!

• Is there a project or initiative that you are working on that you can share in a virtual conversation with our community?
• Do you want to practice your leadership, facilitation, or teaching skills in a safe space with our community?
• Do you have a special skill or expertise whether it be art, fitness, cooking, storytelling, finance or fundraising, social justice, DEI or social entrepereneurship and more?

Please fill out this form with your interest or to nominate someone, please email us at ac@tcfs.org.

Slack Channels

If you are interested in setting up a slack channel on a focused topic reach out to us at ac@tcfs.org or message us on slack.

Slack Happenings

You can…

• find job postings at #careers-opportunities
• share thoughts and resources on #great-shares
• welcome our new cohort fellows on #hellos
• ask questions, discuss experiences on #community
• share a laugh on #random
• find support at #parenting
• explore #sustainability
• connect with other #educationleaders and #founders

If you haven’t joined our Slack community yet, please do so here!

Alumnae Spotlight:

We want to showcase our incredible community and the impact you’re having in our world. Do you want to promote an initiative? Please share your story with us through this form. Or nominate someone who deserves the spotlight by emailing us at ac@tcfs.org.

In fellowship,

The Alumnae Committee

P.S. Want to host a meetup online or in your city? Or do you have other ideas for connecting with other alumnae? Reach out to ac@tcfs.org and we would be happy to chat.

Abundant Mindset. It’s January’s Wake Up. Change World. Repeat. (January 2021) was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today, we are excited to open applications for the Coaching Fellowship 2021 Cohort 1 program!

APPLY TODAY to become a 2021 Cohort 1 Coaching Fellow.

Application deadline: March 5, 2021.

Click here to share on Twitter

Since 2014, over 600 women impact leaders from 63 countries have gone through The Coaching Fellowship in 12 programs. Through the program, our Fellowship alumni are more confident, authentic, and self-aware leaders who thrive in both their work and life.

Program Highlights for 2021 Cohort 1

• 100–110 available fellowship places. We currently receive many great applicants. This year we feel ready to increase our capacity and serve more incredible women. We will be offering an additional 50 places.
• Focus on high potential leaders. In addition to serving changemaker fellows, we are increasing the number of fellowship places in 2021 with a key focus on serving the high-potential leaders who really need our support. We are looking for women who are stepping into their first leadership positions and are ready for tremendous growth, yet lack access to high quality professional development opportunities.
• 1:1 personalized coaching with one of our 90+ coaches in 23 countries
• 11 hours of coaching over 6 months, two-part program
• Weekly coaching tips and recommended readings
• Monthly group calls with other fellows
• Monthly 1:1 introductions to other fellows
• Events and opportunities to connect with our extraordinary global alumni network

2021 Cohort 1 Program will begin May 3, 2021 and coaching will continue until November 5, 2021. Fellows must be available for coaching during this time. Visit our program page for timeline and more information.

Applications are now OPEN and we would love you to apply. If you know any amazing young women who would benefit from The Coaching Fellowship, please do encourage her to also apply.

APPLY TODAY to become a 2021 Cohort 1 Coaching Fellow

Application deadline: March 5, 2021.

Click here for ways to share our application

We look forward to meeting many more new women impact leaders from around the world in this application cycle!

Sign up for our newsletter to receive updates on our new programs.

The Coaching Fellowship 2021 Cohort 1 Applications are OPEN was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Alumnae Spotlight is the TCFS Alumnae Committee’s weekly feature about you and the impact you’re having in our world. We feature alumnae on our private Slack, the TCFS blog, and our “Wake Up. Change World. Repeat.” monthly newsletter.

If you are a TCFS alumna, we encourage you to shine on yourself by sharing your story with us through this form: https://airtable.com/shrlxaLpY3toIJJHm

Go ahead, brag! Be proud. Share your story!

This week, we welcome…

Alumnae Spotlight — Alyza Devraj was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we get closer to the end of the year, I am so thankful to have your continued support throughout these difficult times.

With your help, we have worked harder than ever to ensure scores more young women social change leaders got the vital coaching support they needed.

Our fellows are always on the front lines of change. Be that working in disaster relief, distributing aid and medical supplies, to fighting for new and far reaching polices, working on the ground with impoverished communities, and quite literally everything in between.

Your financial support means we can continue our work to serve the women doing the most important and necessary work.

Please join me in celebrating them, and making a donation this #GivingTuesday

Your gift will make a difference

Thank you for supporting us and all our fellows who are tirelessly making change happen for the good of all.

Stay safe and be well.

#GivingTue was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Alumnae Spotlight is the TCFS Alumnae Committee’s weekly feature about you and the impact you’re having in our world. We feature alumnae on our private Slack, the TCFS blog, and our “Wake Up. Change World. Repeat.” monthly newsletter.

If you are a TCFS alumna, we encourage you to shine on yourself by sharing your story with us through this form: https://airtable.com/shrlxaLpY3toIJJHm

Go ahead, brag! Be proud. Share your story!

This week, we welcome…

Alumnae Spotlight — Emma Brooks was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It is a great honor to be sharing the second Annual Report for The Coaching Fellowship (TCFS). I do not say that lightly, as this is 2020, and TCFS was not without its own struggles due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Right now, we are in good shape, but in March 2020, two thirds of the way through our fiscal year, we were facing the biggest challenge of our existence.

The global pandemic led to several non-profit coaching partners sadly deciding to no longer pursue programs with TCFS, and we held very real fears that our new fellows for the C1 2020 fellowship program would also decline to participate. This all left us in a precarious operating position. We had less than eight weeks of payroll in the bank for the team, and I was facing a great test to save TCFS financially.

What was a dramatic situation, I am proud to say has become the heroine story of TCFS.

Due to the commitment, hard work and ingenuity of our team — we in eight short weeks created and launched the largest TCFS Fellowship program of our history, serving 120 fellows! We further quickly stood up a special COVID-19 Coaching Program supporting 100 frontline women leaders from all around the world. As our Chief Catalyst Officer Nan quite rightly said:

“Let’s go big or go home!”

Choosing to confront our dire situation head on turned out to be the best thing we could have done. We ended the fiscal year in a strong financial situation, and with a new sense of urgency to do and be more, and a renewed confidence that our work matters, especially in these times.

We have passed our 1,000th young women social change leader served and are gearing up for more to come!

And as an icing on the cake, it was a great honor to receive the BPeace Women Forward Gold Award just before the fiscal year ended, for our outstanding work in leading change and accelerating women leaders through at The Coaching Fellowship.

Events from this year helped solidify my own desire to step even more deeply into leading TCFS. I had the honor of founding TCFS six years ago, and have been stewarding our organization ever since.

On October 1st this year I joined as our Executive Director, and I am now working full time for TCFS.

I am delighted and deeply moved to finally be able to fully take on the role I have done from the sidelines for all these years.

There are new ideas in my head. There is a lot of forward momentum. I am looking forward to re-engaging and taking TCFS forward to the next level.

With love and gratitude,

Jane Finette, Founder and Executive Director of The Coaching Fellowship

P.S. Do you want to know more about The Coaching Fellowship? Read more about our history on our website.

Our mission

We ‘empower young women leaders of impact to build the new world.’ In these times where the climate crisis grows ever more, where our democracy and racial injustices threaten civil society, and where a pandemic is brutally affecting millions of lives in countless ways, we must build a new world for everyone.

We support young women leaders already tackling our global challenges, and we believe helping them is the best way to accelerate change.

We know that when we support a young woman to increase her confidence, to help her develop and amplify her leadership and provide her with a community of other powerful women impact leaders we have a great opportunity to create lasting change.

Our thriving Fellows: the core of our mission

It is TCFS’s mission to turn promising young women in the social impact space into unstoppable change makers by giving them access to six months of leadership coaching designed to ignite their unique potential.

Our donors fund this transformative work, and our network of global executive coaches work one-on-one with our gifted fellows.

It is our greatest inspiration to see the young female leaders we work with thrive, and we therefore want to share three portraits of our incredible Fellows to give you a sense of why we love what we do:

FY 2019/2020 in numbers

By offering custom coaching to our Fellows , we enable them to increase their impact quickly and exponentially. By helping them, we create ripples of change that spread far and wide.

Here’s what our mission looked like in 2019–2020 in numbers:

2019/2020 in US$

We make an effort to do as much as possible with our budget, as you can see on our balance sheet. We are a small and effective team who operate efficiently with a small budget. The bulk of our overhead is people costs. We have very little additional expenses to do our impactful work.

Debrief of 2019–2020 Key Thrusts Pilot Projects

As already mentioned, the last year has been a challenge for us, and also a great success. The first half of fiscal year 2019–2020 we planned to experiment and learn as much as possible about the three key thrust pilot projects (read more in our Annual Report for FY 2018/2019).

Before COVID-19 hit, we had already executed several projects and plans were being evolved. The pandemic accelerated our learning and solidified our decisions.

So, how did we do?

Project #1: Organizational Coaching

Over the past 2 years TCFS has worked with several high profile organizations to provide their impact leaders with access to coaching. Our goal last year was to explore how these opportunities fit with TCFS’s mission and how we can systematize them for planning and efficiency.

After continuing to work with several impact organizations and be in negotiation with others we decided to get very clear about this function at TCFS, and why this matters. We made the following decision:

TCFS will only consider providing coaching support to an organization outside of TCFS if:

(I) the organization is that of a TCFS Fellow, or Fellow Alumnae;

(II) the organization is not connected to a TCFS Fellow or Fellow Alumnae, but their mission is focused on the empowerment of women and girls.

Furthermore, after offering heavily discounted pricing to previous organizations, which created at times unrealistic demands for the small TCFS team, we agreed we must charge a fair price for coaching otherwise we simply cannot enter into an agreement.

It is important for us to continue to pay our coaches a fair stipend for their work when they work on an organization coaching program with TCFS.

Going forward, we are excited to support organizations aligned with our mission, and are looking forward to exploring more opportunities in the current fiscal year.

Project #2: Leadership through Excellence and Agility Program (LEAP) Program

This past Spring, we piloted the LEAP Program to 7 of our alumnae. LEAP is a virtual group program format, focused on supporting the leaders in increasing their leadership capacity above and beyond their experience in the core TCFS Fellowship Coaching Program.

Key focus areas of the program included:

• Amplifying Leadership Self-Awareness and Self-Confidence
• Cultivating Authentic Leadership Presence
• Increasing Team Leadership Capacity through Systems Leadership
• Developing Core Coaching Competencies for Leaders
• Balancing Priorities, Time and Energy Management

Elise Rankin, our Head of Coaching spearheaded this pilot and launched a pilot program with our Coach Engagement Lead Maria Troya in Q1 — Q2 2020.

The Leap Program was a combination of 6 facilitated group calls, 5–6 self-facilitated peer group calls, and 1–1 calls with the coach facilitators, in-between calls resources and practices.

Some of the participants supplemented their LEAP experience with individual 1–1 coaching with a TCFS coach, which was extremely useful for them to further develop their leadership skills and impact.

We received some strong positive feedback about the program, with the participants noting the benefit of learning in a group environment with their peers in a structured way.

From the pilot, we now clearly understand the strong opportunity for creating leadership development programs for alumnae after they complete their core Fellowship Coaching Program.

Project #3: Coaching for All

As stated in our last annual report — we made the decision early on in the last fiscal year not to continue this program.

Read more here.

2020–2021 Core Focus Areas

The 2020–2021 fiscal year feels like it will be a step change for TCFS.

We have increased fire power in the TCFS Team. Alongside Skylar Gieseke, and Jane Finette, who joined as full time Executive Director in October 2020, long-term volunteer Elise Rankin has formally joined us as TCFS staff. Elise will work part-time as Head of Coaching to continue what she has already been doing for many years as a volunteer.

The themes for the coming year are ‘Excellence’ and ‘Elevate’.

We want to focus on bringing TCFS to the next level, and in the coming year we will focus on laying down plans and starting to build the foundational elements to move forward.

Operational and program excellence will be key. We have strong growth plans for our programs which will require a new level of diligence and professionalism.

Our core focus areas include:

Cultivating Coaches — we are excited to have Elise on board and will provide special care and attention to this fundamental element of TCFS. We will be sharpening our focus on advancing all of our efforts related to our coaches, including coach recruiting, connection, retention and outreach.

Core Fellowship Program — the last year has showed us that not only is there a strong demand for our program from young women impact leaders, but that we too are capable of meeting this demand. We have been able to consistently recruit new coaches, now standing at 180+ coaches at time of publishing our report.

We are pushing to serve 150 fellows in the first fellowship program of 2021, and be on track to serve 300 in 2021. That’s a 50% increase in women served from 12 months ago.

Furthermore, we will begin piloting fellow-pod experiments to increase fellow engagement and connection much earlier in the coaching program.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — we have made excellent progress in this last fiscal year. We have recruited many more coaches of color and have continued to learn from our fellows of color what would lead to a better experience and outcome of their fellowship placement.

In this next year, we have plans to establish anti-racist training for the team and coaches, implement safe communication channels for our fellows of color, and continue to learn how we can be better allies and models for all people.

The BIG What Next — This month we passed the 1,000 TCFS Fellow Alumnae mark — it’s a huge achievement for us in our short history. As we plan to further increase the number of women we serve with each program, it is likely that we will reach 2,000 alumnae in half the time it took us to get here. These are exciting developments. They also come with great responsibility.

It brings up big questions such as what is our role at TCFS to steward the 1,000+ TCFS Alumnae? How can we accelerate their impact? How might we harness their collective impact for good?

We are most excited to work together with our alumnae, and core community to explore all of those questions. And we are certain the answers will be the defining future for TCFS and the role we will play in women’s empowerment.

Lastly, our 18 month longitudinal study with the University of Southern California completed in October 2020.

We are delighted to announce that their studies confirmed what we already knew anecdotally, that our Coaching Fellowship program increases the leadership and confidence of our participants.

We will be sharing more about the study in the coming weeks and months, and are truly proud to have such confirmed evidence of our collective impact.

We could not have done our work without our community

Over the course of the year so many people have supported our growth and impact at TCFS. We want to highlight a few, knowing full well we will certainly be missing some. Please let us know and we will add you!

A huge thank you to:

Our core team

• Jane Finette — Executive Director
• Skylar Gieseke — Head of Programs
• Elise Rankin — Head of Coaching

And a special Thank to Nan Liu for her lasting Contribution to The Coaching Fellowship!

After almost 5 years of supporting TCFS, Nan is moving on to explore new opportunities back at home in China. It is our honor to celebrate Nan, and all she has achieved for TCFS. While we will miss Nan terribly, we cannot be anything but happy and delighted for her.

She will always be an integral part of TCFS through the long-lasting legacy she has created and our close relationship with her.

We are deeply grateful for the immeasurable contributions Nan has made over the years. Read more about Nan and her work at TCFS.

Our volunteers

All of our wonderful and dedicated coaches from around the world, including 90 coaches who also agreed to coach a frontline women leader from our COVID-19 program in addition to the fellowship program.

Our Core Team Volunteers:

• Maria Troya
• Claudia Pape
• Sophia Jones
• Selene Shen
• Pratyusha Sibal
• Farwa Akbari

Our generous donors

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated again this year, and a special thank you to our new donors.

To our 100 Women Fund donors — you helped us fund our Covid-19 Coaching Program which supported 100 frontline women leaders. Thank you so very much if you donated to the 100 Women Fund in 2019 and 2020!

More special thanks to several of our donors making significant gifts. Thank you —

• Linda Keegan
• Anne Storer
• Eileen Goldman
• Dhinesh Dharman
• Michele Taipale
• Beth Holzman

We were also fortunate to win our first grant! Thank you Vital Voices & TreSemme Leadership Incubator!

Alumnae Committee

• Emma Brooks (a big thank you for serving us for two years!)
• Sarah Castle
• Alyza Devraj
• Priyanka Rao
• Clara Raven
• Kate Seaman
• Tiffany Tong

Coaches Council

• Arsenia Corcoba Santamaria
• Sharon Gilor
• Eileen Goldman
• Maureen Johnstone
• Claudia Pape

TCFS’s Board of Directors

• Athena Katsaros
• Karen Kimsey House
• Cat Berman
• Jane Finett
• Pascal Finette — Secretary
• Rocco Capobianco — Treasurer

And also…

Stephanie Farmer who moved on from TCFS in July 2020.

Dino Andersen and Amira Dhalla for all your Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advice and support.

Dr Meredith Wells Lepley and Dr Luke Thelen and their excellent students at University of Southern California, Master of Science in Applied Psychology Program who supported us for almost two years of our longitudinal study in to the effectiveness of the TCFS Fellowship Program.

Arjanna van der Plas for her support in creating this Annual Report and for working tirelessly on our case studies of coaching inside impact organizations.

Corinne Kappeler and Allie Ladio for all their help in donors communications amd advice in 2019–2020 fiscal year.

After 4.5 years Winnie Aoieong decided to transition out of TCFS. She has been our treasurer from the very beginning and helped build our financial foundation. We are so thankful for her support and know Winnie will remain a strong advocate for our work and sustainability.

Thank you for reading.

We hope you are not only informed by our work, and the behind the scenes information, but also inspired and moved to continue your support, or get involved. We would love to hear your comments and to answer any questions.

Are you interested in supporting our mission, or becoming a fellow? Don’t hesitate to reach out to our Executive Director Jane Finette (jane@tcfs.org).

The Coaching Fellowship is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing young women leaders in social impact. A small gift will greatly help us reach and serve more extraordinary women around the world. Please consider making a gift today — we deeply thank you.

The Coaching Fellowship is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Your donation is tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.

Annual Report The Coaching Fellowship FY 2019/2020 was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

From founders to organizers to storytellers to creatives, our TCFS community is composed of inspiring women dedicated to opening doors, doing good, and working toward a better future. As we enter the final stretch of 2020, let’s tap into the collective energy of our community to stay active, engaged, and inspired.

Whether it’s engaging socially or politically, especially as many of our alumnae in the US are doing, active and deep listening can be a way to make sure we hold space for others in our lives. Purging things that no longer serve us and instilling healthy habits that will bring joy and pleasure in our daily activities will activate and (re)energize us to round out the last quarter of 2020 with greater momentum and purpose.

What We Love!

• If you’re American and based in the US, help staff your local polling place[Volunteer] and make sure you register to Vote [DO]
• The bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck and Get Your Sh*t Together, Sarah Knight, outlines her “NotSorry Method” to stop spending time you don’t have doing things you don’t want to do in her humorous talk [LISTEN]
• If you need some good news read The Happy Newspaper to celebrate all the good things in the world [READ]
• Feeling stuck in the Zoom routine? Here are some tips on how to make those meetings more activating and engaging for everyone [PRACTICE]

Activating Energy. Wake Up. Change World. Repeat. (October 2020) was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Coaching Fellowship (TCFS) at its core has always been a tiny team. In Nan’s own words — we are “small but mighty”. Nan is definitely the mighty part of our organization. After almost 5 years of supporting TCFS, Nan is moving on to explore new opportunities back at home in China. It is our honor to celebrate Nan, and all she has achieved for TCFS. While we will miss Nan terribly, we cannot be anything but happy and delighted for her. She will always be an integral part of TCFS through the long-lasting legacy she has created and our close relationship with her. We are deeply grateful for the immeasurable contributions Nan has made over the years.

Nan held a unique position, being part of the TCFS from the very beginning before it was ever an organization. Nan was a ‘Founding Coaching Fellow’ and took part in the initial coach offering which I put together. Moved by her experience of coaching and the programs I went on to build and lead, Nan offered to volunteer and over many months fundamentally helped systemize and streamline the program. Eventually, as we became a full-fledged 501 c 3 non-profit, Nan became our first employee. In many ways, Nan’s contribution was always one of being the first. Whether testing new ways of working, piloting new programs, figuring out the next big step — Nan was always on the front-line and driving TCFS forward. During her time at TCFS Nan managed our Fellowship Program enabling, on her watch alone, 600+ young women impact leaders.

Two years ago Nan became Chief Catalyst at TCFS where she led our first large-scale organizational coaching programs outside of the Fellowship. Nan helped TCFS expand our impact by establishing TCFS coaching programs at organizations such as Rippleworks, The Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, and the Skoll Centre at Oxford University to name only a few.

Most recently Nan spearheaded our diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at TCFS. Building on our previous work, Nan led initiatives across the organization with the support of the whole team to better serve our fellows of color, recruiting and enabling more coaches of color and supporting our alumnae. This has been pivotal, and is work we will continue and deepen.

Nan was the first person to ask questions, driving us to look and go one step further, she always pushed us to clearly understand our intentions, and our results. Nan was the team member who, time and again, advocated for doing less until it really mattered — and then she advocated for doing more! I can proudly say, it was Nan who brought about our Covid-19 Coaching Program for front-line women workers at the start of the pandemic. Going above and beyond, Nan worked tirelessly to create as much support as we could for people who truly needed it.

Nan’s DNA is TCFS’s DNA. She put her life and soul into building and growing our organization. Her fingerprints are all over our work, our systems, our hearts, our minds.

It is our honor to celebrate you, Nan. You are the epitome of a Coaching Fellow — a strong powerful woman of impact whose influence is felt by all.

Please join us in thanking Nan and wishing her the best of everything — always.

Celebrating our Chief Catalyst, Nan Liu was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet all 2020 Cohort 2 fellows

We are proud to work with these committed and passionate young women leaders in the next six months. Below are just a few of our world-changing 2020 Cohort 2 fellows.

Antoinette Foster— Portland, OR| Director, Oregon Health and Science University

With a PhD in neuroscience, Antoinette aims to dismantle systemic racism embedded within the scientific enterprise. As the Director of Community Transformation at Oregon Health and Science University, she directly impacts systemic racism through policy reform, education, and community empowerment.

Caroline Simangaliso Makumbe — Johannesburg, South Africa | Programme Officer, The Graca Machel Trust

Caroline is a Child Rights Activist. Her passion stems from amplifying the voices of the marginalized. She is the Child Rights Officer at the Graça Machel Trust and Founder of the CarolMaks Voice, a Motivational Speaking Company which inspires women and children to live their full potential.

Hee Sung Kim — Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | Technical Specialist, United Nations Capital Development Fund

Hee Sung has been working on making financing work for under-served segments in developing countries at the UN Capital Development Fund for the last ten years. She’s worked with energy entrepreneurs in Uganda and fintechs in Malaysia who want to improve the financial health of low-income users.

Jillian Kowalchuk — London, United Kingdom | Founder & CEO, Safe & the City

Jillian Kowalchuk, MSc, BA is an award-winning entrepreneur, business coach, and TEDx speaker. She is passionate about navigating technology enabling equality by inclusive and data-led design.

Geoanna Corneby — Utrecht, Netherlands | Consultant, Aidenvironment

Geo works with NGOs & social enterprises to advance a personal goal to help create a more equitable and sustainable economic system. She is currently a consultant at Aidenvironment, a mission-driven consultancy dedicated to eliminating deforestation from agricultural value chains.

We look forward to supporting the new fellows through a transformational journey over the coming months. Big thank you to our coaches for generously providing their time and expertise, making the opportunity available to the new fellows!

Welcome Our 2020 Cohort 2 Coaching Fellows was originally published in The Coaching Fellowship on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.