Talent Acquisition Lead | Mindfulness student | D&I Advocate
I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in The Challengers’ Circle this past year. Through the experience, I gained a much better understanding of myself, and it helped me to reflect on my values as a person in both my work and personal life. I love to learn, and in my career, I have engaged in numerous professional learning opportunities and trainings, and I consider myself to be reflective and self-aware but even so, I was surprised by how much more I came to learn and understand about myself and my potential through this experience. I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity to take this course and build some new relationships with a great group of colleagues in my organization, colleagues who I would not otherwise have gotten to know. I definitely took away learnings and reflections that I will continue to use.
General Manager, Microsoft Airband Initiative
As I took on a new role as an executive within Microsoft, I sought out an executive coach to help me navigate with proven personal experience in this space. My most acute need was figuring out how to break through from being in the team to being the leader of the team. Kore was the perfect coach/counselor to meet my known needs at the time of our engagement and grew to fill needs that I did not know I would need in the course of our time together! From finding ways to continue bringing my authentic voice in leading at Microsoft, to navigating accelerated change management outside and within my Team and working through challenging issues around culture and rebuilding people and business, having Kore’s steady guidance and support proved invaluable over the past 2 years. Kore acted as a truthsayer, cheerleader, sounding board and wise counselor with a unique blend of professionalism, candor, and warmth. As a result of our work together, I feel more confident in my voice and place as an executive leader and have lifelong tools that will enable continued growth and development that supports my ability to work effectively from this place. I am deeply grateful for Kore!
Founder & Managing Partner at Hintze Law & Founder of Hintze Data Advisors. IAPP Westin Emeritus Fellow
I began sending attorneys in my firm to Kore for performance coaching a few years ago. I have always been impressed with Kore having worked with her in the past when she was a colleague with me at a big law firm and kept in touch when she was in-house at big tech. I had also heard from one of my partners who had received coaching from Kore how great she was at helping him develop and polish his professional skills.
I decided to send one of my other partners her way and was quickly impressed by the performance, behavior, and mindset changes. I witnessed my colleague develop marketing and executive communication and leadership skills and even achieve a ranking in Chambers.
I have since sent several other attorneys from my firm and have seen tangible improvements right away, and transformative changes emerge over time. The immediate impact on their work, strategic thinking, and overall effectiveness is evident, and the long-term evolution in their professional approach has been truly remarkable.
I will continue to use Kore to coach other attorneys in my law firm – she has become a trusted advisor and a tremendous asset to my business.
Chief Legal Officer at GitHub
I recently engaged Kore to design and deliver a five-month long mentoring program to a group of leaders on my team. The challenge, which Kore successfully delivered on, was to provide a professional development opportunity but also to help bring about a culture shift on the team. The engagement had many inherent challenges (participants were scattered across Europe, each from a different cultural and linguistic background, and the program was delivered almost entirely on a virtual basis), yet the positive and profound impact on participants was significant. Right away, Kore did an amazing job of engaging the group. Despite being remote, she quickly created a rapport with and amongst the group, established her credibility, and gained the team’s trust.
She was also able to get to the heart of the unique professional learning challenges each of the participants faced and build custom learning plans that participants followed during the program. She made the learning and growth process fun, with the added benefit that it supported my team-building goals. Not only has participant feedback been extremely positive, but I have also directly observed noticeable change and skills development brought about as a direct result of the program. Well worth the investment!
Technical Product Executive | GenAI, ML, Data | ex-Coinbase, Google, Amazon, Allen Institute for AI | Startup Founder x 2 | Veteran
I have engaged Kore at several significant points in my career. Most recently, I sought out her help because I was taking on a new role with massive scope and I wanted to nail it. I was looking to build a plan, I wanted a thought partner, and I needed someone to hold me accountable for my own excellence. I was inspired to work with Kore specifically because she has that in-the-trenches experience, having led and coached at senior levels in engineering-heavy contexts, so she gets it. Kore also has a seemingly infinite number of tools in her toolbox, which she brings into our work, helping me to uplevel again and again. Maybe most importantly, Kore takes a holistic approach to development – her perspective and tools include mind / body / spirit, and our work together is expansive enough to include my professional & my personal life. As a result of our most recent engagement, I successfully onboarded as a new executive while my company and industry was experiencing a lot of volatility. I have more certainty in my ability to communicate powerfully, navigate complexity, and build relationships, all of which has me feeling more confident in my ability to have the impact I want to have. Highly recommend Kore to any execs looking to uplevel themselves in 2024.
Sr. HR Program Manager @ Microsoft | Leading Portfolio Enablement
The Challengers’ Circle program has been a great learning and networking experience that I’d recommend to everyone. The course content is unique and I’ve appreciated where it helps me to identify blind spots, or where I may not always “show up” as my best self at work; but, the program is also showing me where I have strengths to leverage for even greater influence and impact in my work! In addition to the online self-directed learning, I appreciate the opportunity to connect regularly with my peers from across my division through the peer-group meetings. Together, we explore what we’ve taken away from each lesson and we allow ourselves to be vulnerable through sharing personal experiences we’ve had in relation to the ideas expressed in the training. In this way, I feel Challengers’ Circler is a great investment because of how it personalizes the experience and augments the learning through the various components of the program in ways that pure online learning alone can’t match. Great course – thanks Essential Group!
Head of Privacy and Data Protection Officer at GitHub
When I first started working with Kore, I didn’t think I really needed a coach. I’d already participated in numerous personal and professional development opportunities and I was skeptical that I was going to learn anything new. Boy was I wrong!
From our very first session, I knew without a doubt my time with Kore would be invaluable. In fact, as it turns out, I gained so much in just six months. One of the most powerful areas of growth for me involved learning how to create what I want in the world. I saw where I was not taking responsibility for how things were in my relationships and my career. I gained insight and skill about the steps I can take to transform dynamics from suboptimal to optimal and I feel so much more clarity. No I have new tools that help me move through my life, change the things that are not working for me, and to do so in way that isn’t rigid or resentful, but is instead powerful and dignified. This has been huge in my life. If you have an opportunity to work with Kore, grab it. It will be worth it!
Group Finance Manager at Microsoft
I just wrapped up the Challenger’s Circle training a few weeks ago and having been through various “leadership related” trainings that were either a hit or miss, I was surprisingly intrigued by this one.
This is a very strange type of training…but in a good way. It doesn’t just throw concepts at you with the expectation that you’ll learn and immediately apply in your day-to-day. This is a more retrospective type of training that in my opinion challenges how you think and apply yourself in a work setting aimed at helping you bring your best self forward every day. It is pretty much based on the premise that you have it all within you to be exactly who you want to be, you just need to be guided through the right line of thinking, stay open-minded and introspective.
This made it easier to go through the materials. The setup is great with a ton of resources to learn more as needed and I dare say most of the learnings are easily applicable in your personal life too. Kudos to Kore and team for a very unique type of training.
Retired after 28-years at Microsoft, and focusing on my passion for photography
Kore has run several multi-month learning and development programs for our employees going back to 2015. When Kore runs a program for us, we get incredibly positive results. In addition to the positive evaluation data, people tell me, “I made a breakthrough as a result of this program, and it greatly benefited me.” Hearing that tells me that the program is landing in the way that I want it to land.
Kore’s understanding of the space I live in is very useful. She knows what holds people back from success and what would help. That is the most critical thing that someone needs to understand. It also gives Kore a lot of clout because people understand, “Oh, okay. Well, you know what you’re talking about because you’ve been there.”
When I work with Kore, I get peace of mind. She is organized, consistent, trustworthy and I know that the program is going to go off without a hitch. I’m confident that what I need to get done will get done and I don’t have to worry about it. Kore is just the partner that you’d like when running an employee development program.
Global Tech Strategy & Operations Leader | Proven track record of driving transformation and building inclusive teams
Kore takes a holistic approach to her work that allows people to do more, go deeper, and get farther than they would with someone else.
Our work allowed me to get back in sync with myself so I could move forward with my goals. I felt like my work with Kore was so much more than the sessions that I had with her. We had very rich discussions and I felt like we were working throughout the month even though I wasn’t in her office the whole time.
Working with Kore has a multiplier effect. She lights a fire. She helps you think through what you want to do and then helps unpack and create plan to get there. It makes things real and then that fires you up.
I just wish there was a better way to say than “she’s a coach,” because she’s bigger than that. Even though we aren’t currently working together, I feel like she’s still a part of my professional journey, and I just cannot say enough positive things about how she’s impacted my life.
Go-to-Market Manager bei Microsoft | Compliance & Privacy
Warmly recommend Kore’s coaching approach marked by her generous, fresh, confident and grounded way of interacting. “Exploring the best in myself, accepting and dealing with the downsides of my personality” would be my summary for the lessons I learned in the past months. The entire coaching program was a treat. I especially appreciated the opportunity to go through this exercise with a group of colleagues, inside and outside my direct team. The setting of the program was very thoughtful so it was never embarrassing or painful to share personal insights.
Senior Principal Scientist at Prescient/ Genentech
As the chair of the programs committee for Women in Bio Seattle, I invited Kore to give a workshop on Projecting Confidence and Practicing Power as a Path Forward for our Women History Month flagship event.
Kore designed and delivered a 1.5 h interactive presentation in which she illustrated how our Inner Critic can keep us and our contributions invisible. She also explained which signals we may inadvertently send that stymie our own confidence and power. With interactive breakout sessions she taught us how to leverage everyday business as opportunities to shine and introduced power practices that will help us project and feel more confidence. Kore’s workshop truly resonated with our Women in Bio community, which was evidenced by the extraordinary attendance. We left feeling inspired and equipped with new techniques that will propel us to permanently uplevel our game. Kore truly understood her audience and customized the workshop to questions from attendees and to the needs for women in the biotech industry.
Kore is not only an excellent speaker but also provides an exceptional example and role model of how to project confidence and power herself. She contributed tremendously to the professional development of our community as well as my own.
Strategy | Operations | Leadership | Impact
Kore brings to the table insight and experience in business strategy, process, and people. Her perspectives are elegant and efficient, and her style of engagement is both empathic and grounded in good business sense. I trust her approach to inquiry and her methods for drawing conclusions. Without reservation, I would recommend Kore to deliver value and direction to personal career navigation, project execution or organizational strategy.
Group Chief Data and AI Officer, Non-Executive Director
I love working with Kore as my leadership development coach – it truly has been a fun and magical journey. She has helped me learn to be kind to myself while driving at full speed towards my goals. She is wisdom, smarts, corporate savvy and great sense of humor all in one package. She has amazingly sharp assessments – she has given me lots of tools to deal with various hurdles that we (women or men) have to jump through in the corporate world. It definitely helps that Kore has been there and achieved senior leadership positions prior to her coaching role. She is the best career investment I have ever made….
Teaching and mentoring the next generation of lawyers after two decades at Microsoft (retired).
Kore helped me achieve tangible results. Working with her enabled me to challenge my assumptions and see possibilities and outcomes that weren’t previously in my realm of vision. As a result, I’ve been able to harness strengths and find solutions that I hadn’t considered before working with her. I have enjoyed and benefited from my experience and have rediscovered a creativity and perspective that I had been missing. I feel energized and excited about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead and have grown tremendously in a short amount of time. As someone who is a “Type A” and highly motivated, I particularly appreciate the structured approach Kore used to frame our coaching engagement and chart the course ahead of me. Through this structure, I was able to focus on areas that had the greatest impact and to achieve specific goals. Regular meetings with Kore helped assess my progress, and her observant, insightful, and reflective feedback gave me a fresh perspective on issues and helped me view things in a different way. She is open, transparent, and unafraid to challenge you to help you see a blind spot or address a recurring issue. Working with Kore has been the best career investment I’ve made—it changed my life!
Tech Executive | People Leader | Consultant
Working with Kore has been amazing and transformative. She has helped me unlock and maximize my impact as a leader. We have worked together to identify areas where I can become a better version of my authentic self and how to apply that to accelerating my career and the potential of my relationships. One of my favorite things we have worked on is strategies to being comfortable saying ‘no’ to requests for my time and mindshare, and prioritizing time to invest in myself. I look forward to continuing to work with Kore to be the best I can be.
Senior Director, Cloud Supply Chain Sustainability
Kore is a thoughtful mentor and coach. She listens to you and offers a viewpoint and perspective that gets you to look at all the opportunities and potential of the situation in a different light. My conversations with her have usually resulted in me walking away with about three different ideas to execute that I had not thought of, and that have helped me. She interprets situation wisely – she is positive in outlook, and yet very practical. All told, she has been a great coach and support for me as I have transitioned and prepared myself for different roles within Microsoft over the last year.
Mission-Driven Technologist | AI for Good | Building What’s NextMission-Driven Technologist | AI for Good | Building What’s Next
Kore has the true gift of bringing out the best in people – from her directs, to peers and colleagues. Friendly, inquisitive and brilliantly intelligent, Kore was one of the people that contributed significantly to making our group great place to work. She is a true leader that inspires and motivates multi-dimensional excellence in the people around her.
“Kore had a lot of positive impact on me. She helped me become a better as a leader. I learned to take a step back and separate the facts from emotion when meeting with a business leader who may not see eye to eye with me. She helped with the exec staff I support and with my own team. She gave me new perspective on how I was showing up – specifically the first impression I made, things I didn’t even think someone would pick up on. Her insights and perspective have been invaluable.
She’s a strong woman leader and a very kind person. I wish I could work with her more!”
“Kore always provides me with a framing of the situation that I get nowhere else. It’s always fresh. It’s always respectful of every party involved in the situation. I think Kore has pretty much gone through every scenario I can imagine. So that makes her uniquely qualified. She thinks like the CEO of a large corporation.”
“She has been my magical pixie and my wise wizard of a coach. It was a gift to spend time with her, and to receive her wise analysis of my situation, and the very practical, cogent steps I could take to resolve some of my issues.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking me on as a client. The privilege was mine. And while it was up to me to light the fire from within, you helped me see that the fire was out and handed me the match. I didn’t realize how detached I’d become from myself and I’ll be forever grateful that you laid the path to return to myself.”
“Kore’s keen focus on identifying what is important is exceptional. She sees valuable lessons that facilitate learnings that greatly help individuals step up the ladder in their careers. Kore also has a terrific talent at helping large groups in corporations. I am quite humbled, thrilled, and extremely excited by her ability to develop a program that is very beneficial for so many corporations looking to learn and develop employees in very productive and exciting ways. She has a unique voice and the discipline to bring her ideas to life fully and richly. She understands the dynamics around what could be different and excels at making that happen. Kore has a distinct ability to help both individuals and large groups as her programs give people the ability to learn to respond better and be truly at their best.”
“Anyone who works with Kore can expect to achieve anything she’s promised. She’s very clear about what her abilities are and what she can deliver. She’s exceptional in every way. Her ability to balance her stunning intellect with warmth and empathy is key. She exudes gravitas and confidence so that when she talks about a particular theme or topic she comes across as very knowledgeable and clear, but also very curious and open, inviting any feedback that others may have. When you work with Kore, you can expect authenticity, clarity, and an honesty and directness that is very clear and compassionate at the same time.”
“Thank you for all of your support on the career front. Working with you changed the way I see myself and the way I am in the world and I’m excited to see how my confidence will translate in my new job.”
“Kore has been instrumental in helping me think strategically about the next steps in my personal and professional life. I found her approach to be thorough and structured, yet creative and unconventional at the same time. She was able to bring her knowledge and experience to my unique situation in a way that made me rethink my entire strategy. I left our session feeling focused, motivated, and equipped with what I need to move forward with confidence.”
