Leadership and Executive Coaching

Boda was founded by Jennifer Porter, a trained and certified executive coach with 20 years of coaching experience, and a seasoned business executive, who spent a decade and a half in senior operating roles, typically as COO, before turning to executive coaching and leadership development.

As an executive coach, Jennifer was disappointed by the lack of quality in the industry—coaches with no training or ICF certification; coaching firms recruiting based on coaches’ resumes and not actually listening to and assessing coaching skills; firms operating from databases of coaches, not intimate knowledge of coaches’ capabilities; inconsistency in approaches; no credible assessment; and little accountability for results.

Jennifer was inspired to create an alternative—a coaching firm that sets the bar way beyond its peers and addresses each of the gaps above. In 2011, she founded The Boda Group.

Throughout the next decade, Boda focused on excellence and rigor, had an average NPS of 92%,served large global clients (Microsoft, Walmart, Kirkland & Ellis, pwc, and many others) and became one of the premier executive coaching firms in the world.

In 2023, Boda joined the BTS family.

What do we mean by executive coaching?

At its simplest, coaching helps a senior leader answer 5 questions:

It’s not mentoring, where mentors share their experiences in similar situations to serve as an example to a mentee. And it’s not consulting/advising, where an advisor collects a lot of data and then makes a recommendation on action.

What makes Boda different?

BTS coaching capabilities for your first-and mid-level leaders
Maximize your investment in coaching at scale

Sounding Board for BTS is a coaching technology to configure, run, and monitor your coaching programs.

A dynamic Leader Development Suite to:

• Build, deliver, manage, and measure multiple programs from one platform.
• Utilize our software, our tech-enabled leadership coaching, or both as needed.
• Choose the duration and type of coaching engagements that make sense for your organization and its leaders.
• Inform your strategy and demonstrate ROI with data and insights across programs.

It is your platform, too! Sounding Board’s technology enables you to integrate your internal coaching & mentoring programs, internal bench of coaches and third-party vendors, all in a single environment. This makes it easier to track progress, measure ROI, and ensure consistent quality across the board. Moreover, in one single environment, you can bring all your programs together under the unified umbrella of your talent and leadership strategy.

What makes Sounding Board different:

• A managed network with hyper-focus on quality
  We set a high bar for recruiting credentialed coaches. We differentiate our coaching pools by leader level to ensure not just a great fit, but relevant expertise when supporting your leaders. Industry leading oversight and development of our coaching community.
• High-impact technology & reporting capabilities
  A modern, mobile-optimized platform with a seamless user experience. Real-time dashboards allow for insights into engagements and demonstrates impact & ROI of coaching.
• A flexible, configurable offering with deep organizational context
  We can easily tailor 1:1 and group coaching experiences so that they integrate with your leadership model and capabilities, and store/adapt to the context of the organization.
  Software can also be utilized directly for internal coaching programs.
• Manager Hub:
  Managers are engaged through feedback, collaboration and assessment and have a dashboard to stay connected to the the leader's development.

Sounding Board is:

A cadre of coaches for your first- and mid/senior level leaders consists of a managed network of ~700 coaches, and access to 38 languages.

Certification & experience

• • ICF (or equivalent)-certified, credentialed by ICF- or EMCC-accredited coaching certification program
  • Minimum 200+ hours of coaching experience
  • Transformational coaching for behavioral and mindset changes
  • Proven success with Fortune 500 clients
  • Certified in tools like MBTI, DISC, Hogan, and CCL
  • Commitment to ongoing development and the ICF Code of Ethics

Selection & onboarding

• • Screening of applicant for required and preferred qualifications
  • Review of a recorded leadership coaching session from the applicant
  • Review of references from coachees of the coach applicant
  • Live coaching demonstration and interviews to assess coaches’ approach and how they develop themselves
  • Onboard selected coaches into an experiential foundation program

A consistent coaching philosophy with unique approaches for:

• Scaled coaching: Front-line & mid-level leaders
  • Technology-enabled – including the ability to license the platform for internal needs
  • Flexible engagements
  • Set number of coaching sessions
• Executive coaching
  • High touch and personalized for each senior leader
  • Leadership Insights - interview based 360
  • Unlimited access

Executive coaching provides an opportunity and learning environment for leaders to build self-awareness, understand how they are impacting the people and business around them, create a vision for how they want to lead and work with colleagues, and effectively navigate a path towards that vision.

We have over a decade of experience in working with leaders at top organizations, helping them to become more effective and, in turn, generate better business outcomes.

We work with an incredible set of clients –

We combine the head and the heart: intellectual rigor, strong relationships and connection, and a practical approach to improving skills and building leadership and team capabilities. We are leaders and a team ourselves and know the challenges and pressures of our clients first-hand.

Effective leadership and management require skills that go significantly beyond subject-matter expertise. Leadership ability doesn’t just happen. Leadership in complex organizations requires the ability to learn from and take advantage of the talents of others, engage multiple points of view, and build long-term, productive relationships. Leaders don’t typically do the right thing because it’s obvious—since it’s rarely so obvious—but because they have observed other leaders, tried different approaches, reflected on their experience, and drawn conclusions about what is effective. While leaders may occasionally navigate this process on their own, they are far more likely to grow and develop if they engage in a process of deliberate and individual learning in an environment of trust and support. This is what happens in executive coaching.

Executive coaching provides an ongoing partnership between a leader and a coach with the goal of supporting the leader to become the best version of themself and achieve what matters most to them and to their organization.

The leader brings expertise about themself, their business, their past, their strengths and weaknesses, and their hopes, fears, and dreams. Our experienced executive coaches bring extensive training and certification, in addition to many years of helping leaders grow and develop. The coach’s role is to help the leader strengthen their self-awareness, accurately assess their current context, consider what’s more and less effective about how they operate today, and navigate a path toward being most successful. Coaches leverage their knowledge of research in neuroscience, psychology, adult development, and other disciplines to help a leader succeed on their own terms.

In our experience, coaching is most successful with leaders who:

• Have or are interested in building self-awareness and reflection skills: They notice and reflect ontheir thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and care about how they come across to others.
• Are strong learners: They are eager to learn new things and see things from different
• Have demonstrated a willingness to experiment with new behaviors: They are willing to try new thingsand have demonstrated the capacity to respond productively to feedback.
• Are motivated: They have reasons why they want to engage in their own
• Have organizational support: Key colleagues are willing to support them and are optimistic about their ability to change behaviors, grow, and develop.

Executive coaching is an ongoing partnership between a leader and a coach with the goal of supporting the leader to become the best version of themself and achieve what matters most to them.

The leader brings expertise about themself, their business, their past, their strengths and weaknesses, and theirhopes, fears, and dreams. An experienced executive coach brings extensive training and certification, in addition tomany years of helping executives understand themselves and the context in which they operate, identify, andachieve their objectives.

The coach’s role is to help the executive strengthen their self-awareness, accuratelyassess their current context, consider what’s more and less effective about how they operate today, and navigate apath toward being most successful. Coaches leverage their knowledge of research in neuroscience, psychology,adult development, and other disciplines to help an executive succeed on their own terms.

Transition coaching supports senior leaders at a variety of transition moments—promotion, succession readiness, expansions in scale, scope, and/or geography, being new to the company, or anytime a leader needs to assess a new context, consider their approach, experiment with new behaviors, and adjust how the lead and operate to ensure successful business outcomes.

Our approach is grounded in these 5 questions:

1. Who am I today? We work with transitioning executives to help them increase the depth and breadth of their self-awareness and to examine or re-examine their strengths, development areas, interpretations, expectations, aspirations, and concerns. This sets a solid foundation for the work ahead.
2. How am I impacting the people and organization around me? We typically get at this through our proprietaryLeadership Insights or Feedback Highlights The coach interviews key stakeholders using our researched and vetted interview protocol to discover what initial impressions the leader is giving to colleagues and the early impact they are having. This early data helps the leader understand what’s working well, where they can improve, and what the business most needs from them.
3. What impact do I want to have? Within the context of the organization’s strategy and culture, what is the leader’s vision for how they want to lead in this new role? Typically, this analysis examines how the leader has operated in the past, what parts of their ways of working they should continue, what needs to shift, and what new mindsets and behaviors they should learn and adopt. The leader and coach may also consider what the leader has experienced in others’ effective and less effective leadership, to help the leader craft their vision of what good looks like for them—in this moment, in this context.
4. What are the barriers? Every leader faces obstacles that can reduce their Together with their coach, the leader examines those obstacles, including a significant focus on the barriers within the leader. Howdo their beliefs, habits, apprehensions, and prior experiences at times become barriers to the leader’s future success? Recognizing these helps the leader understand what to work on.

• • How do I navigate that path most effectively? Moving from insight to action, the leader and coach look at whatthe leader wants to shift and design small experiments that give the leader the opportunity to try out somedifferent ways of Through experimentation, analysis, reflection, and iteration, the leader is able to clarify what will be most effective and build sustained new habits.

Jon helps leaders build the capacity to lead from within—especially when there is no playbook. Leaders show up every day wanting to make an impact, often by seeking new strategies or skills. But real growth isn’t always about adding something new; it’s about recognizing and leveraging what’s already there. In a world of constant change, the best leaders don’t just manage uncertainty; they develop the confidence and adaptability to thrive in it. Jon helps leaders replace hesitation with intentional action, align their leadership approach with business goals, and turn everyday challenges into opportunities for growth. Through reflection and practical tools, he supports leaders in uncovering strengths, shifting perspectives, and building the capacity to lead with clarity— not just for what’s next, but for whatever comes next.

Background and experience
With over 22 years in leadership—including 11 as a CEO—Jon has helped organizations navigate transformation, complexity, and high-stakes decision-making. His work spans industries, equipping leaders to accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and align leadership strategies with business goals.

As a consultant, coach, and advisor, Jon has partnered with leaders in high-tech, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, FMCG, and non-profits, helping them strengthen executive presence, lead change, and drive organizational growth. His coaching approach combines business expertise with self-awareness, leadership authenticity, and actionable strategies.

Jon holds an ICF certification through Georgetown University’s Institute of Transformational Leadership and serves as an executive board member for several non-profits in the Western U.S. He has also been a strategic advisor to firms in the talent development space.Jon partners with leaders who know they have more to offer. While experienced in working with all levels of leadership, his greatest value comes from coaching mid-level to senior leaders focused on the following growth edges:

• Accelerating success in new organizations
• Leading strategic and cultural transformation
• Navigating leadership and career transitions
• Building high-performing global teams
• Emerging leaders looking to expand their impact
• Strengthening sales leadership and strategy

If tis resonates, contact Jon to explore coaching opportunities with him or another ICF-certified coach in our network.