October 5th 2023.
The coaching industry is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. According to analysis done by business consulting firm Grand View Research, the industry is expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 7.6% and will be worth an estimated $27.5 billion by 2026.
Ingrid Wallace, an experienced executive coach and DEI consultant, is on the front lines of this industry. She has worked with major organizations like Disney, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. To Wallace, her job is to help her clients focus, gain clarity, and confidently navigate their professional journeys.
Recently, Wallace sat down with BLACK ENTERPRISE to discuss how she became an executive coach, why leaders need a coach, and how to select an executive coach.
Wallace began her career at Blue Cross Blue Shield, teaching anatomy, physiology, and medical terminology. However, she noticed that African Americans were not being sent to the class in order to prepare for promotion.
"I was suffocating inside corporate America for nine years," Wallace says. "The class I was teaching was a prerequisite to promotion, but the company was not sending African Americans to this class!"
In order to make sure that everyone had the opportunity to be promoted, Wallace decided to teach the class at 7:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. She estimates that, over the course of eight years, she helped roughly 700 people get promoted who may not have gotten the promotion otherwise.
After leaving corporate America, Wallace began coaching people of color to take responsibility for their lives and careers. Unfortunately, her program was not purchased by major Black companies at the time.
She decided to find out how to get her program to Black employees and discovered that it was accepted at the U.S. Postal Service in downtown Chicago. She conducted keynotes with the Postal Service for many years and eventually became the first person to sell and conduct a training for the Walt Disney Company. This successful program also led to consulting contracts with other companies like General Motors, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and McDonald's.
Enhancing leadership can sometimes be difficult to comprehend when looking for practical approaches. Wallace believes that her job is to help leaders focus, see things more clearly, and possibly see further down the road than they would have without her coaching.
When selecting an executive coach, Wallace suggests finding one who is willing to sit on the same side of the desk as you. This way, the coach is on the same journey as you and can provide the necessary tools for you to do whatever it is you want to do.
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