I'm an Executive Coach, Leadership Retreats Faculty, and Organizational Advisor. My business experience has spanned a variety of industries - investment banking, global energy, consumer goods, leadership consulting and art retail - and a number of countries - UK, US, Venezuela, Italy, Belgium. I joined the business world in 1983 as part of my research into the impact of automation on Wall Street. As a Masters candidate in Cultural Anthropology, I was intrigued by the potential for technology to significantly transform the dynamics of the industry. My working question was whether collaboration, trust and transparency would be enhanced by the advent of information systems in banking. Little did I know at the time that automation would actually have the reverse effect on the industry's culture. And yet because of that early interest I became 'hooked' on a business career, and on discovering what it might take to create a business culture that produces both financial rewards while enhancing the quality of life of employees, communities and customers.
What I focus on - One of my core beliefs is that a leader's individual journey towards wholeness is critical to addressing today's complexity and challenges. My experience shows that the core capacity of high performing teams is their ability to trust each other. Yet building trust across differences is often a low priority. And as a business woman, I am also particularly passionate about the role and power of feminine leadership to support the evolution of global mindsets, social systems and models of economic impact.
How I work - I work with both individuals and organizational teams. I help individuals develop a higher quality of self-awareness, so as to enable courses of action in which the truth of one's individual calling and the power of one's true gifts can more clearly 'show up'. When working with organizations, I look for the patterns in the organizational culture, systems or structures - whether hidden conflicts or self-defeating strategies - which are getting in the way of the creative potential of collective endeavors. Bringing to light such patterns allows for a different level of conversations in which the truth about such 'stuckness' can be seen, voiced and ultimately transformed.
My coaching and leadership consulting activities have been deeply informed by several years spent working with global thought leaders such as Bill Isaacs and his colleagues Peri Chickering, Glennifer Gillespie, and Skip Griffin, and my time coaching and co-leading Dialogos' Leadership for Collective Intelligence program for senior executives. More recently, I have collaborated with David Rooke and Nelisha Wickremasinghe, co-leading several year-long programs for senior executives in global organizations in the technology and consumer goods sectors. And finally, I owe my love for and skills in systemic individual and team coaching to my coaching and consulting experiences with Dialogos, Harthill, Morris Graham, Pluribus, as well as with the CIYO global program and Columbia University's Coaching Certification program.
My coaching and consulting business - Through DorianBaroni.Com I work as an independent Coach with a range of individual coaching clients: senior executives in corporations, millennials in their first professional experiences, middle managers who are feeling the strain of competing demands, entrepreneurs who are seeking to enhance their organization's unique cultures, and not-for-profit leaders who are striving for resilience while fulfilling their missions. I also laser coach Executive MBAs at the Yale School of Management. And I work with teams who are interested in achieving Highly Effective Team (HET) outcomes, grounded in trust and mutual respect, and fueled by shared motivation and alignment.
Who I partner with - I also work as a Senior Associate of a number of boutique consultancies:
Morris Graham - focused on Systemic Change, Executive Coaching and Leadership Masterclasses
Pluribus - focused on Inclusion and Psychological Safety
Harthill - focused on Leadership Development Programs
Hub Consulting Associates - focused on High Potential Leadership Programs
The GreenHouse Social Enterprise. I am an advisor for an Ethiopian social enterprise accelerator project founded by Beth Negash.
Education, Certifications and Languages
MBA - Anderson School of Management at UCLA
BA Cultural Anthropology - College of William and Mary in Virginia
Coaching Certification foundations: Dialogos and Columbia University
Assessments certifications: Fascination Profile,MBTI, FIRO-B, TKI, Harthill LDF, Business Model You
Bilingual in Italian and English, with fluent working understanding of French and basic comprehension of Spanish.
Location - I work with many of my clients virtually leveraging teleconferencing and Zoom videoconferencing.
My current home base is in the Southwest of the US where I moved to be closer to parents, while I spend a significant portion of my working time in New York and Los Angeles, as well as in Europe (mainly in London and Rome).
My social impact venture: Women Agents of Change. In early 2017, I took some time off to envision the legacy phase of my work in the area of leadership development and change for women. I then prototyped and soft launched a new online venture focused on making change mastery knowledge, tools, resources and inspiration accessible to women change agents. The current Women Agents of Change (WAOC) offering is an online change mastery program delivered via videocalls, webinars with an online members-only discussion community. In 2019, Women Agents of Change will expand to provide access to video resources, linkages with partner sites, an e-book tentatively titled the 'The big(ish) book of change', conference sessions focused on inspiring women (and men) to equip themselves to make change happen - gracefully, powerfully and unapologetically. More information at www.womenagentsofchange.org
Why women's leadership figures so prominently on my website - I am deeply committed to women's leadership development. As a successful business woman, I have reaped the rewards of a long and fruitful career without obvious limitations. Yet, it was clear to me from the time that I was a high school pre-engineering math and physics major, that women are still not welcome with open arms in certain fields of study and work, are still paid less than men for equivalent work, and still find themselves having to combat overt or covert discrimination.
We all have a role to play in bringing equality of opportunities to men and women. What feels like mine to do is to support younger women (as well as younger men) who may not want to fit into outdated models of success or limiting mindsets about self-worth. So I do my bit when and where I can and encourage others to consider how they are choosing to contribute to progress or to the perseverance of systemic inequities.
I mentor women MBAs at my alma mater, the Anderson School at UCLA. I host women's leadership retreats. I am a committed supporter of the Eileen Fisher Learning Institute's summer program for young women. I invite men and women to consider the impact of unconscious gender bias in our day to day working environments and cultures. And between 2007 and 2015, I took a leadership role in the global expansion of the CIYO (Coming Into Your Own), a leadership retreat program for women.During that time period, I focused on the expansion of the network of faculty and alumnae, and its associated programs. I expanded the design of the core retreat offering to reach women in corporate settings, all the while enhancing the CIYO's reach as an affordable public offering.And as of 2017,I am the founder of a social impact venture: Women Agents of Change.
SOME OF THE ORGANIZATIONS IN WHICH LEADERS TRUST ME TO WORK WITH THEM AND THEIR TEAMS:
