CAREER CENTER

Gaby Alvarez-Pollack, MBA, CPTD®, PCC (Past-President)

Gaby Alvarez-Pollack is a learning and development expert and a professional coach focusing on strategic talent management, behavioral assessments, and organizational design. For more than 20 years, her passion for learning, growth, and strategy has helped individuals, teams, and organizations succeed by finding the perfect combination of personal meaning and business results.

Gaby creates and delivers transformational learning experiences focused on bringing individual talents and strengths to life, improving emotional intelligence, and opening paths of continuous learning and growth to support organizational goals and business strategy.

She is a Certified Master Coach, a Gallup Strengths, Emotional Intelligence, and DiSC® Certified Instructor and Coach and has worked with 100s of leaders and teams across various industries.

Gaby brings insight to her work rooted in positive psychology and the neuroscience of growth mindset. Gaby is the founder and chief learning officer at GS&L Consulting, holds an MBA, the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTP), and is PCC accredited.

In the classroom of life, she spends her time at the golf course, reading a good book, and enjoying a nice glass of wine. Gaby calls San Diego and Mexico City her home, where she lives and learns with her husband Steve and their 10-year-old, Lucas.

Donald E. Coleman, ACC (President 2023)

Donald E. Coleman is a United States Marine Corps veteran and the chief evangelistic officer of Semper Kaizen Corp, a human development company. For more than 30 years, he has devoted himself to joyfully serving others and adding value by partnering to restore hope and create new possibilities. Twenty-two years ago, he was introduced to professional coaching and received training from Coach U. He used his training extensively while working in the not-for-profit financial sector as a vice president for twenty years. Donald is an Associate Certified Coach and the president of the International Coaching Federation’s San Diego Chapter. He uses his experience to partner with credit unions, other not-for-profit
organizations, and individuals to create sustainable change using his “Kaizen Approach” to human development. His servant’s heart makes him an ideal partner for anyone desiring to create sustainable change in their life or organization.

Ana Floyd, PCC (Treasurer 2023, Secretary 2022-2023)

Ana Floyd is a Life Development Coach in CommunicationsTM, Certified Communications Trainer, and an experienced facilitator who has worked with thousands of clients worldwide. Ana began her training in San Francisco, California in 1988 when she attended the first Design Your Life WorkshopTM, co-created by the late Thomas J. Leonard and Carol McCall, PhD. This was an integral and foundational part of her beginnings in training as a coach. Ana holds her Professional Certified Coach credential with the International Coach Federation (ICF) and is a supervisory board member for the women in leadership program at the University of California, Santa Barbara-PACE.

Starting as one of the youngest pioneers in the coaching industry, since 1997, Ana has co-owned and operated a successful coaching and training company for more than two decades. She has been blessed for 25 years to develop her skill as a seasoned coaching entrepreneur, gaining a reputation for being quick on her feet and facing numerous business challenges while continuing to make deadlines. She is a focused professional and a compassionate, open-hearted leader who prefers to relate to others with a relaxed approach when faced with challenges and opportunities.

Moreover, Ana is a skilled listener capable of listening on several levels, thus hearing what's being said and what's not. Ana continues to professionally develop her expertise in empowered listening through coaching and training professionals worldwide.

Ana is a native Californian, born in San Francisco and graduated from University of California, Davis. Ana now calls San Diego her home.

Mike Gellman, ACC (Director at Large 2023)

Mike Gellman is CEO and Founder of High Five Career Coaching and coaches highly motivated leaders and teams in various stages of their development to gain greater clarity, create sustainable change, and achieve higher levels of excellence. He is also the author of Pipe Dreams: 7 Pipelines of Career Success, which has received rave reviews from readers. Having grown up with significant hearing loss and often finding himself on the “outside looking in” during his formative years, Mike developed a sensitivity for social service and social justice. He channeled his frustration and energy into a career-long passion for developing individuals’ inherent (yet often unrecognized) potential while creating cultures of inclusion that value and build upon the strengths of diverse professionals within nonprofit and corporate environments.

Mike has been heavily involved in leading enterprise-wide talent management, team development, and organizational development initiatives throughout his career. For more than 20 years, Mike successfully facilitated numerous succession planning, team building, high potential leader, employee engagement, and organizational change efforts. After obtaining a master’s in industrial/organizational psychology, he launched his career in organizational development at the world-famous San Diego Zoo (now San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance). During that time, Mike volunteered his efforts to create an award-winning mentorship program for the Association for Talent Development-San Diego (formerly ASTD), which recently celebrated its 21st year of successfully preparing future leaders.

He subsequently served in a grant-funded training role with Father Joe’s Villages, developing and delivering capacity-building workshops to grassroot nonprofits throughout California. In the corporate sector, he launched and managed a highly regarded career coaching and development center for Sempra Energy’s SoCalGas organization. Meanwhile, he also served on the board of Sempra Employee Giving Network, an employee-run nonprofit foundation that provided grants to Southern California nonprofits.

Mike is an ACC credentialed coach via the International Coach Federation (ICF), the premier organization for professionally trained coaches. He voluntarily hosts a 700+ member Career & Executive Coach professional development community and has also served as a judge for the ICF International PRISM Award that recognizes organizations globally with the best coaching cultures. A certified Canfield Success Principles Trainer, he also holds numerous certifications and experience in the use of a broad range of diagnostic assessment tools that help individuals and teams uncover blind spots and identify their growth needs. In addition to being a devoted dad of a bright college sophomore, Jonas, Mike enjoys hiking, camping, photography, running, and volunteering in his community. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and having spent most of his professional career in Southern California, he recently traveled the U.S. and Canada on an epic six month “vagabond adventure” while working remotely. He has recently settled in Oceanside.

Diana Ideus, MCC (ICFLA President)

Diana Ideus has her master’s in executive coaching and organizational behavior. She is one of only 1,300 coaches globally to have attained the level of Master Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation. Diana leverages her coaching, consulting, management, and leadership development to support leaders and entrepreneurs in fast growth for-profit tech, finance, and healthcare companies. Diana founded Hawthorne Union with the belief that there was a better way to do business and that if we take care of our people, they will take care of the profits. In addition to her work with leaders and companies, Diana teaches professionals how to coach at the university level and in courses approved by the International Coaching Federation. Her book Listen: Mentor Coaching for Coaches and other resources for coaches and leaders are available at hawthorneunion.com.

Joel Perez, PhD, PCC (ICFLA Director of DEI)

Joel Pérez, PhD, is the owner of Apoyo Coaching and Consulting, LLC and a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coach Federation (ICF). He is an executive and leadership coach. He specializes in career transitions, identity-conscious leadership coaching, coaching professionals of color navigating predominantly White organizations, and professionals wanting to develop their cultural humility. He has a certification in the MBTI, Qualified Administrator for the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), and is a Gallup Strengths Certified Coach.

Nina Rubin, PCC (ICFLA Secretary)

Nina Rubin, PCC, is a professional leadership and relationship coach. Her approach to coaching is present-centered and relational. Working with entrepreneurs, single men and women, corporate groups, and emerging leaders, she focuses her work on the present and helps clients achieve their goals. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles. Nina lives in San Diego, California.

Sharon Saevitzon, PCC, ELI-MP (Programming Director)

Sharon Saevitzon is a certified transformation, empowerment, happiness, and energy leadership coach. She helps women, teenagers, and young adults overcome their emotional, mental, and physical obstacles, facilitating change that leads to a life of empowerment, self-love, and happiness. Sharon accomplishes this using her knowledge and experience in psychology, business, coaching, energy leadership, mindfulness, NLP, medical hypnotherapy, therapeutic guided imagery, and energy healing.

She has worked with gifted children and those with special needs for more than 15 years. Perhaps most importantly, she is also a mother who has emerged victorious from the trials of raising her children through challenging circumstances into the country's top law schools and tech companies. Sharon now dedicates herself to sharing tools and insights for making the parenting journey enjoyable and successful for others raising children in these amazing but difficult times. Sharon helps adolescents, teens, and young adults with anxiety and stress management; overall leadership; transitions between grades from high school to college and college to post-grad; and with mindset/sports psychology for high-performing athletes.

She works with women in all types of life transitions to create fulfillment and success; to balance the challenges of work and family; to deal with emotional stress or trauma; to create healthier, easier relationships; and to implement difficult changes or elevate any area of life.

She works to connect each person with their “higher power” or “intuition” and encourages focusing on moving towards what you want rather than away from what you don’t want. Sharon has established her coaching practice centered on emotional health and well-being powered by self-love. Sharon strives to discover and honor everyone’s unique and authentic strengths, which provide her insight into the type of coaching support and accountability each of her clients need to thrive. It is Sharon’s purpose to help others embrace their dreams, cultivate emotional intelligence, and calm their nervous system even through life's biggest challenges.

Hitomi (Mukaibo) Taguchi, PhD, CPCC, ACC (ICFLA 2022 Associate Director of Teleclasses)

Dr. Hitomi Taguchi is a professional certified coach with a doctorate degree in chemical engineering. She worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Rochester, New York, for more than six years before moving to California. In California, she worked as a business development account manager at BioSurplus (now Copia) before becoming a full-time life and career coach in 2021. Hitomi has also been active in volunteering activities, which include serving as the co-chair of the sponsorship committee at Women in Bio (WIB), Southern California chapter, and as an associate director of the teleclass program at the International Coaching Federation (ICF), Los Angeles chapter. She currently offers her time to support Epistimi, a nonprofit organization teaching leadership skills to early- and mid-career women in STEMM. As a coach, Dr. Taguchi works with clients ready to create a more fulfilling life and career for themselves, seeking structure, inspiration, and unwavering support. They are open to committing to a process of exploration, learning, and execution. She enables her clients to achieve their goals by utilizing their inner resources and generating new narratives, mindsets, and structures.

Adeline Yoong, ACC (ICFLA Director of Community Outreach)

Adeline M.L. Yoong is a success and empowerment coach who works with rising and seasoned leaders, change makers, advocates, and activists interested in positively affecting this world. Adeline’s clients come from business, politics, academia, government, and nonprofits. They are passionate about making a difference in lives and the future; and do so by influencing or enacting policies and regulations, helping break the bamboo/glass ceiling, serving as mentors and role models, leading or supporting community-based organizations, or advocating social justice causes.
Adeline is naturally intuitive and empathetic and wants the best for her clients. She coaches her clients to design and live a life filled with meaning and joy by working with them to quiet negative self-talk, step into and embrace their superpowers, and take inspired and courageous steps and actions.
Adeline has more than 30 years of experience in government relations, public affairs, and marketing in the corporate world, government sector, and political arena. She holds an MBA in marketing from the University of San Francisco, a BA in psychology, and a minor in women’s studies from Carleton College.