ABOUT US

Michelle Montserrat Oliva, MBA, PCC | Principal

Michelle has coached, trained, and advised leaders and teams for over 15 years, partnering with corporate, nonprofit, and public sector organizations across the US and internationally. She holds an Executive Certificate in Leadership Coaching from Georgetown University and an MBA from ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. Since serving as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia, Michelle has worked in more than 15 countries across North America, UK and Europe, East and Southern Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and has lived in Argentina, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Sudan, Spain, and the United States. Applying her experiences facing complex, systemic, global challenges, she supports leaders to see possibilities and uncover creative solutions through an abundance mindset, to stay resilient and centered in times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

As the founder of Purpose Within, she provides leadership and organizational development services, including coaching, training, and facilitation to mission-driven organizations; and delivers project management and program design support services to other training and capacity building providers. Michelle’s approach blends a commitment to service with management acumen, supporting the creation of partner-led strategies and solutions. She is passionate about fostering sustainable and effective collaboration within organizations, and across networks, communities, and sectors.

As an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Professional Certified Coach (PCC), Michelle starts from the assertion that “people are, by their very nature, creative, resourceful, and whole” (Co-Active Coaching). She supports clients to identify and cultivate their purpose within. She combines this with a values-based mindset, bringing her experience listening, learning, and adapting to a range of cultures and operating contexts, and when relevant, applying the insights that the creative arts, neuroscience, and the contemplative sciences can offer us as leaders and members of a compassionate, interconnected society.

Current and recent engagements include supporting executives, managers and individual contributors as a coach and advisor in both one-on-one and team settings. Client leaders come from across:

Federal and state agencies, including USAID, EPA, USGS, DIA, SBA, Federal Executive Institute (FEI), and Virginia Depts of Conservation & Recreation, Forestry, and Environmental Quality
Nonprofits, including US and international NGOs
Higher education, including University of Virginia -- Institute Engagement & Negotiation and Darden School of Business, James Madison University, and Washington University in St Louis – Olin School of Business Executive MBA and EMBA with Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Private sector companies such as ADP, Discovery, Mars, MetLife, Nielsen, Pfizer, TIAA, and Workday
Her professional experience has included US- and overseas-based roles in management consulting and international development, for example as team lead and organizational development advisor for a $65 million, 5-year USAID project in East Africa, and as director of finance and operations for a $13 million project in Malawi.

Michelle is a lifelong student of insight meditation and mindfulness with a commitment to learning and supporting racial, social & economic equity and justice through work and community, including pro bono service. A conservatory-trained musician (Manhattan School of Music), after a 20-year hiatus, she returned to music in 2017, expanding from her classical roots to improvisation and composition. She has logged more than 20,000 kms in self-drive 4x4 road trips across Southern Africa, and is a rescue scuba diver. Walking is her best medicine (Hippocrates). Michelle lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Michelle is certified in The Leadership Circle 360 and TetraMap™, a holistic diversity and synergy based team development program. She is also a certified practitioner in the Coaching Mindset Index® (CMI) assessment tool. For more information

Roselyn Kay, MCC | Partner

Roselyn (Roz) Kay provides executive coaching and consulting to leaders and their teams seeking to grow and change to meet today’s leadership and organizational demands. She uses positive strength-based approaches including Appreciative Inquiry to support leaders and teams as they work to elevate their leadership proficiency, build relationships, enhance collaborative skills, communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, give effective feedback, delegate, and make critical decisions. Her approach to leadership draws upon her strong business acumen, advanced study of human behavior, and deep understanding of the challenges and complexities that leaders face.

At the Institute for Transformational Leadership, Georgetown University, Roz previously served as Co-Director and Faculty for the Leadership Coaching Certificate Program, and currently serves as Faculty for the Strategic Diversity & Inclusion Management Certificate Program. In addition, she serves as Practicum Advisor for MSOD students at American University.

As an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Master Certified Coach (MCC), Roz brings over 25 years of leading, training, mentoring, and coaching individuals (staff and senior leadership), teams, and groups in Banking and Finance to her work as coach, trainer, and consultant. Throughout her financial career, she held senior leadership positions, the last position with Fannie Mae, where she led her teams and divisions to higher levels of performance. Her philosophy is that we all have the ability to change with the will to do so. With that will and the strength of coaching to shine a light on habits of language, body, and emotion, clients can practice new approaches that significantly raise their potential for and find the energy to make the changes they seek.

Roz co-designed and co-facilitated Leadership and Change: an Appreciative Inquiry Program, Innovation and Change: an Appreciative Inquiry Foundations Program, and Conscious Leadership: Leading from the Present Moment. She has spoken at conferences on the topics of positive change, building, and rebuilding trust. Roselyn has written articles on strategic planning, coaching, somatic coaching, and appreciative inquiry, and has a published chapter, "Embodying Change" in On Becoming a Leadership Coach 2nd edition (2013).

Clients include senior executive leaders and emerging leaders and teams from Mars, Inc., CACI, Department of Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Prince William County Water Services, University of Virginia, S&P Global, US Army, Avalere Health, Mercy Hospital, OCEUS Networks, Novartis, AIR, USGS, USPS, Department of Education, Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, Parkland School, Fuqua School, NASA, AARP, AFGE and Fannie Mae.

Roz is certified in MBTI, FIRO-B and Everything DiSC, ESCI, Leadership Circle 360 and TetraMap™, a holistic diversity and synergy based team development program. In addition, she is certified to deliver the Emotional Intelligence (ESCI) and Cultural Transformational Tools (CTT).