Alicia is driven by a natural curiosity about what is possible. She offers her intuition, imagination and keen sensibilities combined with twenty years of business experience to work with current and emerging leaders and entrepreneurs. Her clients know Alicia as a "wisdom partner" for her ability to tap their inherent wisdom and to cultivate breakthrough thinking within themselves and in their organizations. Her forté lies in her ability to create forums for meaningful dialogue that generate shifts in personal leadership and organizational alignment. She is a catalyst for unfolding conversations at the deepest level.
Alicia’s clients are:
- Visionary Leaders
- Social and Creative Entrepreneurs
- Women in Leadership – special focus – Alicia’s style, academic background and experience make her a catalyst for tapping the best of women in leadership
- Leadership Teams building cohesiveness and effectiveness
Transformational Conversations
- Leaders and Legacy Issues – next chapter
- Individuals seeking a deeper connection to life and work
- Developing Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Skills
- Mindfulness, Authenticity, Resiliency, Organizational Execution of Vision and Purpose
In her leadership coaching and team development work she focuses on:
- Developing high-integrity, self-aware leaders that inspire as well as execute strategically
- Supporting leaders who are making a significant difference and contribution to the world
- Developing alignment in teams that produces results while building trust, feedback skills and collaborative competency
- Convening leadership team conversations around what is essential to the emerging future of the organization
- Guiding clients to develop creative thinking that results in higher levels of personal and organizational agility and resilience
- Creating experiential learning events that include Nature and the outdoors as a learning lab
Alicia combines her expertise in leadership development, experiential learning and a whole systems approach to guide her clients to innovative thinking that results in higher levels of personal and organizational agility and resilience. She achieves sustainable and generative results from building leadership into multiple levels in the organization.
As President of Sophia Associates, Inc. she has worked with C-level executives to develop talent in their organizations. She was chosen to coach executives at The Notre Dame Executive MBA Program. Her coaching often focuses on cultivating a leader’s ability to make decisions in the face of ambiguity, to manage competing commitments and to develop the skills to build collaborative relationships cross-culturally. She is certified in several assessment tools including the cutting edge individual and group profile from The Leadership Circle™.
Alicia has worked with individuals and teams in such industries as financial services, technology, hospitality, real estate development, and health care and in both for-profit and non-profit settings. Clients include: Sodexo, the Executive MBA Program at Notre Dame, International Center for Research on Women, the Inspirit Foundation, Guidestar, Anne Arundel Community College Foundation, Bright Focus Foundation, Nautica, Timberland, VF Corporation, Hospice of the Chesapeake and many others. She also coaches young social entrepreneurs for the Halcyon Incubator at Georgetown University. The Halcyon Incubator is committed to solving 21st century challenges throughout the nation and world. By helping social entrepreneurs transform audacious ideas into scalable and sustainable ventures, the Halcyon Incubator acts as a catalyst for measurable social outcomes.
Personal Development:
As her company Sophia Associates, Inc. focuses on Conscious Leadership, her private practice focuses on Conscious Living. Alicia has created a signature offering for individuals seeking a deeper inquiry into purpose, transitions, legacy and renewal. This is an intensive and transformational individual retreat experience that takes place at her home Oasis in Ecuador, a retreat center on the coast of Ecuador. There she hosts her annual women’s retreat, Unlocking the Secrets to Conscious Living, for women who are looking for a "time in" to reflect on their lives, leadership and business in a setting of beauty and spirit in Ecuador.
Writing:
Alicia is an avid writer. She has written for numerous online and print magazines including Linked In, Smart CEO DC/Baltimore magazine and Tiny Buddha. She is an advocate of women in leadership and diversity in organizations and has assisted corporate clients to develop talent management programs to address the active leadership development of diverse populations. Her articles are a resource to her clients for emerging thinking on leadership, technology and business.
Her most recent book, Manage Your Life Before Life Manages You: More Joy and Less Stress in 365 Days contains daily inspiration and practices for busy individuals who desire to cultivate mindfulness and conscious living as a way of being in the world.
Alicia’s Approach:
A life-long learner, Alicia walks her talk, regularly expanding her domain of knowledge through engagement both as a speaker and a participant in traditional learning seminars and non-traditional experiential learning. She shares her experience of walking the rainforests of Ecuador in her recent interview on Voice America where she describes her Ten Lessons on Fierce Leadership for Women.
Alicia works with all domains of learning – intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual – to draw out the essence of personal leadership. She enjoys taking clients and teams out of their normal environment into Nature to challenge their behaviors and assumptions on how to collaborate and lead effectively. She leads kayaking trips and works with equine assisted-learning specialists to create events that result in transformational experiences.
Education
Alicia has a Masters of Arts Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a Bachelor of Arts from Colby College in Maine. She is an ICF P.C.C. level certified coach. She graduated from the prestigious Leadership Coaching Certification Program at Georgetown University. She is certified in The Leadership Circle Profile and Culture Survey, a 360 process she uses in her leadership development programs.
Alicia lives in Annapolis, MD and enjoys yoga, writing and kayaking on the Chesapeake and its tributaries. She also lives and works part-time in Ecuador, South America at Oasis, her private retreat center where she studies ancestral wisdom traditions and hosts clients on their personal Hero/ine’s Journey.
