Our Story

Angie Pincin founded Coach People Inc.^® out of a need to enable people and organizations to optimize their full potential. Her career began in Canada, then moved to the States, joining McCaw Cellular, a wireless telecommunications company, working in their Finance department. As McCaw grew, Angie’s Finance role grew to include Human Resources (HR) responsibilities. She went back to college to get her Bachelors in HR; eventually getting promoted to a more senior level HR-OD executive role. The best part of her role was to develop people to stay agile with McCaw’s exponential growth; yet the more successful she became, most of her time was spent at meetings around the country.

She also noticed that the HR profession, at that time, was more transactional than transformational. She began to research and explore more progressive ways to engage talent using strength based competency models, 360s, positive psychology, emerging emotional intelligence, wellness & meaningful rewards programs, and testing their impact on enterprise growth. Around the same time, McCaw Cellular Communications introduced its “People. Not Places” uncompromising: Vision, Values & Goals new guidelines for all employees. It was ground-breaking and aligned with Angie’s own people development philosophy in the Region she supported. The more the team focused on respectful behaviors and innovative solutions, at all levels; the more employees felt empowered to make effective decisions, held each other accountable and were rewarded for positive personal and business growth. McCaw became quickly an employer of choice.

Serendipitously, Angie received a call from the late Thomas Leonard, at the time, a maverick Financial Planner from the West Coast, who was tinkering with a new communication tool he called: Coaching. He was working with a Miami based Human Resources (HR) consultant to develop a new coaching program. Thomas made notes, from his financial advisory practice, of the sizeable gap between “successful clients” and those who were struggling with their unaddressed career, life goals & overall direction. He wondered if there was a link between people’s overall fulfillment in life and financial growth. He was curious to explore if his observations were applicable in the corporate world. He had heard about Angie’s programs in Florida and invited her to a brainstorming session in Ft. Lauderdale. Thomas and Angie were also joined by five other corporate leaders and the HR consultant, for three days, to discuss: if individuals, within teams and organizations would perform better if their manager and team-members had clear values alignment, focused goals, gave more frequent feedback and if these key factors impacted their overall happiness in their lives. Thomas put together several questions, assessment tools, a draft coaching program, to obtain the participant’s feedback. Angie immediately realized the power of Coaching, its integrated and generative impact in potentially accelerating positive change, creativity and growth. She could see how this emerging leadership style could be applied immediately at McCaw to benefit all employees, teams, customer service and sales by empowering: deeper awareness, accountability, accelerated skill building and results with more of an ‘on the spot’ coaching approach; fast-tracking careers, engagement and growth. She saw coaching as an outstanding solution to address the rapid changes in technology, employee agility and growth.

Since McCaw was about to merge with AT&T Wireless Services; Angie agreed, at that meeting, to test and adapt these experimental corporate coaching programs as case studies and report back her insights. Her immediate goal was to have a positive impact on select teams in: Finance, Operations and IT against other teams, as compared to other teams not receiving Coaching. She discovered, the simple principles of coaching, made learning, assimilation, practice, and adoption of EQ leadership skills, easy, and with immediate observable positive results. Teams were able to adapt to the merger’s uncertainty and accept changes rapidly. They were also able to: shrink gaps, eliminate conflict or blockages faster, collaborate and innovate by applying coaching principles and get rewarded for delivering excellence-while having fun! A leader in Operations was so inspired, he created an: “Excellence is an Attitude” award to all who adopted the McCaw Goals & Values. Angie became a key member of the People development team at McCaw where all Regions adopted the “People, not Places” culture. McCaw went on to grow from being a small cellular firm in Florida to the first major, US wireless company to be acquired for billions.

To this day, across the US, the original McCaw Cellular team say this part of their career is fondly seen as one of the most creative and fulfilling chapters of their careers. They report still using the Values and progressive people development principles today. Within two years of seeing positive results at AT&T, Angie moved to NYC, and founded a small coaching-consultancy company to share her findings with a wider audience. Within the first couple of months of her move to NYC, Angie met about ten other coaches from NYC, NJ and San Francisco who shared her passion for Coaching. All formed the PPCA (or The Personal and Professional Coaching Association) to collaborate and continue to research, define, fine-tune and shape the evolving coaching profession. The PPCA was eventually renamed the: International Coaches Federation (ICF), where Angie was Membership Chair for many years, while also working at Ernst and Young LLP (E&Y) and growing Coach People Inc.^®, into a full-time profession. Ernst & Young became a client after Angie resigned from E&Y. Coach People successfully rolled out a 150+ global talent development program for Partners, Senior Managers & Managers as its first major project. Thomas, in the meantime, built his coaching programs and successfully launched Coach U, CCUI, IAC and authored about six books, countless articles, assessments and mentored coaches. Angie received her certification from CCUI and continued to stay in touch with Thomas until he sadly passed suddenly in 2003. Today, he is often referred to as the “father of coaching.” His legacy continues, and he would be very proud to see his profound impact on the coaching profession and how far it’s grown since that fateful meeting in South Florida.

Initially Angie focused most of her coaching and consulting practice strictly on developing HR-OD professionals, consultants and non-corporate individuals, across levels and industries. She realized that people essentially have the same fundamental needs to lead a fulfilling and prosperous life and to grow. She wrote programs to scale across levels and industries and as her company grew, renamed her company to Coach People Inc.^® to capture, right in the name, the broad applicability of coaching for all: people, titles, levels, sizes, geography and industries. People fundamentally want to be: respected, valued, do meaningful work, be creative, contribute, grow and be rewarded for excellence. She also came to understand from her clients, that the “me” is an essential part of the “we” and overall team agility. In other words, the healthier the individuals working together within teams, the more agile, effective and productive the teams will be. She collected best practices and weaved her deep knowledge in people development, to create services that enable self-generating and lasting growth. As Coach People Inc. grew, Angie attracted a small team of passionate coaches and consultants who shared her values to add more years of diverse experience and expert knowledge to the coaching, consulting and training services. Today, Coach People is a leading provider in a wide-range of individual and team development; offerings, locally and globally for small to large firms, for all budgets, that yield growth and excellence in services delivery. Angie and her network of top-notch affiliate coaches, travel locally or globally to work directly at client sites. Coach People Inc.^® is headquartered in the Greater NY area and Florida.

Angie brings 20+ years of experience as a senior level HR Generalist and Master level, Executive Coach and Consultant. She’s dedicated to the concept that Coaching is both an effective Business and a Life development tool. As a strategic, visionary thinker, she has a passion for inspiring people to optimize their full potential while aligning global corporate cultures with individual purpose, values, goals, skills and strengths to accelerate performance and growth: one person and
team at a time.

She believes the “one size fits all” approach to leadership development doesn’t work, especially with the current: global, “free agent” and diverse workforce. She believes that organizations don’t change, people within, do and that Great Leaders Know Themselves Well^©. The most successful leaders are aware of their impact and seek feedback to build their strengths, areas of development, and are skilled at influencing, connecting and inspiring outstanding performance and results. They also build up individuals to shine within teams, much like a sports coach does with a star player on their team.

Angie has coached executives globally, at all levels, to Board level, with, sustained, positive results. Her clients range from start-ups to Fortune 500. She holds a Bachelors in HR, has trained with many top personal growth firms and leaders. She’s also a certified coach facilitator with: Coach U and certified 360 coach with: Korn-Ferry Voices^®, Decision-wise^®; and Master Certified Practitioner with the complete Tilt 365^® suite of individual and team tools used by organizations like: Facebook, Redhat, Cliff Bars, Miami Heat, GSK and Microsoft.

She’s served on several Boards such as the: Center for Family Services-Florida Region; United Way-Financial Committee, was Membership Chair for ICF-NYC; volunteer at Junior Achievement and was an HR Mentor Coach at NYC’s SHRM^®-for many years. Angie also studied directly for, several years, with: respected philosopher and author: Dr. Jean Houston. She’s multi-lingual with fluency in: French, Italian and basic knowledge of Spanish. She’s a longtime professional member of: ICF, IAC, SHRM^®, ATD and IPPA. Angie can be reached directly at
info@coachpeople.com.