Who We Are

OUR STORY

OUR PEOPLE

Liz brings over a decade of experience with program management, operations, and global education to the team, including her most recent past role coordinating coach education programs. Liz is a perinatal and infant massage therapist, food enthusiast and educator, ardent outdoorswoman, and finds meaning in exploring the connections between her pursuits. Most recently, she has been focusing her travels on farm-to-table projects and education. 

Carla’s mother, granddaughter of Norwegian immigrant farmers, and her father, son of Ashkenazi Jewish holocaust survivors, met in Oakland in 1976.  As poets, artists, healers, they migrated to Boulder, Colorado, where Carla was born.  Carla came-of-age a queer Jewish enby/woman, and now a solo parent.  Their work holds people as resourceful, creative, and whole; makes space for expansive and connective experiences; connects with the more-than-human, and builds relationships that help us thrive.

Georg Apitz, CPCC, PCC, PhD (abd) is a coach with more than ten years of coaching experience. Since 2014, he has owned and operated his own coaching and consulting business. He has two decades of experience working in academia, Human-Computer Interaction, training, Software Architecture as well as the software start-up space. He has worked for non-profits, started his own software company and worked in leadership positions helping grow and expand software businesses across the globe, he has taught at the university level and corporate trainings across the globe. He is a craftsman who enjoys working with wood, enjoys a lot of outdoor activities, including climbing, trailrunning and biking, He has a regular meditation and Qigong practice and loves gardening and cooking.

Since 2021 he has been on the Board of the ICF Colorado chapter.

Kai Stowers is a scientist turned consultant and coach who partners with you to build high-performing, effective, and inclusive teams.  Kai is a long-time mindfulness practitioner and coach who has personally experienced the transformation that comes with intentional development, healing, and growth work.

Kai began his career as a chemist, deeply fascinated by science and the opportunity to save lives by developing novel therapeutics. Over time, he became increasingly interested in the human side of organizations, how individuals grow and develop, and how leaders and teams can evolve toward greatness.

He loves partnering with leaders to help them deepen their capacity to motivate, inspire, and develop others.

Kai’s learning adventures include taking up ice skating and hockey as an adult, and his more recent, pandemic era hobby of learning to play the cello. Kai knows that big, audacious challenges require patience and the ability to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, right alongside the ability to find joy, humor, and connection in the journey. He brings this spirit to all his client engagements. 

Some of Kai’s social identities include being white, queer, and transgender. He has worked and lived as a female and now navigates life as a male, giving him a unique perspective on how gender and gender bias affect people, their teams, and where we see (or don’t see) potential. His work focuses mainly on domestic differences (race, gender, LGBTQ+ status, national origin, etc.), and he also has experience working with international groups, including China, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, and South Korea.

He is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and has a master’s degree in Organizational Psychology and Change Leadership from Columbia University. 

OUR FOUNDERS

A deep commitment to celebrating the diversity of human experience has informed Briana’s path both professionally and personally. Trained as a Professional Integral Coach, her coaching approach is also influenced by years of immersing herself in diverse worldviews around the globe. These experiences influenced her ongoing exploration of modalities of leadership development through diverse ways of knowing, such as somatic practices, nature-connected inquiry, adult development research, mindfulness, and community-centered restorative justice. Through this work, she remains committed to supporting others to step more fully into their unique brilliance in service of a kinder world.

In addition to being a coach, Briana has been involved as a founding board member for the Healing and Reconciliation Institute, a non-profit that strives to facilitate reconciliation and trust between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities through community education, consulting, and peacemaking. She has also supported in the launch of the non-profit Coaching For Everyone’s first fellowship program to train and certify BIPOC coaches. 

Today, Briana works as a Coach Supervisor for Lyra Health where she trains and supports coaches around the globe. She continues to be active in her community with her ongoing involvement in racial restorative justice initiatives through the Oakland-based organization Stronghold. 

Jenny Wagner, PCC, MA, is an educator, coach, and facilitator from Boulder, Colorado who partners with leaders in social impact spaces as they nurture the best in themselves and their communities. Jenny’s coaching journey began while pursuing her Masters degree in Social Anthropology at SOAS University of London, where she would escape from academia on weekends to train as a coach with Boas Partners. She later opened her own coaching practice and also worked as a coach for Beautiful Soul, an organizational change accelerator in Dakar, Senegal.

With a background in global education and experiential learning, Jenny believes that trainings should be fun, engaging, and transformational experiences that foster connection and personal growth. She is passionate about crafting culturally responsive learning experiences and has trained hundreds of coaches, educators, and facilitators across 20 different countries. Jenny wears many hats at Global Focus Coaching and is especially inspired by her work training our coach faculty and designing unique learning experiences.

In addition to her work as a coach and cross-cultural educator, Jenny has served as a birth doula and perinatal yoga teacher and in non-profit, human resources, and higher education spaces. She currently works at Princeton University, where she directs the Princeton RISE fellowship for racial justice with the John H. Pace Center for Civic Engagement.

Jenny lives in New Jersey with her husband and daughter and loves dancing, cooking, eating, and spending time in nature.

Hillary has been working in education and technology for over 15 years as a facilitator and human resources professional. The daughter of two zoological researchers, she lived between Mexico, Australia, Brazil, and the USA for most of her formative years. Her education outside of a classroom was catching reptiles and learning about DNA mapping as it relates to the evolution of life on earth. Her later academic research focused on human rights education and social and cultural analysis with an emphasis on psychoanalytic social theory.  She has developed numerous global citizenship programs for professionals and students following the Mekong river from the Delta in Vietnam into Yunnan, China or focusing on democratic initiatives in Myanmar, Brazil, and Cambodia.

In 2014 she moved from her home in Cambodia to Denver, Colorado to lead the staffing department for an international education company.  In this role she created more equitable hiring and sourcing processes for the company, recruited top talent from 20 different countries, and ran trainings for over 150 educational professionals annually.

Hillary has been in People Operations at Google since 2018 and absolutely loves it. She started out in staffing, moved into an engagement role for The Google School for Leaders, and currently works in strategy and operations. She adores spicy food, her brilliant husband and two wild children, reptiles, coffee, and people. Hillary was instrumental in the founding of Global Focus Coaching in 2020 and offered resume and career consulting at the time for people impacted by the pandemic. She now serves on the Global Focus advisory board.