About Our Team
Michael Tucker, M.A., PCC, CSM, CSPO is an executive coach that is committed to the acceleration, advancement and conscious evolution of the global human family.
As the founder of Tucker Coaching & Consulting, Michael coaches and consults executives, leaders and teams around the world. He is committed to scaling organizational leadership excellence. He partners with leaders in their transition into, and the refinement of strategic leadership focus and practice. He specializes in the identification and development of his client’s leadership operation system, the cultivation of their intuitive, sage leadership qualities and the strengthening of mental command capacity to consistently meet stakeholder requirements long-term and without burnout. Michael has coached top leaders for the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Space Force, U.S. Department of Agriculture, AppleTV, Twitch, Teradyne, SpaceX, American Red Cross and many other corporate, government and non-profit organizations.
Before becoming an executive coach, Michael served as the CEO of Tucker Strategic Advisory, a
marketing and consulting company, for nearly a decade where he helped small and large companies,
governments and non-profits achieve their marketing, public relations and strategic planning goals. He
has held positions in Air Force procurement, combat support, equal opportunity, sales, banking,
financial services and technology startup leadership.
In 2021 Michael was ranked among the Top 5 executive coaches in Tucson, Arizona by Influence Digest.
He is a member of the International Coaching Federation, the Family Life Coaching Association and is a
coaching instructor at the Institute for Integrative Intelligence. He is a founding member and Director of
Strategic Partnerships for the non-profit, Coaching for Everyone, an organization that provides coach
training to aspiring BIPOC coaches and no/low-cost coaching to underrepresented educators, non-profit
leaders and communities. He is a state advisor for the international affairs non-profit, U.S. Global
Leadership Coalition (USGLC) and a member of Veterans for Smart Power.
Michael, currently serves on the Board of the Unified Progress International (UPI) Loan Fund, Arizona’s
only Black-led loan fund and economic development organization focused on providing affordable
personal loans to historically marginalized communities in Arizona.
He is a former Captain in the United States Air Force, has a bachelor’s degree from the University of
South Carolina, a Master’s degree in Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma and a
Postgraduate Certificate in Executive & Professional Coaching from the University of Texas-Dallas.
Michael has been invited to speak at conferences and events in the U.S, Peru, Chile, Argentina,
Guatemala, China and Mexico. He enjoys playing sports, hiking, camping, bioregional herbalism and
international travel. Michael currently lives in Tucson, Arizona with Ellen, his wife of 14 years.
Nobantu Mpotulo, M.A., MCC hails from South Africa and is amongst the first five Africans to be accredited at MCC by the International Coach Federation (ICF). She is one of the inaugural international coaches for Ethical Coach.
During the design of the Ethical Coach Summit she was one of the main programme designers. For the past three years Nobantu has been doing live coaching demonstrations on UBUNTU coaching at WBECS and on other global platforms. Nobantu is also a sought after international speaker. Nobantu boasts more than 3000 coaching hours at CEO level, Executive Level, Senior Management levels for both individual and team coaching. She won a leadership coaching award under World Coaching Congress in Coaching Leadership in 2015 in India. During the rife COVID pandemic Nobantu was offering pro bono coaching to frontline workers. Nobantu has developed an Ubuntu Coaching Programme for Coaches which has been gaining traction globally. She started the programme in March 2021 and has already trained 45 experienced coaches globally.
She provides a safe and open space for the coachees to do their work, focusing on unexplored territories.
She moves on a continuum of being non-directive to directive depending on what is missing in the client’s system. She uses mindfulness practices in her facilitation. No matter what she does she gets to the HEART of the client and the HEART of the matter. As a mindfulness practitioner and teacher she supports her clients in integrating the head, heart, instinctual and spiritual intelligence. She does amazing heart work with clients based on the principles of UBUNTU “I am because We Are”. Nobantu is an accredited Enneagram Teacher (Narrative Tradition) and Enneagram Coach (Enneagram in Business and Deep Coaching). She is a Buddhist Teacher a Process Facilitator and Facilitator of Peace Circles, She trains, supervises and Mentor Coaches other coaches.
Nobantu has worked extensively with USAID Global Health internationally in facilitating leadership programmes for Africa and Head Quarters. She has coached more than 200 officials in the Global Health Office. In 2020 she led an organizational development intervention with the Tanzania Health Office. She facilitated two leadership programmes virtually in 2020 with the Mozambique mission and headquarters and USAID HQ in Washington DC. Nobantu is developing training materials for CSP programme on Executive Leadership Programme, she runs Masterclasses for SALGA Women in Leadership Programme and is an Executive Coach for SALGA WILD. Nobantu has been coaching executives and teams for twenty years in the public sector, private sector, NGOs and universities, international donor funding organisations. She developed a twelve month long accelerated leadership program for thirteen generals and senior management members of the Department of Defense in South Africa. She is also a certified trainer of Coaching and Mentor Programmes under Clutterbuck Associates in the UK.
Nobantu was a facilitator of Truth and Reconciliation Healing Workshops for victims and perpetrators of violence in South Africa. She was guest faculty in 2010 for the International Gestalt Organization and Systems Development. She has trained mentors/ mentees and coaches/ coachees in organizations in the financial, mining, and public sectors, and was a facilitator and group coach for candidates of the African Leadership Development Programme under the auspices of NEPAD and GIBS in 2010. She has coached clients in the United Nations (Secretariat, Agencies and Peace Keeping Missions); USAID (GHPOD Globally); World Health Organisation (WHO); International Labour Organisation (ILO) South African Government Sector; Pfizer, Mercedes Benz, Metlife, Workday, World 50, ICT-Works, First National Bank, Stanlib, Standard Chartered Bank, SA Homeloans, Adams & Adams, Vodacom, Nedbank, Nobantu also facilitates Leadership Development Programmes, she has facilitated leadership development programmes for UN (Secretariat, Agencies, Peace Keeping Missions); GHPOD (USAID); World Health Organisation (WHO); South African Home Loans.
She is a coach at Henley and GIBS Business Schools and facilitator at Duke for Corporate Education programmes. Nobantu is a faculty member and teaches coaching at the South African College of Applied Psychology. (SACAP). Nobantu is also faculty for Duke Corporate Executive Programmes. She developed a Leadership Programme for senior women managers at Nedbank which is currently running. Nobantu’s work experience involves being a Student Counsellor and Director of Counselling Services at University of Transkei, Director of Counselling Services; University of Fort Hare, Director of Strategic Planning; Technikon Nothern Gauteng, Divisional Manager: Study Schemes at Telkom. She was contracted as the Head of Governance at the Centre for Higher Education Transformation and was involved in developing capacity building materials and facilitating Councils of Higher Education institutions. She also was involved in training planners in higher education institutions.
Nobantu was involved in facilitating mergers of FET colleges and training of governance structures of FET Colleges under the auspices of EU. She was a Council member at Tshwane University of Technology. Nobantu has an M.A. in Guidance and Counseling from Durham University, UK, a B.A. in Personnel Managementfrom University of Fort Hare, South Africa and a Post Graduate Diploma in HR Management from University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She speaks English, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans and Sotho.
Dr. Jean Hazlitt, PhD, PCC is an international speaker and internationally recognised coach who is giving back to the coaching profession through her PHD work. From a corporate prospective, she disrupt people
in their thinking, which enhances business at many different levels. She has been working in the corporate space for over 19 years.
Jean is a Doctor of Leadership and Coaching through Monarch Business School Switzerland. The creator of DYLACUBETM (Dynamic Leader as Coach cube concept). Certified as a Professional Integral Coach (PCC) through the Centre for Coaching (Graduate School of Business – University of Cape Town).
She is registered as a Coaching Practitioner with COMENSA (Coaching and Mentoring of South Africa) and ICF (International Coaching Federation) with PCC accreditation. Jean is a trained coach supervisor and runs small supervision groups privately or for internal coaches. She is a committee member on the COMENSA Supervision Portfolio. She is involved in mentoring coaches at two coaching schools in South Africa, Centre for Coaching and The South African College of Applied Psychology (SACAP). She also volunteers as a coach on the MBA coach elect program at GSB – UCT.
Jean was an internal coach in a financial organisation for over 16 years. Internal coaching work includes running redeployment workshops, change management, one on one or group coaching with senior managers and their teams, and group supervision for most of the internal coaches in the organisation. She has been coaching since 2003 in the Business environment, incorporating Executive, Leadership and Life Coaching. Coaching clients fall across a wide spectrum, from sales teams and/or individuals, Owners/Directors of small companies, Financial Planners, MBA Students, Senior and Middle Management in large financial organisations, including Executives in African countries and Operations Managers in prestigious Hotels.
Clarissa McElrath, PCC, PMP, A-SM, A-PO is the founder of CM Empowered Coaching. She coaches and consults executives, leaders, and teams. She is committed to scaling organizational leadership excellence using agile. Partnering with leaders, Clarissa helps to reveal organizational design issues as well and personal blind spots and emotional intelligence that hinder forward progression. She specializes in the identification and development of client’s leadership operating system, cultivates intuitive, sage leadership qualities and the strengthening of mental command capacity to consistently meet stakeholder requirements without burnout.
As an Agile Coach, Clarissa has helped cross functional groups collaborate on customer journeys and dependencies. She has assisted with various agile transformations, inspiring and empowering individuals, and teams for continuous improvement. She is a change agent focused on guiding teams through the deployment of Agile practices and the adoption of Scrum.
Prior to becoming a coach, Clarissa has worked in the financial industry as an agile coach, part of senior leadership in the Product management organization and in product development. She has managed a team of associates as well as managed cross functional teams. She assisted in the development of the agile operating model for agile transformation of over 5,000 employees and nine business units in an enterprise technology and global service organization. She was the product manager over the implementation and the launch of a payment origination application processing over $20 billion daily. Clarissa has managed and owned an eCommerce third party web payments initiatives generating $10 million in annual revenue. These experiences give her unique insights into the struggles and pressure managers and leaders face.
Dr. Gilbert Dennis, BChD, MSc, PCC is a self-motivated Professional Coach with more than 3500 hours of face-to-face coaching experience. These hours have been accumulated from working with coachees of various positions (i.e. from supervisors up to and including C-suites) and across various sectors i.e. Manufacturing, Legal & Financial Services, Retail, Export Regulatory Body and Senior Academics.
He holds an Associate position with the Centre for Coaching (UCT GSB) where he facilitates Coach Training on their Coaching for Development Program. He also facilitates Coaching Circles; on the MBA elective at the University, the Astron Energy Leadership programs as well as mentors’ coaches in training on both the six month and full year Professional coaching programs (2014-present).
Gilbert has coached face-to-face on Advanced Leadership Programs at Astron Energy (previously Chevron), Alan Gray, South African Receiver of Revenue and Old Mutual Special Financing Unit.
Additional clients include ENSafrica, Oceana, Alan Gray, UCT, Peninsula Beverages, the South African Reserve Bank, Pearson’s International, SAMRC and several private clients including other coaches.
Gilbert’s coaching philosophy is based primarily on an integral Approach to human potential and possibility and our ability to show up with our whole selves.
Sameen Shahid, MPA, ACC is an executive coach committed to building a more inclusive word and believes we have to start with enhancing the capacity of today’s leaders. Having lived and moved extensively across South Asia, Middle East, Canada and the US, Sameen can relate to the challenges of starting over, being a minority, and the pressure to assimilate. She coaches and supports Executives leading in diverse and international environments, to cultivate a culture of belonging and trust with team members. She builds the capacity of Managers to coach their team – moving them away from giving advice, and towards the capacity to ask powerful questions that build a sense of agency within the team.
She especially loves to support leaders around themes of conflict management and work/life balance. She has coached startup founders, leaders in the private sector, as well as worked extensively in the education space – coaching teachers as well as students. Prior to becoming a coach, Sameen has worked as an educator teaching Grade 6, 10 and 11 students, and then as the founder of a Social Emotional Learning program that designed and facilitated workshops and programs for students, teachers and parents. She also led all operations and financial aspects of a ~$10 million (electronic, print, radio, and social) media
campaign for education reforms in Pakistan. Sameen currently serves on the California Board of Girls Leadership, a non-profit that teaches girls to exercise the power of their voice through programs grounded in social emotional learning.
She completed her Masters in Public Administration/International Development from Harvard Kennedy School which she attended on an OFID Scholarship (sole recipient from 3,000 applicants across 100+ countries). She completed her Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in Economics and International Development from McGill University. She is certified as a coach through Coaches Training Institute and the International Coaching Federation. She has also completed training related to supporting minorities and people of color including: Nonviolent Communication for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and Coaching for Equity. She is a facilitator coach in the Coaching Circles methodology.