Coaches

Prism Coaching operates as a collective. Our main decision-making body consists of eight core coaches, who have cooperatively structured roles and responsibilities based on expertise and interest.

Core Coaches

Adriana Diaz brings 30 years of experience in adult education, counseling, and group facilitation to her Creative Life Coaching practice. She has taught in colleges and universities around the San Francisco Bay Area, and conducted classes and workshops across the U.S. and internationally. She has a Masters Degree in Culture and Spirituality and is a graduate of the Coaches Training Institute's Co-Active Coaching program. Adriana believes that through the clear determination of intention and the committed dynamics of the client-coach relationship, the client can develop habits and tools to achieve goals, increase creativity, and achieve harmony and balance in career and the ongoing process of life. A published writer, the author of Freeing the Creative Spirit (Harper San Francisco, 1992), and an exhibiting artist, Adriana utilizes the creative process as a tool and template for individual growth. She is bilingual, fluent in Spanish and English. For more about Adriana, visit http://www.yourcreativelifecoach.com

Alfredo Vergara-Lobo consults to nonprofit organizations and foundations on strategic planning, strategic partnerships/mergers, board development, and cultural competence. As a bilingual/bicultural professional, he has provided culturally competent educational, counseling, teaching, and coaching services in Latin America and the U.S. Prior to consulting independently, he served as a Projects Director at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services. He obtained his BSW and MSW degrees from San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley respectively and has taught as a guest lecturer in both programs. For more about Alfredo, visit http://www.alfredovergaralobo.org

Belma González is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach and consultant with over 25 years experience in the nonprofit sector. She specializes in cultural- and assets-based coaching for nonprofit leaders and activists, prioritizing values, culture and history. Belma has been vetted and selected to be a coach for grantees of the French American Charitable Trust, WK Kellogg Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the AEPOCH Foundation, the Horizons Foundation’s Rickey Williams Leaders, the Haas, Jr. Foundation Flexible Leadership Awardees and fellows of the LeaderSpring leadership program. Belma has completed the Team Coaching International Intensive Systems Coaching Training and participates in the 7th Heaven Coaching Collaborative. She also represents Prism on the Coaching and Philanthropy Project Think Tank. Belma is Chicana/Latina and lives in North Oakland. For more about Belma, visit http://www.bcoachingandconsulting.com

Ernest Mark, CPCC, has coached numerous individuals through professional leadership development, life balance and fulfillment, strengthening relationships and personal/professional transitions. His coaching style is bold, challenging, and supportive and promotes living by one’s dreams and values. Ernest also brings over ten years of experience as an organizational development consultant for small to large social justice organizations with programs in environmental justice, social services, community arts, community development and youth development. He has completed relevant training programs with the Coaches Training Institute, National Community Development Institute, Community at Work, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training and the Institute for Zen Studies.  He also has a Bachelors Degree in Cultural Anthropology from Tufts University in Boston. He is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach through the Coaches Training Institute. For more about Ernest, visit http://www.ernestmark.com

Fresh! White, is a Certified Co-Active Life Coach, writer, speaker and presenter. As Principle of Affirmative Acts Coaching for over 3 years, Fresh! enjoys working with people from all walks of life and primarily coaches artists, students, activists and other life coaches. Fresh! works with clients to create fuller and richer experiences on their life path, including reaching particular goals, developing new skills or habits, creating new work, or simply living their dreams in larger ways. He also has the honor of serving as a coach for members of the Brown Boi Project, a racial and gender justice project focused on masculine identified individuals. Fresh! is a recent graduate of the Coaches Training Institute's Leadership Program. Fresh! presents LBGTQQI anti-violence and “Getting to Know Us Discussions” as an individual consultant or volunteer with both San Francisco's and Marin's Spectrum Speakers Bureaus. Fresh! is also a certified speaker for Out & Equal. For more about Fresh!, visit http://www.affirmativeacts.org

Jennifer Crystal Chien, Certified NLP Coach, brings over 10 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Her approach to coaching is spiritually-based and focuses on listening carefully to the underlying stories in people's lives and helping them to consciously reinterpret them, as well as working with them to stay present and aware. She uses the Creative Coaching framework she developed. Prior to coaching, she worked as a nonprofit consultant on fundraising, board development, strategic planning, and project management with more than 30 community-based and government agencies. She was a co-founder of the New Nonprofit Nexus, a multicultural community center for new and emerging nonprofits. She has a BA in Human Biology (Poverty and Public Policy) from Stanford University. She is currently obtaining her MFA in documentary film. For more about Jennifer, visit http://www.jenniferchien.com

Johnny Manzon-Santos has been engaged in peace and social justice as an activist, organizer, and client advocate since 1985. His strategic thinking was honed in his role as executive director of health/HIV agencies in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area for 15 years. He is co-principal ofpearldiving LLC, a coaching/consulting practice with clients in children and youth development, public health policy, environmental sustainability, racial/economic justice, community mental health, the foster care system, and the arts. Johnny is co-founder of the Coaches of Color Consortium (C3) and has worked with LeaderSpring, Gap Inc. Leadership Initiative, and the UCSF Center for the Health Professions. He is certified by the Coaches Training Institute and credentialed through the International Coaching Federation. He holds a bachelor’s from Brown University. Johnny grew up working class in Daly City, California to post-WWII Filipino immigrants. An avid figure skater, he trains and competes in singles freestyle, same-sex pairs, and ice dance.

Kim Fowler is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach and an Organizational and Relationship Systems Certified Coach. Kim is also a trainer, consultant and facilitator. She serves on faculty at The Coaches Training Institute. Kim helps her clients choose paths of mindfulness, efficiency, spirit and accountability to live their visions. She employs systems coaching with teams, wherein members utilize the information and knowledge of the group to access their highest functioning. She is a certified facilitator of the Team Diagnostic Assessment, a widely-used team self assessment tool. In addition to her coaching and consulting expertise, Kim has accumulated 25 years of experience in nonprofits, academic institutions and city government. Her coaching, consulting and training is infused with a deep belief in her clients’ wisdom and access to a diversity of co-active coaching, leadership and relationship systems tools. For more about Kim, visit http://www.mesacoaching.com
 

Emeritus Founding Coaches

Donald Gerard, Certified NLP Coach, has been coaching since 2003, although, in reality, he has been supporting people on their path for most of his life. Donald is also the director of the Body Temple Institute, which offers holistic health education online, and is an Advisory Board member for both the Center for Global Silence and the Touch Health Association. Donald holds a BS in Business Administration and an MA in Holistic Health Education. Additionally, he studied life coaching with the NLP and Coaching Institute of California, trained in basic acupressure, Tui Na, Shiatsu, and reflexology at the Acupressure Institute, and studied hypnosis and NLP at the Center for Hypnotherapy. His philosophy is based on two concepts: holism and individuality. Holism suggests that all things in the universe are connected and that everyone is a whole person--body, mind, and spirit. Individuality suggests that each person has a unique constitution and experiences life in their own unique way. Together these concepts necessitate an approach to his work that considers each person's own unique place, potential, and purpose in the web of life. For more about Donald, visit http://www.donaldgerard.com

Wendy Chiyo Horikoshi, MS, Certified Coach is a guide for knowing and mastering others and oneself. Mastering oneself is a discipline that can lead to transformation. Growing up as the second daughter within a Japanese American farming community, Wendy learned the discipline of hard work and the value of family and community support. From these experiences she understands the importance of the collective. How people learn new things and work together as a group has always intrigued her. The economic, cultural and historical milieu of each individual's life is a fascinating way to understand the insights, wisdom, capacity and strengths that each person has to offer the world. Wendy helps people envision and achieve their goals, whether they be personal or organizational. She has trained and coached for more than 20 years. Her community-building experiences include facilitating multicultural group discussions at Children's Hospital in Oakland, helping Washington Elementary School on the west side of Alameda create a more caring learning community, spearheading multicultural leadership training programs/antiracism seminars; administrating, developing programs and relationships for the University of California Youth Program; codirecting the Migrant Education Summer School Program and teaching at JFK University in the Cross Cultural Counseling and Graduate School of Psychology Departments. Wendy holds a MS in Multicultural Curriculum, serves as adjunct faculty for the Association of Type's Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® program. Wendy has published several articles on leadership, diversity and human development and has also coauthored Teamwork Tools: A Revolutionary Approach for Managers and Trainers (Kagan, 2007). For more about Wendy, visit http://www.www.transformativeleadership.net