2019 Graduate Yearbook | International Coach Academy
135 Graduates, 44 Countries and 43 Coaching Niches
The 2019 Graduate Yearbook celebrates 135 ICA graduates from 44 countries, representing more than 43 different coaching niches.
The graduating class included 110 graduates from ICA’s English-language programs, 10 from the Italian program, and 15 from the Chinese bilingual program. Together, they formed a remarkably international coaching community, bringing different cultures, professions, experiences, and ambitions into the classroom.
Many came to ICA with backgrounds in HR, professional development, training, nonprofit organizations, small business, leadership, and other people-focused professions. Some had lived and worked across several countries. Others had spent years working within multinational organizations.
What connected them was a desire to help people grow and create meaningful change.
From Experience to Coaching
Many members of the Class of 2019 arrived at ICA with considerable professional and life experience.
For some, discovering coaching gave a name and structure to something they felt they had already been doing informally for much of their lives.
Their previous careers did not disappear when they became coaches. Instead, those experiences became part of the foundation for developing their individual coaching identities.
Graduates combined coaching with knowledge gained through leadership, HR, education, business, professional development, nonprofit work, and other fields.
This created a graduating class with shared coaching competencies but very different ideas about where those competencies could take them.
Courage to Practice
One of the strongest themes in the 2019 reflections is the courage required to move from understanding coaching intellectually to actually coaching another person.
Mentor Coaching and Observed Coaching brought that challenge into focus.
Students could understand the theory, attend classes, and study coaching competencies, but sitting in the coach’s chair introduced something different: uncertainty.
For some graduates, coaching in front of peers and mentors was intimidating.
But doing it anyway became an important milestone.
With practice, students discovered they did not need to plan every question or control the direction of the conversation. They could listen, stay curious, trust the client, and let awareness emerge.
When the Client Has the Breakthrough
The reward for that practice often came in a small but significant moment: seeing something change for the client.
Graduates described conversations in which a client suddenly saw a situation differently, discovered an option they had not previously considered, or reached their own moment of awareness.
These experiences reinforced a fundamental principle of coaching.
The coach does not need to provide the breakthrough.
Instead, the coach creates the conditions for the client to discover something for themselves.
For developing coaches, witnessing that process could be transformative. It provided evidence that listening, questioning, curiosity, and trust could create meaningful movement without the coach supplying the answer.
A Community Across 44 Countries
The international character of the Class of 2019 was also central to the learning experience.
With graduates representing 44 countries, students encountered perspectives shaped by different cultures, industries, communities, and life experiences.
Peer coaching created opportunities to work directly with people they might never have met otherwise.
These relationships sometimes developed beyond the classroom into friendships and professional connections.
For students who had already lived or worked internationally, the global classroom complemented their existing worldview. For others, it introduced an entirely new level of cross-cultural learning.
Coaching became both the subject they were studying and the common language connecting them.
43 Niches, Many Ways to Coach
The Class of 2019 also demonstrates the breadth of professional directions available to a coach.
Graduates planned to launch independent practices, integrate coaching into HR and leadership positions, support women navigating transition, coach executives and entrepreneurs, develop coaching cultures within organizations, and combine coaching with areas such as education, wellness, trauma recovery, and expatriate life.
Some intended to make coaching their primary profession.
Others would incorporate coaching into work they were already doing.
Rather than leaving ICA with an identical approach, graduates developed coaching identities influenced by their existing expertise, interests, values, and the people they most wanted to support.
Transformation on Both Sides of the Conversation
Although graduates entered training intending to learn how to coach others, many discovered the process changed them as well.
Learning to listen differently affected conversations beyond formal coaching sessions.
Exploring beliefs and perspectives with clients encouraged students to examine their own.
Developing greater awareness of judgment, assumptions, and habitual responses influenced both professional and personal relationships.
For some, coaching became a new career.
For others, it became a calling.
And for many, it became a different way of approaching conversations, relationships, leadership, and change.
Where Coaching Went Next
Graduation did not send the Class of 2019 in one direction.
That is perhaps what makes the year particularly interesting.
135 graduates from 44 countries and more than 43 coaching niches took their learning into businesses, organizations, communities, classrooms, leadership roles, independent practices, and existing careers.
Some built something entirely new.
Others added coaching to years of existing professional expertise.
Together, their stories illustrate how a common coach training experience can lead to very different destinations.
Download the 2019 Yearbooks
January–December 2013
Global, Italian & Chinese Bilingual Programs
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