It's nice to meet you!
I help people clarify what matters most to them. I love working with people who are committed to their own learning and growth, and who are ready to examine what's possible.
I can help you make space to learn about and resource who you are becoming or what's next in your life, whatever that means for you–an engaged ally and community member, a present partner or caretaker, a resonant leader, a skilled and equitable manager, a change maker with boundaries, and so much more...
Why I Became a Coach
It's pretty simple; coaching brings me joy. I see it as one way that I can use my strengths and skills to help make this world a better place. It aligns me with a sense of purpose while centering balance and joy in my life.
Throughout my career, regardless of the positions I was hired into, I kept finding myself in the role of advisor, guide, and coach to employees and teams who were trying to do things differently. I saw the transformational power of accompanying others on their journeys. I learned that tending to the change makers around me had a huge impact on our collective ability to create change, even before I had any training and proficiency as a coach.
Like many of the folks I work with, my story also includes burnout, overwhelm, and workplace trauma, right alongside the many bright spots that kept me moving beyond capacity for too long. Working with a coach on my healing journey got me right out of my own head and out of my own way. Of course, there are many institutional and structural barriers that create real and often insurmountable scarcity and inequity. Even so, stepping into my own power and sense of agency led me to a much more purposeful and fulfilling life.
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I think a lot about how coaching can be perceived as an individualistic intervention to societal problems, but when it's part of a larger toolkit of interventions, it can be a critical component of systems change. All too often, we individually perpetuate the very things that have trapped us into unfulfilling lives. We have to strive to be liberated–to be the change we wish to see in the world–if we want a chance of getting there. It can feel indulgent or like a distraction, but aligning the fabric of ourselves with the collective future we are striving for is challenging and impactful work. And the narrative that we should be able to figure it out on our own is one that keeps us divided and unsuccessful. Coaching is one tool to help us build accountability, skill, capacity, vision, and more in our own journeys of becoming our future selves.
Why I'm Qualified to Coach You
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I am an Associate Certified Coach (ACC), credentialed by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). This means I have met strict education and experience requirements, and through an evaluation process, I’ve demonstrated a thorough understanding of ICF’s coaching competencies and ethical guidelines. Furthermore, ICF requires credentialed coaches to engage in ongoing learning in order to continuously expand their coaching abilities.
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I am trained in Presence-Based Coaching, an integrative approach for developing leaders through mindfulness, somatics, developmental psychology, complexity theory, and interpersonal neurobiology. Many of the practices and tools I use in coaching are rooted in this approach.
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I have a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Sustainability Leadership, for which I specialized in shared leadership and anti-oppressive organizational design/practices.
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I have 15 years of experience in organizations at all levels - local, statewide, and national. My work experience includes: leading and designing organizational change initiatives, developing leaders and supervisors for equitable management, facilitating multi-stakeholder conversations, strategic planning and fundraising, and more. I'm also a Partner in the organizational consulting firm, Mindel Pelchat & Associates (website coming soon!).
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I completed the Center for Equity and Inclusion’s Facilitator Intensive, a life-changing experience designed for individuals who lead equity, diversity and inclusion efforts within their personal and professional environments. It has a strong racial equity focus and has deeply informed how I, as a white person, show up in my coaching and facilitation services.
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I am committed to my own learning, continuously inviting feedback and pursuing developmental opportunities that hone my own personal and professional skill set to act as an agent for change and create inclusive, trauma-informed spaces.
A little more about me...
​I choose to be explicit about my intersecting identities and lived experiences because they inform the lenses I bring to my work. I identify as a queer, white, fat woman with cisgender privilege. I was born in Québec, and my first language was French, but my family moved to Miami, Florida where I was raised from a young age and became a naturalized US citizen, a challenging process that I experienced from a place of racial and socioeconomic privilege.
Today, I own and care for a creaky old house in the hills of Vermont with my favorite person, Eli. I'm a potter, a pretty serious cook, a gardener, an overzealous learner, and I love a good puzzle.