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     Rise Leadership Program

Take your career to the next level

Broaden your influence, expand your network, and further develop your authentic leadership style with faculty, coaches, and a community of peers.

You're an experienced leader with a strong track record. You’ve honed your acumen and expertise and are ready to take the next big step into an executive level role. Prepare yourself with the Rise Leadership program. This three-month, deeply immersive leadership course will give you the structure and coaching you need to become the best leader possible.

 
Rise 3-Part Framework

If you are a mid-career, experienced professional, Rise’s 3-part framework will help you apply your unique strengths to propel your career forward. Leadership starts within, so we begin by clarifying what you want to accomplish and why. Rise then explores the big picture and the skills required for executive leadership in today’s workplace. Because business leadership is relational, we spend time focusing on the relationships around you and how to build and leverage them for success.

The Rise Experience Includes

Two 1-on-1 executive coaching sessions.
Expert-led keynote workshops.
Group coaching sessions and peer-led Q & A labs.
A professional assessment to identify leadership skills and gaps.

Program Details

Who
Professional women with 8-15 years career experience who are ready to move to the executive level.

Where
Online, through virtual meetings and workshops.

When
For fall 2024, the Rise cohort meets on Fridays from Noon-2 pm ET for three months.
Sept. 13, 20, 27
Oct. 4, 11, 18, 25
Nov. 1, 8, 15, 22
Cost*

Application Fee: $50
Program fee:
Professionals: $2,995/person
Forté Partner Organizations: $2,750/person

Application Process

Application→Interview→Registration

APPLY

Application fee: $50.
Application deadline: Sept. 6, 2024


Quotation

From Rise Participants

Audra Grassetti

“Our backgrounds and career journeys are unique; however, many of the challenges we face have themes to them. Rise helped me to reframe and view career/growth challenges with renewed interest and optimism. This shift in mindset will serve me forever.”

Audra Grassetti
Senior Program Manager - Credit Policy & Administration
BECU
Allison Jackson

“RISE was transformative. This program challenged me to see beyond a linear career path, fostering self-compassion and sparking creative solutions. Surrounded by a sisterhood of amazing women, I realized the power of investing in personal development and learning how to navigate the balance between structure and authenticity. RISE has helped shape me into a more resilient and empowered leader.”

Allison Jackson
Associate Director of Admissions
Duke University
Marie Johnson-Mubiayi, Marketing Director, ViiV Healthcare

“Rise created a space for me to reflect and refine my professional goals and grow more into who I want to be as a leader. I enjoyed having a community of amazing, authentic women from different backgrounds and experiences where we intentionally challenged and encouraged one another in the areas we needed to grow in. Thank you, Forté!”

Marie Johnson-Mubiayi
Marketing Director
ViiV Healthcare

Meet the Rise Faculty

Dr. Rosalind Chow
Dr. Rosalind Chow
Rise Leadership – Leading Others Faculty
Dr. Rosalind Chow is an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. Her research studies the power of social hierarchy and its impact on diversity and inclusion. She has a particular interest in how those at the top of social hierarchies understand their dominant position, and how they can use their position to advance the outcomes of those who have historically been disempowered. For diversity efforts to succeed, the onus cannot be on under-represented group members to carry all the weight. Rosalind’s work emphasizes the important role that White Americans play in the dismantling of social inequity, and her scholarly work has been published in the fields of Social Psychology and Management. She has her PhD from Stanford and her BA from Columbia University.
Shamis Pitts
Shamis Pitts, MBA, CPC, PCC, SHRM-SCP
Rise Leadership – Leading Self Faculty
Shamis Pitts is the Founder and CEO of Pitts Leadership Consulting (“PLC”), a company specializing in organizational health and employee wellbeing. PLC is committed to helping organizations create work environments that enable employees to do their best work. That commitment comes to life through leadership and organizational development, employee engagement and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging-related services. PLC evaluates strategy and co-creates action plans to align people, purpose, process, outcomes and success metrics via advising, consulting, training and facilitation, and executive and leadership coaching.

PLC launched in 2019 and was formally established in 2020. Since inception, we have served 90+ unique coaching clients, facilitated 12 transformational change initiatives and supported 25+ organizations via speaking and ad-hoc workshops. PLC’s six (6) core values serve as the foundation for our work: leadership, learning, community, authenticity, integrity and compassion. PLC is a certified Minority Business Enterprise and Women’s Business Enterprise.

Shamis has operated at the intersection of strategy, people management and leadership, and operations for 25+ years within various industries. She is an International Coaching Federation Certified Professional Coach, a Society for Human Resource Management-Senior Certified Professional, and holds other DEI and coaching-specific certifications. Shamis received her MBA from Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, concentrating in leadership and strategy, and her BA in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Wanda Wallace
Dr. Wanda Wallace
Rise Leadership – Leading Business Faculty
Dr. Wanda Wallace is Managing Partner of Leadership Forum. LF helps organizations improve the quality of their conversations in every aspect from strategic insight, to talent, teams, inclusivity, and individual capability. Better conversations result in better relationships which lead to better performance. Wanda speaks, coaches leaders, conducts seminars, and works with teams at all levels in the global corporate context. She works around the world and is versed in leadership, politics and strategic perspective. Dr. Wallace helps women advance their careers as well as engages managers in the inclusion agenda.

With her latest book, she has extended her experience watching men and especially women transition to more senior roles where the team knows more than the leader. This can be a trap for expert executors transitioning to roles with greater span of responsibility. You Can’t Know It All: Leading in an Age of Deep Expertise explains why this is an issue, how it impacts performance and what to do about it.
Amy Orlov
Amy Orlov
Rise Program Director
Amy is the Director of Professional Programs at Forté, a role in which she introduces women to new ideas and deep networks. She is constantly finding new ways to leverage and extend Forté's programming to provide additional impact for women in college, MBA and professional audiences. Amy is also a co-author and architect of the Forté Allies for Gender Equity initiatives which offer men a framework to be stronger allies in gender equity.

Prior to Forté, Amy was the Director of Professional Education and Training at the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), managing a portfolio of onsite and online conferences, symposia and training events. Prior to that, Amy was the Director of the MBA Program Office and Student Services at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Throughout her career, Amy has also worked as an educational consultant, providing clients with program design and delivery, assessment and strategy input, and workshop facilitation and leadership program development. Amy holds a Master of Education from the University of Maryland, and a Master of Government and a B.A. in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Philadelphia with her human, canine, and feline daughters.

Meet the Executive Coaches

Ghita Filali
Ghita Filali
Rise Leadership Advisor and Group Executive Coach
Ghita Filali empowers individuals, teams and international organizations in expanding, rather than contracting, in the face of complex change. With over a decade of professional experience leading high performance teams in multinational and global corporations, she commands a matchless repertoire in strategic consulting, program management, change management and coaching, and marries this with her eclectic lived experience. Ghita sees humanness and potential at the same time, and being in the same room with her is a relentless invitation to claim both.

Coaching with Ghita produces leaders across industries and beyond who make bold commitments and take skillful action to create the results they care about. She stands for her clients’ constant expansion as it relates to their external accomplishments, resilience and leadership presence, as well as to their capacity for fulfillment and connection. Simply put, Ghita is a coach with an eye for excellence in execution and a consultant with her pulse on humanity.

Born in Fes, Morocco, Ghita moved to Paris, France at the age of 18 to attend ESSEC Business School. She started her career as a management consultant at Accenture where she led business and organizational transformations for multinational companies in financial services, consumer products and healthcare. She put down roots in New York City ten years ago after having lived in Paris, Lausanne and Milan. Being an expatriate has initiated her into a lifelong path of understanding and navigating how fast-paced, ever-changing environments can catalyze transformation. She holds an MSc in Management from ESSEC Business School in Paris and is a graduate of Accomplishment Coaching Coaches Training Program in New York. Ghita envisions a world where leaders land deeply in their truest essence while also rising to greater levels of excellence, impact and contribution.

Areas of focus: Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, Team Development, Transformation, Design Thinking, Facilitation, DEIB, Community.
Farah Hussain
Farah Hussain, MBA, CPCC, ACC
Rise Leadership 1:1 Executive Coach
Farah Hussain is a global growth director and a certified executive coach. She has more than 15 years of global marketing experience, primarily in progressive leadership roles in the tech industry. Her executive coaching practice, Coaching with Farah, supports leaders to take bold action and accelerate their growth in line with a personal leadership vision. She holds her MBA from Babson College (where she was a Forté Fellow!) and a BA from Wellesley College. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach.
Rasháanda Cook
Rasháanda Cook
Rise Leadership 1:1 Executive Coach
Rasháanda Cook is founder and princupal of Brave Path™ Sonsulting and Coaching and former HR executive and ICF-certified coach with 25+ years of experience in organizational effectiveness, culture intervention/development, change management, employee engagement, career navigation, talent management and leadership development. With years of external consulting firm experience and a variety of management/executive roles inside Fortune 500 organizations across various industries, she brings an insightfully blended perspective as an executive, consultant, coach, and doer when implementing lasting solutions to the toughest organizational and individual challenges. Rasháanda earned an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and a BBA from Emory University as an undergraduate.
Roxanne Hori
Roxanne Hori
Rise Leadership 1:1 Executive Coach
Roxanne Hori is an internationally recognized leadership and careers professional with 30+ years of experience in professional and financial services and top-ranked business schools and a proven track record working with individuals and teams to help them achieve professional and personal success. Her experience spans leadership development, career coaching, and program innovation. Through a collaborative approach that focuses on listening, observing and discussion, she empowers you to identify and leverage your strengths to help you clearly articulate goals and set forth on a strategic path.

The combination of experiences as a leader at The Northern Trust Bank, Kellogg School of Management and NYU Stern School of Business, has given her the ability to understand both sides of the desk when an individual is seeking a change. During her career she has worked with individuals seeking to start a company, manage change, become more effective leaders, move within their current employer, make a move to a new employer, or pivot to a new industry or job function. Her role is to help you peel back all the layers of experiences and information you carry and get to the core of what's important to you. Her sole mission is to coach and celebrate your successes.

She is accredited in the Strengths Profile assessment instrument and she uses this to help individuals and teams achieve success.

Roaxanne is a member of the Forté Board of Directors
Valerie Paul
Valerie Paul
Rise Leadership Group Executive Coach
Valerie Paul is passionate about people and helping them succeed and grow in all areas of their life. She has worked for many years with undergraduate business students at the University of Houston, many of whom are the first in their family to attend college, and at Forté works as a program manager for the professional solutions team. Her mission as a coach is to help people strategize a path to live abundant and joyful lives. She received her MBA from the University of Texas and coach training through Coach U.
Quotation

From Rise Participants

Katrina Iobst

“Rise elevated the confidence I have in myself and my career path to a new level. The group sessions and one on one coaching helped me to better understand my purpose.”

Katrina Iobst
Business Development and Client Management
Baker McKenzie
Polly Trigger

“Participating in the Rise, Leadership Program was an excellent opportunity for me to learn skills and strategies that will help me to strengthen my network, develop my leadership skills and enhance my personal brand.”

Polly Trigger
Director of BBA Student Affairs
University of Texas at Austin
(McCombs School of Business)
Lisa Rodriguez

“Rise created a space for me to reflect and refine my professional goals and grow more into who I want to be as a leader. I enjoyed having a community of amazing, authentic women from different backgrounds and experiences where we intentionally challenged and encouraged one another in the areas we needed to grow in. Thank you, Forté!”

Lisa Rodriguez
Global Research HR Business Partner
Amgen

*Professional Development Funds

Ask your manager about whether your company has professional development funds for employees. Common practice is that all employees are allotted educational or professional development funds that can be applied towards programs just like this. We've drafted a sample letter to help you get the conversation started with your manager and see if financial support exists. Download Word | PDF.


To find out if Rise is the right next-step for your career goals, schedule a 1-on-1 session with a member of the Professional Solutions team or for more information email us!

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