Interested in working with a Blooming Willow Coach for one-on-one coaching?
Master Certified Coach, Leslie Avant-Brown is an innovator, facilitator, coach and thought leader within movement work. Her relentless desire to fuel systems change in support of BIPOC communities has changed the fabric of this work. With her down to earth demeanor, she brings a unique mix of laughter, curiosity, healing, creativity and strategy to support Changemakers – those who are designing innovative strategies that benefit future generations. She believes that moving beyond traditional leadership approaches will revolutionize the way that people work and thrive. "I have dedicated my life to supporting Changemakers to grow and heal as they design strategies and systems that support liberation. I do this because I know, what we plant today will bloom tomorrow."
Leslie serves as CEO at her firm Blooming Willow Coaching, a culturally relevant Healing Centered Coaching practice that allows her to partner with individuals, organizations, foundations and businesses. Her specialization areas include "all things" coaching including: one-on-one and group coaching, training, and designing sustainable systems that imbed a coaching approach. Through her firm, she also runs the Conductors Community Coaching Certification Program an International Coaching Federation Accredited Certification Program geared towards BIPOC Changemakers and White Changemakers committed to serving BIPOC communities with Healing Centered Coaching.
Prior to opening up her own firm, she served as the Director of Coaching at Beyond Emancipation, where her CCRW Coaching Model (focused on foster and probation youth) received the notorious International Coaching Federation Prism Award Honorable Mention (Coming 2nd only to Coca-Cola Russia) for its innovative design supporting culture change. She went on to support the development of an ICF Accredited, Community Coaching Certification Program at Leadership that Works, the first of its kind. Through this pioneering effort, she certified over 100 coaches in this new community accreditation, radically shifting how communities are supported through coaching. At Leadership that Works she also served as the International Program Director, where she supported the development, implementation and facilitation of cutting-edge coaching programs that supported value-driven transformation in India, Europe and the United States.
Leslie has a background in capacity building, training, program development and evaluation. Throughout her career her focus has been on support leadership development for Changemakers interested in supporting liberation for all. Leslie received her professional coaching certification through Leadership that Works in 2007 and holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Michigan. In 2020, she earned her MCC (Master Certified Coach) credential, earning her entry into an elite group of coaches around the world that demonstrate mastery in both coaching ethics and standards for the field. In her free time, Leslie enjoys finding new adventures, spending time with her wife, belly laughing, eating delicious food and of course creating!
Nicky Avant-Brown, PCC
Described by clients as highly creative, intuitive and collaborative. I enjoy building internal capacity and empowering communities. Using a social justice lens I hold brave space to explore culture and its impact on how we relate in the world.
As a facilitator, I have centered community coaching, intergroup dialogue and experiential learning in my work strengthening teams and partnerships. I have extensive training and experience in group facilitation, coach training & integration, and social cognitive development.
My social-relational approach to facilitation often engages community members in exploring needs, inner wisdom and next steps. It also explores human interdependence and the impact that systems of oppression have on individuals and communities.
My Philosophy
I believe that opportunities for coaching, experiential learning and intergroup dialogue are driving motivators and predictors of positive development, growth and healing. To prepare ourselves for change we must honor ourselves for who we are, how we are and what’s possible for us in the future. The first step toward community growth requires that we open to dreaming collectively, thinking creatively and communicating authentically.
Oseloka Idigbe, MPA, CPC
As a facilitator, organizational development consultant and coach, Ose is passionate about developing leaders and bringing people together to connect, exchange ideas, and collaborate. During his career, he has supported strategy and leadership development at government agencies, organizations, and foundations in over 100 engagements across issue areas including health, education, housing, immigration and youth development.
As a consultant and facilitator, Oseloka works with nonprofit organizations in board development, planning, and risk management. Before coming to Blooming Willow Coaching, Ose was part of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Digital Jobs Africa initiative, where he helped to develop strategies for private sector engagement.
Prior to his transition to the nonprofit sector, Ose worked as an analyst at Standard Bank of South Africa in Commercial Property Finance.
He holds Flawless Consulting certification and Facilitative Leadership for Social Change accreditation, and is an International Coaching Federation certified coach. Oseloka received his M.P.A. from New York University, as well as a B.A. in Philosophy from University College London and a L.L.P. from BPP Law School. He enjoys exercise, especially playing and watching soccer, and has had fewer than five cups of coffee his entire life.
Shor Salkas, MPH, CPC
Shor Salkas (they/them) is a public health professional and healing-centered coach who is deeply committed to health equity and health justice as ways to create more healed and thriving communities. Through activism, organizing, coaching, training, consultation, and facilitation Shor works with groups and individuals to realize their strengths and fullest potential to create change in their lives, communities, and workplaces. Shor has been working to promote social, racial, and gender justice through many projects and organizations like the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition, Out in the Backyard, SHIFT Minnesota, the City of Minneapolis Transgender Equity Council, the Wisconsin Transgender Health Coalition, the Healthy Wisconsin Leadership Institute, and through public health and health equity coalition building across Minnesota and Wisconsin.Shor is a first generation, white-assimilated Jewish, queer, trans non-binary, fat person who has called the occupied Dakota and Anishanabe land known as Minneapolis home for most of their adult life. Shor is a parent, partner, neighbor, community member, and artist. They love nature and being outside, growing gardens and plant friends, and their pets. All of their identities and experiences in life shape who they are and how they approach their work as coach and healer.
Nyla Hassell, CPC
Nyla believes stories, real and imagined, have the power to transform, and of all the stories we tell – the ones we tell ourselves have the most significant impact on our lives.
As a personal development coach, Nyla supports ambitious women to steer through transition points in their life confidently as the author of their own stories. Her clients include mid-career women who are at a crossroads - changing careers, looking to level up, or trying to reconnect with what inspires them. More than an accountability partner, Nyla helps clients identify and merge their core values with their personal and professional vision creating a North Star to guide their life and career journey.
After working in entertainment marketing for more than 20 years as a publicist, communications strategist, producer, and executive leader, Nyla knows a thing or two about the power of stories. She has helped some of the world’s most influential brands, artists, athletes, and teams clarify their values, vision, and narratives, and craft stories that powerfully connect with their customers and fans.
Leveraging her executive leadership experience and training as a certified healing-centered coach and Reiki practitioner, Nyla offers her clients many creative pathways to get unstuck. Her coaching technique supports clients in taking control of their narrative and developing the resilience, confidence, and courage to navigate change - and live boldly on their own term.
As a champion of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, Nyla coaches through a lens of cross-cultural competence, nurturing a strengths-based environment that empowers her clients with the awareness and tools to become change agents in their own lives and communities.
Trisha Ingalls, CPC
Trisha grew up in a very rural Quebec village, an English-speaking family in a province that wanted folks to only speak French (Language Police ARE a thing!). Although she does speak French and Spanish and has traveled to other places and lived many years in Montreal where she earned her BA in English, once again she is living in a tiny rural village, this time in northern Vermont.
Here in the United States Trisha had an opportunity early on to engage with the world of community development: affordable housing, financial literacy, nonprofit partnerships, over-extended boards... being vulnerable with other leaders, building trust, and hoping it would be enough to move collective impact projects forward to the benefit of her neighbors. There is so very much at stake in rural communities where each type of nonprofit is literally the only game in town.
Trisha also had the opportunity to become the Chief Executive of her organization at a comparatively young age, while her children were still babies. “Those challenges of being a mother and a female leader were deep, held so tightly in my body that many years later I’m still occasionally recognizing them and letting them go.” It was during that time, however, that she participated in the Achieving Excellence in Community Development Program, an 18-month joint venture leadership training between NeighborWorks America and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and she was assigned a coach.
The transformational power of coaching right from day one was enough for Trisha to eventually pursue coaching certification herself through Blooming Willow, and she is eager to leverage her own commitment to rural communities and experiences in nonprofit leadership with the power of healing centered coaching.
Yvonne Rodriguez,
Ph.D., CPC
Leveraging her 20+ years of experience as a scientist and nonprofit leader, Yvonne is a STEM Equity Coach and the Founder/CEO of Y.W. Associates.
Yvonne started her education as a first generation, re-entry student with three children. Back then, she had dreams of becoming a world-famous Chicana poet. Instead, she ended up with a doctorate degree in physics.
Although trained as a physicist, Yvonne chose to leave the lab as she was compelled to advance the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields through a much broader approach. That is, by working diligently to maximize the contributions of people who have been underrepresented in STEM by removing obstacles, providing support and working to influence public policy.
Yvonne has extensive experience in nonprofit leadership and program design. She has served as the Deputy Director and Director of Programs at the Society for the Advancement of Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). She has also served as a Public Policy Fellow for the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and the Government Relations and Public Policy Associate for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
Recently, Yvonne has been working with The Surge Institute in Oakland. Yvonne chose to join Surge in its commitment to strengthening the educational leadership landscape by supporting Leaders of Color from the community as they navigate the complexity of the current systems and work to change them.