ACTO
BOARD MEMBERS
President
Virginia González-Vélez Valcarce, Woman white mother, a university graduate, Spanish, grew up in the Canary Islands from a peninsular family. She graduated from Madrid and settled there. She is an entrepreneur, non-conformist who seeks her own fulfillment and the people she interacts with through spiritual practice and coaching. She is a coach trainer.
Past President
Vikram Bhatt, is a cisgender male, who identifies as an Indian, heterosexual and agnostic about religious affiliation. Among his core identities is that of a curious explorer, a father, and a person who has been in a spiritual partnership with his wife over the last 25 years. As a coach he embodies intuitive wisdom, and as a coach educator as well as a coach trainer he embodies the identity of a disruptor, who challenges the status quo and is invested in evolving coach training towards serving the consciousness shift on this planet. While proudly embracing his Indian identity, he claims his global citizenship with shyness and some nervousness, and he is learning to own those identities that are outside of his birth and his origin. What has helped him live in uncertain time is the value of friendship and learning.
Vice-President
Shareefah Sabur, Black, US American (second generation born free), Female, Muslim; has a non-visible disability. Born in Ohio to working class parents of the Great Migration. Earned two Master’s degrees and worked in healthcare for over 30 years, locally and internationally. Executive Director of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, certified diversity professional, coach educator, coach.
Treasurer
Jim Smith, PCC. Skinny white kid who grew up in an economically-challenged Catholic and ethnic suburban community where eight siblings and hand-me-downs was the norm and everyone’s grandparents were “from the old country.” Struggled with both depression and sexual identity. First in his family to graduate university, he built a multi-hued and international family through birth and adoption, learning along the way how to advocate for those with differing abilities. Proud that he has always sought to raise up strong women both in his sons/daughters and in the workplace. Situational vegan. Loves to dance, garden, and curate dark beers, owns 16 ways to make coffee, and loves to talk to strangers.
Secretary
Sharon Brown, identifies as Black/African-American, cisgender, heterosexual female, with a partially visible disability. She is a mother, partner to her husband of nearly 41 years, grandmother, coach, coach educator, and people/plant/animal lover. Sharon is warm, compassionate, intuitive, and more spiritual than religious. She values social justice, social transformation, continuous learning, making coaching accessible, indigenous healing and wisdom traditions, plants as medicine and nutrition, deep connection, collaboration and co-creation. Sharon also values coaching as a support for those dealing with current-day, historical and generational trauma related to racism and other types of oppression. She grew up in a working-class home with parents who valued the higher education they didn’t have the opportunity to pursue. She lives in northern New Jersey, USA near where she was born and raised.
Kaan Aksu – As a Transformational Coach and Coach Educator, my passion is helping others define their purpose and challenging them to live an intentional life by overcoming their limiting beliefs. I have transformed my own life by leaving 20 years of successful corporate career at global multi-billion-dollar companies to create a new digital nomad lifestyle around Coaching. I have been privileged to contribute to the growth and development of many leaders from diverse cultures around the world, and I look forward to helping many others.
Jagruti Gala considers herself an agent of transformation and constantly pushes the edge of consciousness in self and in others, to create a world of greater peace, truth, and compassion! Her calling in life is shaped and informed by India’s mind-numbing diversity and inequity.
Since 2010, she has been working with leaders, who want to find the Hero Within, and together they explore a way of holding shared power, relating and just being. Her clients are from all walks of life and include Top Management in corporates and educational institutions; as well as parents; couples and women who want to grow as leaders.
Jagruti holds an ICF accredited PCC with more than 1800 hours of coaching and mentoring experience. She is Faculty and Director of Mentoring, at Leadership that Works India. Jagruti also serves on the mentor team of the University of Wisconsin Professional Coaching Program and JST Coach Training program. Jagruti is pursuing a Diploma is Coaching Supervision from Coaching Supervision Academy.
Jagruti is also the Founder and Managing Trustee of a non-profit, AURA – A Learning Place.
She is the author of 99 Marigold Mornings, a book of prayer poems.
Steve Galloway is an organizational development consultant, executive/leadership coach, and believer in positive change with over 25 years’ experience across both the private and public sectors. Steve helps leaders and rising stars take a transformational approach to emerging change challenges and opportunities.
As a Leadership coach, Steve purposely partners with people who want to learn how to better leverage themselves to enhance overall professional and personal effectiveness while fulfilling their purpose.
Currently Steve is a Partner with ChoicePoints Learning, an organizational and leadership development consultancy specializing in leading effective DEI & B strategic efforts.
Based in Providence, RI, Jessie Justin is a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant and educator, and a certified personal coach/equity coach. Through life experience and educational pursuits, Jessie has learned to weave social justice consciousness into everyday life. Jessie brings a keen awareness of the intersectional identities that affect who we are and how we respond to our surroundings. As a transgender/gender non-binary, queer, white person, Jessie is dedicated to helping communities become aware of and challenge systemic oppression and racial injustice.
Joanne Louis is a Black woman who is a coach, motivator and an arts lover. Joanne is a constant learner who is passionate about making coaching accessible to all. Joanne believes coaching is a way to achieve one’s goals and living a purposeful life. Joanne is a life learner who values higher education, holds a BBA and a MBA along with numerous certifications. She has lived in the southern part of the United States for the last 30 years. Joanne is fluent in English, French and Haitian Creole. She enjoys spending time with friends and travelling and learning about different cultures.
Rei Perovic is a New Yorker from Tokyo, Japan, who has navigated life in the US as an immigrant woman for more than two-thirds of her life. Often finding herself as “the only” in many spaces, she is passionate about partnering with purpose-driven overachievers in non-dominant groups to empower themselves as leaders at all levels and create a positive impact. She has worked with over 1,500 coachees internationally across industries to live and work from a resonant place of authenticity and alignment with their core values and vision. She is a Master Certified Coach (MCC), Certified Mentor Coach, Coaching Instructor, and the Founder of Realign Project (realignproject.com). As a former creative professional, she draws energy from art, music, and witnessing human potential using mastery and creativity. She lives in NYC with her husband and tuxedo kitty, who occasionally pops into the plant-filled Zoom screen.
