The Leadership Window The Leader's Perspective

Patrick chats with executive coach and author Brenda Harrington to discuss workplace discrimination, the power of personal stories, authentic leadership, and more.
Brenda is the founder and CEO of Adaptive Leadership Strategies, LLC. She is the author of Access Denied: Addressing Workplace Disparities and Discrimination. 
Brenda offers coaching and consulting solutions to help companies develop and grow top talent. She has helped a range of clients from around the world successfully increase influence across their organizations by boosting productivity and engagement, developing creative solutions to complex challenges, aligning their vision among stakeholders, and developing effective expatriate and reintegration strategies to mitigate business disruption.
 

Patrick chats leadership with fellow executive coach and consultant, Beth Napleton, NYC-based founder of Beth Napleton Consulting.
Beth offers senior leaders in education and at mission-driven organizations a clear path to excellence through individual, executive and group coaching experiences. Additionally, she offers busy leaders a container and her expertise so they can expand their capacity in all areas.
Beth leverages her extensive experience in education to work with senior leaders in education and mission-driven organizations to help them clear out the “adult problems” that get in the way of student success.
Beth is a national award-winning teacher and has been in the education field for over 20 years, having trained over 1,800 teachers and leaders to success. She is an alumnus of Columbia University, Building Excellent Schools, and Teach For America. Most recently, she served as Founder and CEO of a small charter school network on the South Side of Chicago that opened in 2013. All graduates of her schools – most of them first-generation students – were accepted to at least two four-year colleges, changing their paths forever.
Beth took her leadership skills a step further and became a certified Clifton Gallup Strengths Coach so she can offer leaders the opportunity to lean into their own strengths and succeed.
Beth completed the National Principal Supervisors Academy at Relay, and is a former member of the Far South Side Community Action Council. Beth has been a guest on The EJT Show and the Teacher Renewed: What's Possible in Education podcasts, and hosted her own podcast Live on Leadership with Beth Napleton.
She is a solo parent who lives in NYC with her three amazing kids.

Patrick sits down with Darian Rodriguez Heyman to talk about fundraising, with a focus on how the nonprofit board should be engaged.
Darian is an accomplished fundraiser, nonprofit consultant, philanthropic advisor, and best-selling author. He began his life’s work “helping people help” during his five-year tenure as Executive Director of Craigslist Foundation, where he founded their hugely popular Nonprofit Boot Camp and grew it to the largest nonprofit gathering in San Francisco Bay Area history after only one year. In an effort to build the capacity of even more leaders, Heyman then authored the Nonprofit Fundraising 101 and edited the best-selling Nonprofit Management 101 (now in second edition, with a new foreword from Van Jones), in addition to serving as Editor-in-Chief at the free online nonprofit magazine, Blue Avocado.
Heyman specializes in helping companies, philanthropists, and nonprofits maximize impact. Beyond his active consulting practice and frequent keynotes around the globe, he also selectively assumes leadership roles when launching new initiatives. He recently served as the part-time Executive Director of Numi Foundation, where he led their clean water and environmental education work, and Co-Founder of GenderSmart (now 2X Global), an effort to funnel billions to women-led and -serving businesses. A champion of both racial and gender equity, Heyman recently completed his board service at International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere (now Fòs Feminista), is actively working for reproductive justice, and has overseen more than $20M in grants to Black-led and -serving nonprofits through his philanthropic advising practice.
 

Patrick catches up with colleague Forrest Alton from 1000 Feathers Consulting, as Forrest celebrates a 7-year business milestone by sharing some key lessons learned about the work of creating social impact.
After spending nearly ten years as the CEO of a highly successful nonprofit organization, Forrest stepped down in 2016 to launch 1000 Feathers and has since focused his energy on transforming the work of the social service sector to be better equipped to handle the ever-expanding needs of communities and the people who live in them: posing the difficult questions needed to prompt innovation and transformation, helping organizations think and act more strategically, and encouraging big, bold, courageous conversations at all levels of communities.
A dynamic and inspirational leader, Forrest has developed a contagious energy for disrupting the status quo. He has become a frequently sought-after speaker for conferences and events and is a respected voice on topics related to adolescent health, nonprofit leadership, and community engagement. During his tenure as the CEO of the South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (now Fact Forward), the organization experienced unprecedented growth and success and became widely recognized as a national leader. That doesn’t happen via random chance – especially on such a contentious issue in a conservative, southern state. It happens because of strong vision, strategic thinking, bold leadership, and certainly a little luck.
The State newspaper has previously recognized him as one of South Carolina’s “20-under-40 emerging leaders” and by the Free Times as one of the “50 Most Influential People in Columbia.” Although he is no longer under 40 nor a resident of Columbia, Forrest is still a Riley Institute Leadership Fellow, a Liberty Fellow, and a member of the Aspen Institute’s Global Leadership Network—a worldwide community of high-integrity, entrepreneurial leaders from business, government and the nonprofit sector representing more than 50 countries.
Forrest currently serves in leadership roles on the boards of Power to Decide and Mainsail, a nonprofit formed to support the charitable mission of the Medical University of South Carolina. He is a past board chair of Together SC—South Carolina’s nonprofit membership organization, and also previously served on the board of the University of South Carolina’s Alumni Association.
He earned his Master of Public Health from the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health, where he has been recognized with a Young Alumnus of the Year award (2011), and received his Bachelor of Science from Coastal Carolina University, where he has also been named a Distinguished Alumnus (2009).
Forrest and his wife, Dr. Heather Brandt, have recently relocated to Memphis, TN, and have added a puppy to the family, appropriately named Elvis.

In this anniversary episode, Patrick explains the rebranding of his coaching company, and shares what they really do for their clients.

As we prepare Episode 100 for some special announcements, this “in-between” episode covers some “best of” highlights from the first 100 episodes. This gives a great (albeit small) sampling of the kind of content found on The Leadership Window.