Coaches
Gratitude Fellows receive a year of in-depth Strategic Coaching from a coach specifically matched to them by The Gratitude Network.
The Gratitude Coaches Are…
- Accomplished business leaders with 20+ years of experience in consulting to businesses, individuals and teams
- Typically trained in many different approaches and tools for understanding personal, team and organization problems
- Great listeners! Great connectors!
Janet Britcher, MBA
For over 15 years Janet has been an executive coach in her company Transformation Management LLC. Her sweet spot is promotions and other role enhancement that leads to great responsibilities such as company growth. Prior to that Janet had over 20 years of corporate leadership roles in Management, Human Resources, and Organization Development, and she has personally managed groups of up to 60 employees. This HR and management background provides a solid foundation from which to coach clients as they expand their leadership skills.
Janet Britcher holds an MBA with a concentration in Organization Development from Boston College and a BA from Hofstra. I lifelong learner, she holds certifications in Gestalt group process, Myers-Briggs, Neurolinguistic Programming and more. She is author of Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus, Change Your Insights. This decision tool expands ideas and perspectives to optimize decision making. She has been a supervising coach at William James College, and provides coaching to MIT’s Advanced Management Program.
Janet’s approach is to build on existing strengths to help leaders enhance their agility, accountability, and authenticity. That in turn invites employees to be more engaged, collaborative and productive, transforming business results.
Jancy Castro
Jancy Castro is a Finance controller with over 25 years of experience working at multinational companies. As a leader of large finance groups, Jancy has been coaching other leaders and managers since 2008. In 2017 she decided to step into the world of executive coaching, completing the one- year Executive coaching program at New Ventures West. Jancy believes that human beings are born with a light within, a talent, a gift we are meant to contribute to our world. In spite of life’s vicissitudes, we are meant to live full and rewarding lives. Jancy’s coaching was born of her desire to help others unlock their light. She finds working with people to define their goals, conquer their challenges and go after their dreams to be a rewarding experience. She is committed to helping her clients grow with a balance between compassion and challenge.
Renée Cooper
Renée is a nationally sought-after executive coach and leadership expert with 20 years experience working with Fortune 500 companies, high growth start-ups, and not-for-profits. With her warm, insightful and results-oriented style, she partners with top executives and their teams to enhance leadership skills and improve individual and team performance. In addition to her own practice, she is affiliated with 3D Leadership Group and The Goodstone Group. From 2002-2008 she was an adjunct coach with the Center for Authentic Leadership.
In her spare time you can find her near the ocean, running, reading, kayaking, or hunting for sea glass.
Dr. Michele D’Amico
With 10+ years as a leading-edge executive and leadership coach and a Doctorate in Psychology, Michele is a valued expert in resilience, emotional intelligence and conscious communication. Using a strengths-based, whole-person approach, she excels at transforming high-level leaders and emerging executives to bring their “A” game to meet business and personal goals.
Michael Freccero
Over the past 20 years Mike has been a Principal, Senior Leader and Career and Executive Coach in the Professional Services Industry. As a Principal in the Torchiana organization, Mike was accountable for Coaching Executives and high-potential employees across all industry sectors, managing a team of 30 coaches and overseeing all business development and marketing functions for the organization. Prior to that role, Mike was the Area Managing Director for the Spherion Human Capital Consulting Group, overseeing 15 offices throughout the Western Region of the United States.
Mike also gained valuable experience as a senior-level executive and career coach at Lee Hecht Harrison in the Bay Area prior to Spherion. His 20 years of coaching experience have enabled Mike to coach individuals ranging from C-level employees to entrepreneurs to high potential-employees on a fast track for critical roles in their organization. Mikes utilizes a pragmatic, down-to-earth style combined with his extensive business expertise to achieve the optimal results for his client. Mike also enjoyed a 20-year career at Bank of America in senior-level Human Resources, Retail Branch and Area Management assignments. Mike culminated his career at the Bank in Corporate Development where he managed due diligence and integration teams that were successful in the acquisition of over 15 Savings and Loans institutions.
Mike earned his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California at Davis with a major in Economics and a minor in Psychology.
Scott Garell
Scott has spent the past 25 years in general management roles in consumer-facing, mostly technology companies. He has been a Brand Manager at Clorox, a VP/GM of both an internet (CitySearch) and a software company (Accpac/Sage), and been a President or CEO of several internet companies including Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves), Dictionary.com, Mindspark, and Goodshop.com. His last company was Goodshop which donated money to causes when people shopped online and raised $12 Million for nonprofits in need. He also is the current Board Chair of SF-based Juma Ventures which strives to break the cycle of poverty by paving the way to work, education, and financial capability for youth across America. He has recently completed volunteer strategic consulting projects for 2 nonprofits, Hidden Genius Project (Teaches black male youth to code and become leaders) and Maven Project (Telemedicine for underserved communities). And, he is also currently a mentor to 3 people including two youth from Juma Ventures and a recent Harvard Business School graduate. In his roles in the business and nonprofit world, Scott has spent significant time mentoring and developing several senior managers which has led to high levels of business and personal growth. Scott graduated from Harvard Business School in 1991 and University of California Berkeley in 1986.
Howard Goldman
Partner at Management Associates, an international management consulting firm which he founded 39 years ago. Prior to that served as the Director of Artist Development for Capitol Records/EMI, developing such artists as the Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Band, James Taylor, and Linda Ronstadt.
Additionally, Howard was a venture partner with Outlook Ventures in San Francisco. He is a Board Director, investor, and strategic advisor to numerous technology start-ups. He was the Chairman of the Faculty of the Center for Management Design, a corporate university for senior executives. He received the “Breakthrough Award,” and “Leadership Award” from Transformational Technologies, his peers in the global consulting industry, in recognition for outstanding accomplishment.
Chris Hunt
Chris is a certified coach, entrepreneur, and educator. His clients are high performing leaders, innovators, and disruptors. People with a track record of success behind them and a big dream ahead of them. He helps his clients identify blind spots & pain points, formulate solutions, and execute corrective actions that facilitate change and accelerate transitions. Chris’ “why” is: “To inspire the world to do the right things, at the right time, for the right reasons – one person at a time.”
Prior to embarking on his current journey as a professional coach, mentor, and trainer, Chris spent over 20 years in the global management consulting field with such organizations as Ernst & Young and KPMG. He is a Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Global Management Accountant, and Certified in Financial Forensics. Chris holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice and a M.S. in Accounting from Middle Tennessee State University. In his spare time, Chris enjoys spending time with his wife and twin daughters just outside Denver, Colorado.
Darell B. Jackson
Darrell B. Jackson is a Vistage Chair. He brings 35 years of experience in the banking industry, where his titles included President and Chief Executive Officer of Seaway Bank and Trust Company, Executive Vice President of the Northern Trust Company, Deputy Head of Private Client Services, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Northern Trust Company’s Illinois Suburban Region. He was also a Senior Vice President and Division Manager in Private Banking at the Northern Trust Company in Chicago.
Darrell received a B.A. degree from St. Xavier University in Chicago, and a M.B.A. degree from the Kellogg Executive Master’s Program at Northwestern University.
Darrell serves on the Boards of the Illinois Banker’s Association as the Immediate Past Chairman, the Morton Arboretum as Chairman, the 100 Club of Chicago as President-Elect and the Kellogg Alumni Council. He is a member of the Union League Club of Chicago and The Chicago Club.
Darrell received The Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy Award from The Boys and Girls Club of Chicago in 2004. He was honored as one of the 40 leaders of color by Chicago United in 2003. He was elected to the Mendel Catholic Hall of Fame in 2008 and was awarded The Distinguished Alumni Award by St. Xavier University in 2010. Recently, in February 2014, he was awarded the Reverend John Phelps Humanitarian of the Year award by Life Directions.
Dawn Kasten
Dawn has held a wide array of marketing, sales, and general management roles over the past 30 years in both high growth start-ups and Fortune 500 companies, mostly in financial services, both B2B and consumer-facing. She started her career as a manager at American Express, and continued in increasingly senior positions in the credit card business for 18 years, culminating in her role as CMO at Providian Financial (later, Washington Mutual/Chase) until the early 2000’s. She then made the switch to pursue startup opportunities at two smaller venture capital-backed companies, Bella Pictures and PEX, where she held a wide variety of positions, from running marketing, product development, and sales, to operations, project management, and financial planning and budgeting. Dawn’s wide array of cross-functional expertise benefits any organization she gets involved with; through all of those experiences, the most rewarding area and one she has been uniquely skilled in is people development, mentoring and coaching. After a successful 30-year career in for-profit companies, Dawn is currently transitioning to active roles in several nonprofit organizations, Gratitude Network being one of the key ones, and is enjoying spending a lot more time with her very busy and engaging 10-year-old son! Dawn holds degrees from Harvard Business School and the University of Pennsylvania.
Charlotte Kells
Charlotte has over 20 years’ experience coaching and developing executives and managers in diverse leadership roles and across many industries. Her coaching has helped clients make the transition from Manager to Leader – developing Leadership Presence. She has addressed challenges such as increasing leadership influence and agility, developing new workplace cultures, fostering team / peer collaboration, and improving communication skills. Adept in process facilitation, she helps clients build on their business expertise and focus on developing processes and relationships to meet both personal and professional goals.
Charlotte spent 20 years with the Creative Problem Solving Institute in Buffalo, NY. She taught in their Facilitating Creative Leadership Program for 11 years using the Osborn Parnes Creative Problem Solving model and other tools and techniques that encourage creative thinking and the skills to create high performance, innovative teams.
Charlotte holds a B.S. in Education and English from the University of Michigan and Master’s Degrees in both Education and Business from the University of Michigan and Lesley College.
View Charlotte’s LinkedIn profile
Julie Levin
After a successful 25-year career as an executive and entrepreneur, Julie found a new passion while volunteering to help women entrepreneurs at a Boston non-profit organization, The Center for Women and Enterprise. After coaching, mentoring and advising countless women pro-bono at CWE, she became certified with The John Maxwell Team as a Leadership and Executive Coach, and subsequently received certification as a Martha Beck Life Coach. She then created her own Coaching & Consulting business to expand her services to a larger community of entrepreneurs and business leaders. Using her experience, skills and intuition, Julie coaches and mentors entrepreneurs and executives, providing them with tools and strategies to achieve success along with a satisfying work-life balance. What sets Julie apart is her ability to guide entrepreneurs to a clear understanding of what success means to them. Through her mentoring, people learn that business success goes hand in hand with personal fulfillment.
Cindy Lima
Cindy is passionate about coaching innovative leaders to maximize their impact in improving lives and the world around us. As a former hospital executive, Cindy oversaw hundreds of staff and managers as well as diverse policies and programs over three decades of service. She successfully led the development of a $1.5 billion children’s, women’s and cancer medical center in San Francisco. She applies her professional acumen, results-orientation, astute listening and warm humor to create coaching relationships that fuel leaders’ growth, confidence and effectiveness. Cindy holds a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) certificate from the International Coach Academy, an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential from the International Coach Federation, and a master’s degree in business from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
In addition to The Gratitude Network, Cindy provides pro bono coaching to international aid organizations through the Humanitarian Coaching Network. She lives in Bend, Oregon where she enjoys hiking, kayaking, singing in a rock choir and travel.
Sarah Mann
Sarah is a seasoned business leader and executive coach with a style described as “straight shooting,” creative, and insightful. A firm believer in the “power of we,” Sarah challenges people to engage more intentionally with others and expand their networks to increase their impact.
Having worked in both global and start-up entities, Sarah’s experience includes senior level roles in HR, marketing, and operations. Before founding Spark HR Solutions, she served on the leadership team at Automatic Data Processing (ADP), where she partnered closely with executives to align talent development strategies to business objectives, and served as an internal coach to executive teams throughout several significant organizational restructures and cultural transformations.
With a reputation as a “connector” and a bias for action, Sarah has a keen ability to forge strong relationships and partners closely with her clients to help them execute strategies that achieve business results. Sarah has a strong command of what it takes to succeed in organizations, and is quick to understand the contextual environment. She helps her clients zero in on behavioral shifts that have a demonstrable impact, and focus where it matters most.
Cindy Mascheroni
Cindy Mascheroni is an Executive Coach for CEOs and senior executives of privately-held companies who are passionate about creating sustainable growth. Clients are often focused on relevant drivers such as customer success, profitability, scale, high-performing leadership teams, and high-engagement cultures. They believe that effective leadership is paramount to not only to collectively achieving desired outcomes but also to being fulfilled and healthy in the process. Cindy coaches CEOs across diverse industries, stages of growth, size, and ownership structures. Many clients are also in the midst of high-priority family life.
Cindy earned an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University and a BA in Psychology from UCLA. She holds certifications with CTI (Professional Co-Active Coach) and The Leadership Circle (TLC 360 Profile and Culture Survey). Outside of work, she enjoys mountain activities including skiing, hiking and biking with family, friends, and dogs. She’s a lifelong learner in the areas of recreational sports, coaching, business, future trends, personal growth, and meditation.
Meri McCoy-Thompson
Meri has spent more than 25 years building partnerships and managing social enterprises and nonprofits in Africa, Asia, and North America, working with organizations such as Human Needs Project, Project Concern International, Catholic Relief Services, and Strategic Links-India. With degrees from Stanford University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Meri is passionate about improving people’s lives, through access to education, improved health, better economic opportunities, more resilient families, and strong communities.
Steve McCoy-Thompson
Business Development
Steve has 25 years of leadership and capacity building with business, NGOs and government throughout the world with such organizations as Business for Social Responsibility, Deloitte Consulting and Bechtel Corporation. He has a passion for aligning businesses and communities to enable sustainable social impact and has developed successful programs in urban water and rural electricity delivery, health access, community development and education in more than 30 countries. Steve leads the NGO mentoring program at Gratitude Network and specializes in helping organizations plan, execute and report on positive impact as part of a partnership effort with corporate and institutional supporters.
Alicia McLain
Alicia is a certified coach, public speaker, trainer and an entrepreneur. She is an Organizational Transformation & Leadership Coach with over 20 years of experience within the software development and IT domains. As an agility coach, her expertise is in the change management aspects of Agile transformation. Alicia coaches, trains and transforms mid-size to large companies both domestically and internationally. Known as the “Organizational whisperer,” Alicia has a focus is on using coaching to build agility and accountability in organizations and on teams. She has a keen sense of connecting individuals to their purpose and helping them build leadership agility and resilience to tackle the challenges of their daily work. Alicia holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems, a Minor in Spanish from San Diego State University and Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership from Chapman University. Alicia lives with her family in San Diego, California and enjoys hiking in the US National Parks, travel home crafts and colored pencil art.
Paul Miller
Paul is a Silicon Valley tech industry veteran who has held a variety of executive positions in both VC-funded startups and large global organizations such as Applied Materials and Kobe Steel USA. He is an entrepreneurial leader with broad expertise in marketing, business development, finance, corporate development, IT systems, new product marketing and global program management. Earlier in his career, he started a successful semiconductor materials business from an idea and built it to become an important supplier to major companies such as Intel and Texas Instruments.
From an early stage of the Gratitude Network, Paul has contributed in a number of capacities including coaching, corporate partnerships, the Gratitude Awards, and the Gratitude Soiree. Paul has degrees in business and engineering from the Harvard Business School, Stanford University and Claremont McKenna College, When not working, he enjoys playing tennis, snowboarding and surfing.
Amy Moore
Amy Moore is an executive coach who specializes in leadership development and helping individuals and teams achieve their goals through a holistic approach – partnerships, sustainable personal and professional practices and targeted goal setting. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College, received a Masters from the London School of Economics and is a certified PCC through the International Coach Federation. Amy has worked in the States and Europe. For the last 20 years her focus has been in southern Africa where she is a professional associate of the leading African business school, GIBS, and works across the MBA and executive education programmes as a coach, lecturer and content developer. Amy lives in Johannesburg with her husband and three children.
Harriet Nezer, Ph.D.
The theme that animates Dr. Harriet Nezer’s varied career is her deep commitment to learning and growing. As a coach, leader and entrepreneur she focuses on developing in-depth relationships that build trust and capabilities. Her strongly held belief, grounded in research, is that people develop best from the foundation of their strengths. She helps her clients use what they are good at to grow in areas that are keys to their success holding a safe space for them to explore and learn. Over the years Harriet has developed a deep well of knowledge and experience in the leadership arena; focusing on how leaders develop, their challenges and strengths. She uses the knowledge and experiences that she has gained as a coach, learning specialist, and consultant to assist clients in industries such as financial services, research and development, health care, public safety and higher education. Additionally she has in-depth knowledge of the opportunities and challenges of non-profits and public sector agencies. Dr. Nezer earned her Doctorate from Boston College, and holds degrees from Southern Connecticut State University and University of Massachusetts/Amherst. She is certified as an Executive Coach by New Ventures West.
Ray Nieto
Ray is a seasoned leader and coach, helping individuals and teams grow to peak performance. He has held multiple engineering and program management roles in large high-tech companies. He has developed multi-level agile teams working together around the globe. He helps his organizations establish the balance between structure and agility as they grow. Ray’s approach is to help define and drive a culture to create a drama-free workplace. He is a founder and former executive for a professional development non-profit company and has been a member of multiple boards serving various community needs. In Ray’s career, he has been recognized for his work with executive leadership of a Fortune 500 company to define and drive their diversity strategy throughout the organization.
Carol Salloway
Carol Salloway is an Executive Coach and Leadership Development Consultant. She is known for her warm, insightful and direct approach which enables her clients to get clear on what they want, what gets in their way and what they can do to enhance their leadership brand and their influence and produce impressive results. Carol has coached hundreds of leaders – smart, high performing individuals who are interested in continuing their leadership growth. Her clients are in knowledge-based professions including health care, biotech, high tech, financial and professional services and not-for-profit organizations. Carol earned an MBA with a concentration in Organizational Behavior from Boston University and a BA in Psychology from Simmons College. She is a certified executive coach, earning that designation through New Ventures West. Carol serves as a Supervisor Coach for the Executive Coaching Graduate Program at William James College. She also coaches in the executive education programs at Harvard Business School and Bentley University.
Ash Seddeek
As an executive leadership coach and keynote speaker, Ash works with executives to advance their leadership impact through communications, messaging and storytelling. He currently works with Cisco’s innovation startup teams to help them craft compelling value proposition narratives, clear business models and develop winning investor pitches.
Ash developed leadership, executive communications and strategic sales programs for Cisco’s and Oracle’s leaders, sales, services and channel teams. At Cisco, he worked with Cisco’s top 200 executives on the annual sales kickoff (GSX) and the Partner Summit achieving award-winning results.
He is a mentor to entrepreneurs with the Gratitude Network, Techwadi and a leadership mentor with Women Unlimited, and a communications expert with the American Management Association where his Own it Win it Crush it Success blueprint is featured into the Success Skills for the Next Generation program. Ash is a bestselling author with an emphasis on sales and leadership communications with his book MEANING. and has been coached by Brendon Burchard, Roger Love, and Bo Eason; Ash’s a co-founder of bestcash, a Fintech startup, the Executive Greatness Institute and Fremont Consulting a Human Capital and Change Management consulting firm.
David O. Silber
David Silber is a Vistage Chair who has spent over 35 years in the business community in positions ranging from Product Manager through Chief Executive Officer. He has been the chief executive of three different organizations. His diverse industry experience includes advertising, grocery manufacturing, specialty retailing, business-to-business services, real estate, book publishing, graphic arts and not-for-profit association management. Mr. Silber’s corporate experience includes both Fortune 100 corporations (General Mills, United Technologies, Time-Warner) and smaller more entrepreneurial environments. He served as a senior executive in three organizations both immediately before and immediately after their acquisition by a much larger parent.
Mr. Silver holds both B.A. and M.A. degrees from Oxford, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and a Barrister-at-Law degree from London School of Law. He was awarded the Vistage Chair Excellence Award in 2005, 2013, and 2016, and the Vistage West Coast Chair of the Year Award in 2017
Katsuko Sugiyama
Katsuko Sugiyama is an independent Bilingual (J/E) Facilitator and Leadership Coach specialized in global leadership competences development as well as global business communication skills development for the executives, next-generation leaders, associates, and the team members to maximize their effectiveness as global leaders.
Katsuko is a practitioner and a Senior Facilitator of Personal Leadership — Malcing a World of Difference ®, a framework and day-to-day practice to enable as to discern the best way forward in the face of difference, uncertainty and change. She often incorporates the Personal Leadership framework into her leadership coaching to enable the client to discern the best way forward in the facing the ever-changing and uncertain world.
Jill Talvensaari
Jill Talvensaari is an executive coach, digital experience industry leader and speaker, CEO of Ajillity, and non-profit board member. Her passion is helping leaders thrive and lead with confidence, becoming the best version of themselves, uplifting their teams, and having lasting impact on their organization, community and the world. She brings over 20 years of senior leadership experience in product, marketing, sales, and operations at global technology companies and startups alike. Her 15+ years of Board and volunteer service includes co-founding Women Speak Tech, mentoring at Women Unlimited and The Gratitude Network, and serving on the OMPT Board. Jill holds an MBA in International Business and Marketing from Seattle University, and degrees in Cognitive Science and Quantitative Economics from UCSD. She lives in California with her family and dog and enjoys hiking and travel.
Jane Tuohy
Jane Tuohy is a founding partner and principal of Cambridge Hill Partners, Inc. (CHP). She has led the firm’s practice in diversity and inclusion for the last 15 years. Prior to joining Cambridge Hill Partners Jane worked at Harvard University as Associate Director of Employment and Training. While at Harvard she co-founded and chaired the Institute for Diversity at Harvard. Jane and the CHP Diversity Team have partnered with some of the most diverse and complex institutions of Higher Ed and helped them map their course towards more inclusive and equitable campuses. She has consulted with international Fortune 100 firms on the advancement of women and minorities into leadership and is a frequent speaker on these topics at professional conferences. Jane was certified as an Executive Coach through New Ventures West Coaching Program in 2007. She coaches leaders who are either in an accelerated leadership track and are preparing to lead at the next level in their organizations. This has afforded Jane the opportunity to work with highly skilled inventors who need to shift focus into leadership and management, or individuals who are leaving corporate tracks to start their own businesses. Jane is also an organizational development consultant with over fifteen years of experience helping clients assess organizational needs and create more efficient and effective organizational systems.
Dr. Julie Wong
Julie M. Wong has over 30 years of management and administrative experience including 12 years as a Dean and Vice President of Student Affairs. She is an experienced leadership coach who helps high-potential leaders embrace their power and lead with confidence. Julie helps clients remove self-limiting beliefs and focus on their unique gifts and natural strengths. She empowers leaders to live with passion and purpose to create a better world. She holds a Ph.D. in Policy, Planning, and Administration and an M.A. in College & University Administration. She loves learning and training on leadership and enjoys traveling, eating, and swimming.
David Wroan
David founded, built and ran a technical services company in Los Angeles that was acquired after a twelve-year run by a venture backed company in 2014. After taking some time off David became a Chair at Vistage where he built, lead and coached a group of 5MM+ CEO’s in the East Bay of San Francisco. Throughout his career David has made it a mission to research, develop and apply the most effective strategies and practices of hiring and retaining top talent on the market today. Today David now serves as president and founder of Hire, Train and Retain where he works with a number of CEO’s from the Bay Area to Sacramento in addition to speaking regularly at CEO groups on the subject matter of talent management.
The Gratitude Network is composed of
Strategic Coaches
meet regularly with each leader and identify the best challenges for the Gratitude Network to contribute to, as well as work to develop their leadership skills, diagnose need for Expert Advisors, and coach them deeply on a myriad of issues leaders encounter
Expert Advisors
are specialists who are available to address issues/challenges that are uncovered by the Strategic Coach and company leaders. A Fellow might meet with as many as three Expert Advisors during their Fellowship year
Cohort peers
the cohort meets together bi-monthly with an organized agenda led by Gratitude team members. Each meeting features leader updates, a learning module and CEO Roundtable problem solving time. In addition, the cohort members are encouraged to meet informally in small groups and one on one on other issues
