Master of Fine Arts, Poetry, Columbia University in the City of New York
Master of Arts, Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Bachelor of Arts, English and American Literature and Afro-American Studies, Brown University
Associate Certified Coach, International Coaching Federation
SHRM-CP, Society for Human Resources Professionals
Healthcare Leadership Coach Certification, Pyramid Resource Group’s Healthcare Coaching Institute (125 hours)
Coach Certification Program, Coach Academy International (62 hours)
This is my story
My 30 years of professional experience includes Student Affairs and Career Development roles in academia, and HR roles in healthcare and the nonprofit arts/museum world. I’ve also been a working creative throughout my career – as a freelance writer of columns and articles for a variety of fashion and travel magazines, and as a poet. My creative writing has appeared in The Boston Review, Agni, and other literary journals.
My career’s been a blend of pragmatism, grit, creativity, and conscientiousness – with some boldness and dreaminess thrown in for good measure! Creating a life that enables me to get my creative and executive function “fixes” has required constant inquiry, continuous learning, a resistance to psycho-schlerosis (the hardening of one’s attitude), planning, humor, and boundary setting.
I view coaching as a practice grounded in trust, powered by curiosity, and designed to elicit the awareness, clarity, and confidence that people need to discover their inner teachers and create positive change in their lives. I’m intensely focused on helping clients discover their goals and dreams, and supporting them as they embrace the changes they need to make in order to achieve them.
I LOVE to work with:
Leaders who:
- Senior leaders who seek to find more of their voice in the people side (as opposed to the technical side) of their work, particularly where DEIB is concerned.
- Experienced managers who want more senior leadership roles and want to position themselves appropriately.
- New managers who may have been promoted into managerial roles because of their technical expertise but now need to learn people leadership skills and lead/inspire/guide others to do work instead.
Professionals who:
- Either want to blend their professional expertise with more of their personal/creative interests in their current roles OR seek new roles that offer this balance.
- Want to gain more of an understanding of what their dreams and goals are and their options for pursuing them.
- Seek more work/life balance.
People who:
- Want to create their dream career and lifestyle, who really want to go for it and understand what that is and how to get there.
- Want to create a lifelong practice of managing their careers.
- Aren’t sure what they want to do professionally and need thought-partnership to think this through.
My Coaching Approach
My approach to coaching balances very pragmatic, step-by-step planning with rigorous inquiry into a client’s dreams and inspirations. I include humor, somatics, positive psychology, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, empathy (a super-power), and curiosity.
What My Clients Say
“My experience was great from start to finish. Each session was structured, collaborative and concluded with us measuring the progress made toward the session goal as well as cumulatively across the previous sessions. I was supported as well as challenged throughout the process. I benefited tremendously from the quality of the questions Donia posed as well as her synthesis and reframing of things we discussed. Our work together was invaluable in helping me to recalibrate my career goals and chart a clear path forward.” – D Mc
“Donia is an extraordinary coach. I cannot say enough to recommend her for her skills as a coach, but also for the style and presence she brings to every coaching interaction. I nearly mistyped “presence” as “presents” and chuckled as I realized how apt that word is, also, to describe Donia’s coaching…because she is gifted and shares her gifts easily and generously with her coaching clients. While these “gifts” Donia possesses as a coach are innumerable, I will do my best to highlight those that made a real difference for me these last months.
First, Donia creates a structure for coaching calls that provides safety and comfort with its consistency. Then she moves fluidly and gracefully within that structure to go wherever the client needs to go on a given day. She greeted me warmly, on every call, with an inquiry about my hopes or intentions for our time together. The routine of this opening to every conversation helped me arrive each time with goals in mind and a sense of how I wanted to best use our call. Then, we’d dance with whatever showed up.
Second, the best coaches ask good questions. After listening intently to what I said, Donia demonstrated a natural ability to ask a question that clarified, deepened, or (in some cases) challenged my thinking. Combined with her gentle, kind, and supportive presence, her questions helped me explore perspectives and options that I’d have not entertained on my own.
Third, while I know she consciously reserved her insights and ideas until after I’d explored my own, Donia had a scalpel-like way of giving me a precise piece of input – at just the right time – to get me unstuck. Again, delivered with care and warmth, she’d shine a light on a blind spot and help me see my way through a difficult situation, self-limiting outlook, or life challenge.
Finally, I know I’ve said a lot about her calming style, but what I loved most about her coaching is that she combined that style with an edge of accountability. Because of the balanced tone Donia set, I always knew I was ultimately in charge of what we talked about, what I was taking away from each interaction, and what I would do in the time between our calls. The blending of her graceful style and her firm sense of accountability was incredibly empowering for me.” – Susan
