Leadership Development

Lori Zahn has been a great partner and trusted advisor over the years, helping us to raise our game as a leadership team through team building and leadership coaching. Lori’s thoughtful and professional approach along with her cogent, honest insights are highly valued. She has a knack for bringing the right tools and approach to each situation, and she effectively draws wisdom from a wealth of real-world experience.

Andy Grolnick, President & CEO, LogRhythm

I have truly appreciated working with Lori over the past two years. She took the time, up front, to get to know me and understand what I wanted out of our engagement. Lori was able to craft an approach that was unique to my needs, informed by her years of experience and her expertise with a diverse set of coaching and consulting tools. She has been incredible at supporting my individual growth and leadership skills as well as coaching me through the journey of building a high performing executive team.

Ismael Guerrero, President & CEO, Mercy Housing

Lori Zahn has worked with LogRhythm for over four years and has truly made a difference. We started engaging with Lori at the executive team level. Given her success with the executive team, we asked her company to coach all our vice presidents and most of our directors. Lori’s approach, her ability to inspire confidence and her open, honest conversations, I have seen truly visible growth in our leadership. She provided consistent and sincere direction both to individuals but also a coaching program. Perceptive Leaders provided me in HR a worry-free, value-added leadership program. I would highly recommend Lori to any business that is interested in learning more about a great coaching program or looking for a great coach to get a program started.

Dennis Stoltenberg, Vice President, Human Resources, LogRhythm

I had the opportunity to work with Lori Zahn for three years on several executive coaching and team development engagements. I saw the team shift, remove barriers, and come together in unprecedented ways as they worked with Lori. Our President and I also engaged Lori to conduct an organizational assessment to help us identify organizational staffing and process changes that were required to support continued growth. Lori is a masterful listener and facilitator of discovery.

Kim Mitchell, Senior Vice President Human Resources, First Data

Lori has worked with our organization as a leadership consultant in a variety of capacities. Our President engaged Lori to facilitate strategic planning meetings with our executive team. She did an excellent job of keeping the discussions on point and ensuring that we met our goals for the meeting. There was a strong sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. I highly value Lori’s forthright insights and recommendations as leadership consultant.

Joan Manning, Executive Vice President, Fiserv

Executive Coaching

Not only have I benefited tremendously from my coaching experience, I have also advocated and supported other leaders in our company to use Lori in their own development. Ten other leaders from my company have requested and used Lori for her special expertise and talents in moving leaders forward.

Susan Zimmerman, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Fiserv

Over the past two years, your coaching has been immeasurably helpful to the Foundation and me.  I was a bit hesitant and skeptical, yet after experiencing your professionalism, I am really a fan of executive coaching with you at the helm.  You were great at building my trust one conversation at a time.    While your feedback was sometimes difficult to hear, I always knew that it was coming from a place of honest care.  This was true whether you were trying to get me to see something difficult or congratulating me on some growth.  You clearly care about me as a leader, our organization and me as a person.

Steve Winesett, President & CEO, Children’s Hospital Foundation

Working with Lori enabled me to significantly increase my leadership effectiveness by building a size-able toolkit of knowledge and approaches.  Her approach was aligned to how I can best learn enabling the learnings to “stick” with me for years to come.  Those learnings for me included EQ, conflict management, leadership styles, managing influence, managing change within business environments and people, and professional relationship management.  During the time I worked with Lori, I found my learnings via executive coaching made me someone who enjoys their career because I am now acutely aware of my stressors and how to manage them.  As an executive today, there are few situations where I am not sure what to do next because I have the plethora of leadership tools available to me thanks to Lori!

Chris Brazdziunas, VP Engineering and Product, LogRhythm

I had the opportunity to work with Lori as an executive coach and it was nothing short of transformational. The process was extremely thought out and smooth but what was transformational were the insights.  The insights she gathered showed me how my style was limiting my ability to be as effective and impactful a leader as I wanted to be.  Lori was a phenomenal listener and created a safe yet challenging environment.  She delivered feedback with empathy and professionalism.  I utilize the feedback and coaching that she provided every single day. I would not hesitate to recommend Lori to anyone looking to improve themselves.

Kelly Titterington Wells, VP, Customer Success and Development, Webroot

Lori has had a profoundly positive impact on my personal growth and professional development which cannot be understated.  Coaching can be overwhelming, but she helped me prioritize my program so that I was tackling things that were strategic for the organization and for me.  I the goals we established were challenging but achievable.  Lori is insightful and has the unique ability to deliver difficult messages with kindness and compassion.  She pushed me beyond my comfort zone, but she was always acutely sensitive on when to push and how hard.  I know that I am a stronger manger, mentor, and leader after working with Lori.  Most importantly, I have left this experience with a greater sense of confidence and personal strength.

Anne Klein, Vice President of Development, Children’s Hospital Foundation

Leadership Teams

We started engaging with Lori at the executive team level.  We were having the age-old issues of working hard but not maximizing all our talents as a team, so the hard work alone was not producing the outcomes we wanted.  Lori spent time learning our Company, our culture and ourselves and with that knowledge set about some inspiring and practical improvements for us to take.  Today we are a far more effective team. The engagement in our communication, our interactions, and, by far most importantly, our trust with each other is what allows for many of our conversations resulting in the best decisions and behaviors for our company,

Dennis Stoltenberg, Vice President, Human Resources, LogRhythm

I absolutely marvel at Lori’s ability to take a complex organizational challenge – involving people, strategy, mission – and break it down into its component parts. Lori created a unique process for our team to skillfully move us from being “stuck” into the steps needed to be a high performing team. Lori is a gifted coach and consultant – and I’m grateful to have had a chance to see her work first-hand with the Executive Leadership Team at Mercy Housing.

Michele Stowe, COO, Mercy Housing

Lori has been incredible at supporting my individual growth and leadership skills as well as coaching me through the journey of building a high performing executive team.  Lori was great at facilitating team building sessions with my Executive Leadership Team.  Her insightful, thought-provoking approach led to several break-through moments that continue to inform our approach and strategies. Whether it’s working one-on-one with me or planning and facilitating a team building session with my senior leaders, Lori is always thoughtful, prepared, and exceeds expectations.

Ismael Guerrero, President & CEO, Mercy Housing

I engaged Lori Zahn to work with me and my eight-member management team over a period of two years.  This consisted of a series of offsite sessions.  In every session, Lori brought the professional skills and knowledge I expected of an executive coach.  She really listened to me and my team to ascertain our needs and objectives, stretch us when appropriate, and keep the team safe when necessary.

Rhonda Kavanagh, CFO, Fiserv

Leadership Programs

As a leader in organizational development, I notice the details and the overall results/impact of a program. From a design perspective, the program has a great balance between leadership concepts, self-assessments and learning activities.  Over the course of the program, participants were clearly re-energized about their leadership role and their commitment to their success … they began to envision their leadership roles in new expanded ways, had insightful dialogues with their managers and their direct reports, and were experimenting with new ways to demonstrate leadership.

Carol Manning, SVP Global Learning & Development, Global Investment Bank

The Facets Leadership Program was nothing short of transformational in that it opened my mind to a number of possibilities.  Lori is a terrific coach.  She is approachable, patient, insightful and non-judgmental.  She is adept at probing, and she appropriately challenges when a response skims over the top.  She pushed me to examine my perspective.  Lori brought forth the more objective business perspective and lined that up against my own personal view.  The result yielded a newly framed context from which I could operate.

Program Participant

For the diverse group of professional women in our Facets program, Lori created both a supportive and challenging curriculum and learning environment.  I always gain new insights from conversation with Lori; she listens intently and helps me draw connections among disparate ideas.  With her remarkable intuition, she knows when and how to encourage others to open, re-open, or close door as and options.

Program Participant

I learned how to pay attention to leadership, what it is exactly, how to think about it and how to spot leadership opportunities for myself and others. How to lead/should I lead were questions that came up for me in my work pretty much every single day of the year. ILD didn’t necessarily answer these questions for me but gave me lots of new skills and context to figure out the answers on my own.

Program Participant

I loved this class! It was a great balance of self-improvement/self-reflection along with leadership advice and guidance. I learned so much about what my strengths are that I can continue to utilize professionally and personally while also really discovering some of my weaknesses that I can spend time improving on.

Program Participant

Lori is terrific and successfully creates a safe and productive space for folks to develop and reflect on their leadership.

Program Participant

Lori was great. Her style was calm and inquisitive. She was good at starting up dialogue among the group.

Program Participant

Lori is super knowledgeable, welcoming, engaging.

Program Participant

I really enjoyed Lori! I think she did a great job of helping us to discover things about ourselves and each other through Emergenetics.

Program Participant

Lori was fantastic. It is SO difficult to teach/train/present on Zoom. I really enjoyed the presentation, felt comfortable with her presentation style, and felt welcome to share and participate as I felt compelled to do so.

Program Participant

Lori was great! She was very interactive and kept us engaged – which is hard as a virtual course. She handled the minor technical difficulties with ease and was a great resource throughout the whole session.

Program Participant

Leader Transitions

It was the right time for me to have the opportunity to think through tough transition issues for myself and go through the coaching process.  The program was well organized and gave each participant the opportunity and time to reflect and participate at their own speed.  Lori proved to be an excellent coach, facilitator, and teacher.  As a coach, she allowed me to come to my own conclusions.  She is very insightful and intuitive about where someone is at any time in their self-disclosure or emotional state and knows when and how to move the person in the right direction.

Joyce Cashman, Executive Vice President & COO, University of Colorado Hospital

The facilitators were both great. They clearly enjoy working together and the way they played off each other made it fun for us.

Program Participant

Lori does an excellent job of creating trust in the room. I think that’s why I was more comfortable and open than I thought I might be.

Program Participant

The program introduced me to so many things that I had not been thinking about and needed to.

Program Participant

The questionnaire was great. I could see where I’m in pretty good shape and places that I need to give more attention.

Program Participant

My coach was amazing. Conversations with her added so much to my experience.

Program Participant

I had been focusing mostly on financial planning and learned how important the emotional aspects are.

Program Participant

So much of who I am is wrapped up in my work. The second session really helped me understand why it’s been so hard for me to set a date to retire even though I know I need to.

Program Participant

Words don’t express how much this experience has meant to me.

Program Participant

I like having a plan to move me forward. I was feeling stuck and feel much less so now.

Program Participant

Professional Transitions

Perceptive Transitions Program

Lori is a remarkable teacher and an intuitive facilitator.  She brings a warmth and engagement that invites people to be fully present, even when everyone is joining online.  She has the wisdom to help guide a conversation to flow and the flexibility to respond to the needs of the group. I have loved being a fellow learner on this journey with Lori.

Patricia Sandler

I am incredibly appreciative of the opportunity to participate in this course with Lori as our adept, warm, intuitive, and knowledgeable leader, and with all my incredibly accomplished and inspiring classmates!  The course not only re-affirmed that I am ready to let go of my nonprofit CEO title, which I have embraced as my identity for the better part of the past 22 years, but it gave me the confidence and peace to set that identity aside.  I am feeling grateful for the perspective that the class has given me about the transition that I have been in, and how grounded I am feeling.

Monica Roers

Taking this course was a transformative experience.  The material encouraged me to look at my lifetime of professional work in an entirely new way. With Lori’s guidance and input from the other course participants, I shifted from stuck to energized, and came away feeling ready to take the next steps to advance my career growth. Lori Zahn is a gifted facilitator and educator, and a really fun person to interact with.

Hilary Moreland

Focus Forward Program at the University of Denver

I found myself among a wonderfully diverse group of people, all of whom were either beginning or in the midst of life transitions. I came to discover we shared similar struggles. We wanted to lead exciting, fulfilling lives yet were stuck on some level and didn’t quite know how to start getting un-stuck.

Enter our instructor, Lori Zahn. Lori is a passionate professional dedicated to spreading the gospel of engaged living. She’s a master of her craft. She teaches with energy and enthusiasm and possesses deep knowledge of the subject matter. With Lori’s guidance each week, I found a new language – a way to describe, with great clarity, what I’d been experiencing and what I wanted to experience in my life. Most importantly, I learned new tools to start taking action.

Nancy Greager

It is clear that the Focus Forward program has been carefully designed to support professionals like me who are transitioning into a different stage of their life.  It was fascinating, inspiring, informative, and practical.  Lori’s lifelong passion for her subject matter, her expect facilitation skills, and her empathetic way of connecting with and honoring every participant all served to make it a wonderful, life-changing experience.  I highly recommend it.

Ian Stone

The classes are filled with smart, open, funny, inquisitive people trying to figure out to navigate life, career and retirement as we age.  It is a safe, nonjudgmental and engaging forum where people really listen to each other’s stories and contribute thoughtfully with ideas, approaches, contacts or opportunities that might help with navigating this part of life’s journey.

Cameron Claussen

The instructor did a great job of leading us and motivating the class.  It was a safe space to explore.  Lori is a great leader in the wilderness of “what’s next.

Cindy Wolf

This program has been the catalyst I have needed to give me the confidence to make changes in my work life and the courage to plan ahead and do things differently than my business partners.  I feel validated and revitalized as I look ahead to my next chapter.

Anon

This was the best money/time I’ve spent on a set of classes in quite some time!!

Greg McCarter

Having just completed Revitalizing Career, it is with renewed vigor and confidence that I am able to embark on the next phase of my career – and life.  The instructor, being an expert in adult development, was especially knowledgeable and passionate in guiding us through what can be a rocky transition, sometimes defined by doubt or discontent.  The classes have truly been life transforming for me as I steer my career forward in a way that is revitalizing!

Lisa Radford

Focus Forward made all the difference for me. I figured out how to support myself with gig and consulting jobs until this perfect position came along. I was able to recognize what was missing for me from consulting work – public service is essential to my happiness. I’m loving my values-centered work.   Focus Forward steered me right to where I needed to be!

Laurie Van Court

This program was amazing! Lori is a wonderful teacher and you leave the course with a great toolkit and framework for reinventing your retirement.  If you are stuck, you will get unstuck.  Anyone contemplating these issues should take this course.

Elizabeth Steele

Focus Forward helped me see retirement in a new and very different light.  I entered the program quite apprehensive about retiring, with so many changes ahead.  Lori Zahn and focus Forward helped me see these changes in identity, sense of purpose, and social networks as new opportunities for steering the person that I have always been and still am in new directions.  I have since retired and feel good about having done so.

Matt Downey

By the time I finished the Reinventing Retirement course, I no longer dreaded retirement but am now enthusiastically looking forward to it.  I learned that retirement was not the end of my life but an opportunity for a new beginning with unlimited possibilities.  The instructor, Lori Zahn, was excellent.  I cannot give these classes enough praise and will continue to encourage my friends to give them a try.

Margo Allen