Lola Chetti

Senior Consultant

Lola Chetti, Senior Consultant

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Lola is a change consultant, master coach, and mentor coach based in the US. Lola’s first career was for ten years in the judiciary as a barrister and later Magistrate. It was during a transition as a volunteer worker in a refugee center that she started using coaching as a learning and change methodology and discovered a passion for supporting people in their quest to progress and develop. She then went on to earn a Master in Change with Distinction from INSEAD Business School specializing in Leadership and Psychodynamics. Since 2009, she has been working around Asia, Europe, and the US delivering coaching and leadership training. The focus of her work is with individuals and groups; in line with the psychodynamics supporting them in reading the system and dynamics in place around them, and then co-creating ways for them to make the changes that help them contribute and thrive in their environment. Lola has designed and delivered an ICF- level 2 accredited Organizational Practitioner Certificate for executives who aspire to coach in organizations. Psychodynamics, Culture, and Neuroscience, together with other evidence- based methodologies and best practices, inform her work around coaching and leadership development.

Background & Industry Experience

Lola‘s experience has been within the field of executive coaching, leadership training, and ICF accredited coach training, mentoring, and supervision. In her work, she focuses on people, systems, and change. For the last 14 years she has worked with individuals, teams, and groups across industries and functions, supporting them in effecting the changes they deem necessary (1) within themselves, (2) in their interactions with others or (3) within their new environment – for them to develop and continue growing.

In Malaysia, Lola was an adjunct at the Central Bank-ICLIF from 2010 to 2015 – coaching hundreds of senior executives from the financial sector as part of leadership programs to support the changes they opt to commit to during their leadership journey. She was also regularly responsible for the individual coaching of senior executives who had been identified by their organization as talents as they prepared to take on larger responsibilities within their organization. Working with people from different organizations and different needs in terms of talent development demanded that she worked with the sponsors, understood the needs of the function and organization, and help the coaching client to align these needs to their own goals.

Lola also led a yearlong cross- functional action learning leadership program and coaching initiative with MISC/Petronas which resulted in enhanced cross functional collaboration. The participants reported having a greater awareness of the impact of their own behavior and the importance of embedding emotional intelligence within their managerial responsibilities.

In Hong Kong, Lola taught a business coaching program at Ivy Business School for one year. Additionally, she worked regionally with a wider variety of industries including two leading organizations in the luxury business – French and Swiss. While there, Lola led extensive leadership development programs embedded with coaching and psychometric assessments. She is qualified in several suites of validated psychometric assessments: -CCL’s suite, Hogan, Human Synergistics, KDVI, MBTI steps1&2. Currently, Lola delivers Level2 -ICF accredited courses to aspiring organizational coaches; and managerial coach trainings for leaders and managers who wish to use the coaching methodology and organizations who wish to build a coaching culture.

Coaching Approach

In her coaching practice, Lola blends the systemic and the humanistic approaches together with other techniques grounded in research and a clear business focus to guide her clients towards more impactful results for themselves and their stakeholders. The humanistic approach focuses on the client whilst the systemic focuses on the internal and external forces that the coaching clients must understand in order to be effective in their positions. Her coaching lays emphasis on self-understanding, self-awareness, leadership behaviors, and stakeholder management as they are essential components of leadership success. Feedback and accountability are pivotal aspects of her coaching. Feedback may come from deep reflection, observation of others and if required/requested psychometric instruments. Accountability structures are co-created with the client in the form of tripartite with relevant stakeholders.

Facilitation & Teambuilding Approach

Lola integrates psychodynamic principles in her facilitation work with teams. The first objective when working with a team is a safe psychological space for them to be able communicate with trust and clarity to each other. The next step is to enable individual team members through their own observation on the ways they contribute to the dynamics that they observe in their team. The vision, mission and objectives of the team serve as strong framework for the members to gradually evaluate the changes that need to be made at an individual levels or at a group level for the team to obtain better outcomes, be it interpersonal dynamics communication or processes.

Relevant Assessment Assignments

  • Assessments for mid-level managers: Engaged to debrief the 360 assessments specifically designed for managers and to help them assess their managerial effectiveness. All managers and senior managers of a sales organization went through the process. At the end of the debrief, was requested to design customized modules that would help the groups strengthen the most cited areas for development.
  • Assessment for senior executives: Asked to administer assessments focused on self-awareness and collaboration -for all senior sales executives and managers of a leading luxury brand regionally.
  • 360 Feedback and multi-raters’ assessment feedback: Regularly asked to administer multi raters’ assessment feedback for organizations – followed by debrief and coaching. In 2023, she has debriefed over 60 instruments focused on the dynamics of teamwork.

Relevant Coaching Assignments

  • Executive Coaching: Over 3,000 hours of coaching for individuals and organizations – onboarding, transition coaching, cultural intelligence, leadership coaching, coaching post-merger and acquisition, coaching leaders of start-ups for the Cartier Women’s Initiative.
  • Coaching Regional CEO of leading Financial Institution: Supported him in transitioning to new regional leadership role, understanding himself better and his impact on others. The focus on self -awareness, cultural intelligence, and the specificities of leading other leaders in major geographical areas was recognized as foundation in aligning expectations of leadership and garnering larger influence on closest stakeholders. Additional support on the awareness and complexities of leading other seasoned leaders.
  • Coaching Leadership Team and senior managers post-merger and acquisition of leading loyalty organization: Supported the team in retaining focus both on people integration and performance at initial stage. Supported the senior levels in adapting to new roles /teams and aligning processes. Helping the team translate the guiding organizational values into day-to-day activities with others when working under pressure.
  • Regional HR leader with exclusively sales experience transitioning to a people leadership role: Understanding how people and culture have a direct impact on collaboration and outcomes. Using sales experience to draw salespeople towards the people aspect of leadership.
  • Team coaching: Leadership team of leading Swiss pharmaceutical company in Hong Kong. Creating deeper awareness of the changes in mindset and behaviors that need to occur when the company reduces hierarchy and operates as a matrix organization. Team coaching around influence and use of managerial coaching to engage better with others.

Relevant Facilitation & Teambuilding Assignments

  • Leadership Development Programs for organizations: Designed and delivered a leadership development program for several organizations since 2010. The training courses are customized to the expressed needs of the client or after a needs analysis of the perceived areas for development. The various subjects on which training programs were delivered are: Communication, Influence, Stakeholder engagement, Conflict management, Political savvy, Empathy & Inclusion, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership styles. These programs are meant to be not only a place of learning for participants but also a reflective space on the leaders they wish to be and serve as a foundation for making positive changes.
  • Open Enrollments Programs: In Malaysia, delivered several open enrollment workshops focused on Leadership, Women and leadership, Emotional Intelligence and Coaching
  • ICF accredited Level 2- Organizational Coach Training: In 2017, ICF accredited Lola’s program for 136 hours which is focused on the training of aspiring organizational coaches. This coach training program is aligned to the needs of a coach working in global organizations and teaches aspiring coaches modules relevant to coaching such as Narrative Coaching, Cultural intelligence, Brain Science and Coaching, Team Dynamics in Coaching.
  • Building Coaching Cultures and Coaching Skills Workshops: Designed and delivered coaching skills training to professional coaches as well as to HR Leaders, Managers and Organizational leaders. Worked together with HR leaders to bring forth initiatives that would support the participants who went through the training to take a coach approach. Coaching ethics circles and coaching supervision were foundational elements.

Education & Professional Affiliations

  • Executive Masters in Consulting and Coaching for Change (Distinction) – INSEAD Business School
  • Master Certified coach with 3000+ hours of Coaching
  • Dip in Coaching supervision-CSA UK
  • LLB (Hons)- Univ of Buckingham
  • Barrister– Lincoln’s inn
  • Alumni Coach -Insead Business School
  • Adjunct faculty- Melbourne Business School, Ashridge – UK
  • Selected assessment certifications and qualifications: CCL’s Benchmarks 360 assessment suite, Human Synergistics Suite of assessments -LSI, GSI, OCE, KDVI-Personal Audit, GELI. Trained by CCL to use the Workplace Big 5 as part of New Coach Orientation, MBTI Step 1 & 2