About Susan Ennis
Susan is one of the most experienced executive coaches in the U.S. She has unusually comprehensive credentials, with significant academic training, experience working inside a number of organizations as a strategic HR partner, and 30 years of coaching for hundreds of leaders as an independent consultant. She was coaching executives long before businesspeople started referring to her guidance as “executive coaching,” and wrote a number of pioneering articles about coaching standards and best practices with her colleagues at the Executive Coaching Forum.
Unlike many coaches, she has management experience: she worked as a line manager with P&L responsibility at a number of organizations earlier in her career, so she understands first-hand what it’s like for her clients in similar roles.
She’s coached numerous internal and external coaches over the years, and has collaborated with HR leaders to establish successful coaching programs for their organizations. She’s been on the faculty for the William James Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching since 2013, taking delight in teaching and mentoring the coaches of the future.
Susan is a no-nonsense consultant with the know-how to accelerate growth and increase impact, and the wisdom to support leaders in challenging situations. She has a deep understanding about how leaders in complex, matrixed organizations can achieve results while maintaining collaborative relationships with their colleagues.
At this stage in her career, she is choosing to support organizations endeavoring to do good in the world. They tend to be values-based, customer- or patient-focused for-profits and nonprofits that strive to be healthy, engaging places to work.
She collaborates with other experienced, in-demand coaches and consultants, and invites them to join her when particular projects need more horsepower than she can provide alone.
Susan received a BA with honors from Harvard University in an interdisciplinary major of Psychology, Social Anthropology and Sociology. She has a M.Ed. with honors from Northeastern University in Curriculum Design and Instruction. She contributed the chapter, “Initiating Executive Coaching in Your Organization” for Executive Coaching: Practices and Perspectives. Susan was a founding member of The Executive Coaching Forum and lead author of The Executive Coaching Handbook. She also wrote the chapter, “Assessing Employee Competencies,” in Evaluating Corporate Training – Models and Issues. She has presented at numerous conferences over the years.