Transitioning Talented Women to the Top
We train, coach and consult with organizations to build diverse leadership teams.
Services
FACILITATION
We train and develop high-potential women in major companies to prepare them for leadership roles.
To achieve business goals, you need the best men and women leaders. Building on a custom leader profile, our dynamic workshops, increase the staying power of women by cultivating skills and knowledge needed to effectively accelerate their careers.
To learn about some of our most popular sessions:
COACHING
We coach talented women in major companies to achieve their goals and find professional fulfilment.
By building on strengths, finding fresh perspectives, and improving interpersonal effectiveness, our clients improve their professional confidence and success.
At Leverage HR, we have certified, experienced coaches with specialities in:
- performance coaching
- career coaching
- executive coaching
To create a positive impact on long-term success.
CONSULTING
We work with world class companies to build diverse leadership teams. We begin by assessing the current state with the Gender Parity Spotlight™ survey. We use this baseline to define actions the company can take to build a strong foundation to retain and grow women.
A good foundation is based on four pillars:
- Competency
- Connections
- Career cycle
- Culture
To learn about our proven strategies
GENDER PARITY SPOTLIGHT™ survey
What is stopping women in your organization from moving into leadership?
The Gender Parity Spotlight™ (GPS) survey is the first research based survey that measures the unique challenges women face when pursuing leadership roles and spotlights concrete recommendations organizations can take to remove them.
CEOs consistently identify “having the talent I need to drive my business” as one of their top three imperatives. To achieve business goals, you need the best men and women leaders. While women represent over half the available talent pool, organizations struggle to retain and grow talented women.
The GPS:
- asks women what they need to move up;
- measures barriers across three dimensions;
- is an easy to administer and scalable tool;
- provides the baseline to create a targeted strategy to retain and grow your organization’s talented women.
GPS survey dimensions:
The GPS provides a measurable way to create a customized, targeted strategy to retain and grow your organization’s talented women. For more information or a summary of the report, contact us.
Worldly Women™
Caroline Kersten and Sapna Welsh, as firm partners, recently co-authored “Worldly Women – The New Leadership Profile”, and share their in-depth knowledge of professional women in the global workforce in both speaking engagements and leading industry journals. Worldly Women was well received in the global community and was endorsed by CEO’s and EU leaders alike.
At this crucial period, when our workforce is becoming more global and there is an ever greater demand for more women in leadership roles, Worldly Women™ offers ground breaking information about global leadership behavior that is shared among female expatriate leaders. Developing and reinforcing these behaviors in your professional (and personal) life will give you an edge to success in your expatriate assignment by:
- Achieving peak performance,
- Accelerating assimilation into your new environment,
- Facilitating a smoother transition.
Combining many tools and exercises with the expert advice of WiSER (Women in Senior-level Expatriate Roles), Worldly Women shows any woman who has ever considered working abroad how to expatriate successfully and achieve excellence.In 2014, Worldly
Women was selected as a featured book by Get Abstracts, a renowned organization specializing in getting current knowledge to business leaders around the world through book summaries.
About Us
Leverage HR specializes in transitioning talented women to the top. We deliver solutions to grow and retain women in leadership. Our comprehensive development approach prepares women to navigate the corporate maze and be impactful in their role. Our programs have increased the percentage of talented women staying in the leadership pipeline.
Founding Partners Sapna Welsh and Caroline Kersten have trained and coached countless women and consulted with notable Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, and NGOs across the US and Europe. They frequently speak on the topic of global women’s leadership at various conferences and panels ranging from Warsaw, Poland to Constance, Germany to Columbus, OH, and also deliver webinars with global reach. They publish articles and blogs on global women’s leadership (T&D magazine, SHRM Global HR Trends, and other online magazines around the world).
Regardless of client, geography, or language, we are a values-driven organization, where we always:
- collaborate with our clients to identify the appropriate solution
- commit to deliver the highest quality services, on time and with a personal touch
- bring our passion and expertise to deliver solutions that make impactful change
We offer services in English, Dutch, German, French, Japanese, and Chinese.
The Team
Caroline Kersten
Caroline draws on a wide variety of skills and experiences when working with clients in international work environments. She has over 20 years of experience as both a business strategy consultant and HR leader, and has lived and worked in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, and currently Germany. In 2011 she joined Leverage HR as Partner and has since developed and implemented solutions to create diverse leadership teams. Before joining Leverage HR, Caroline worked for both profit and non-profit organizations, including Coopers & Lybrand, KPMG, De Lage Landen, Dutch Ministry of Justice, and technology start-up Civolution.
Caroline is fluent in Dutch, English, German and French. She is committed to developing female talent through training and coaching, as well as being an instructor and guest lecturer at various German universities.
Caroline holds a Masters degree in European Studies and a Masters Degree in Dutch Law, both from the University of Amsterdam, as well as an LL.M. in European Law from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. She is an active member of the networks B.F.B.M. and PWN Global, and is Secretary of the Board of Trustees at Bonn International School. Caroline, her husband and two daughters currently reside in Germany.
Sapna Welsh
Sapna has over twenty years of experience delivering talent development solutions to positively impact business results. She builds on her own various professional transitions ranging from corporate to dot.com to entrepreneur; and from domestic to international, to coach and train women for professional fulfillment and success. She has worked for: JP Morgan Chase, Nationwide Financial, Deloitte, and technology start-up e-Bank.
The red thread that runs throughout her career is a commitment to women’s leadership development. Sapna has been featured in Diversity Careers magazine for successfully leading an executive steering committee through the process of establishing an integrated diversity strategy at a Fortune 500 organization. She was involved with the initial ground breaking steps of rolling out a firm wide gender initiative which contributed to the increase of women leaders at the firm by nearly 30% over several years.
Sapna holds a Masters degree from The Ohio State University, a BBA in IB from The George Washington University, and licensure as a Professional of Human Resources and Registered Corporate Coach. She is also certified in various assessments. She is committed to her family, community, and profession. She previously served as an HR adjunct faculty member at Franklin University and served on the Human Resources curriculum advisory board. She is the National Programming Committee Chair with Women for Economic Leadership Development, and sits on the Programming Committee for NDCC. Sapna, her husband and three children currently reside in Ohio.
Bastian Broer
Bastian is an expert in cross-cultural training and team building and works with organizations to facilitate intercultural cooperation between work teams in Germany, US, Japan, China and Israel. Well versed in multiple cultures and languages, Bastian serves as an advisor to many global organizations to increase productivity and efficiency among cross-cultural teams. He also has a strong reputation in pre-departure expatriate training. He has worked for IFIM (Institute for Intercultural Management) and Fuji Bank, among others. Bastian is Leverage HR’s cross-cultural expert.
Begonia Vazquez Merayo
Begonia is a true cosmopolitan. With over 20 years working experience in global leading organizations in different countries and continents, she is an expert in strategic and operational brand management, development of global growth strategies and management of intercultural teams. She strengthens the innovation and competitiveness of German organizations by recruiting and integrating international talent. Born in Spain she holds her studies in International Business Administration in Spain and in France. Begonia is Leverage HR’s Consultant, Coach and Trainer, located in Munich, Germany.
Christa
Christa is a certified professional coach with over 20 years of experience working in Human Resources. Much of her career has been spent working with IT clients in Financial Services, Retail and Start-up environments. Working for so many years with employees and managers across multiple levels has provided her with valuable insight into the challenges that so many workers today face as well as solutions that helped them achieve their career goals. She has her BA in Psychology and her Professional Coaching Certification and strives to understand clients’ unique goals, motivations and values to tailor her approach to assist clients to maximize their potential.
Shawn Garrett
Shawn Garrett, MA Coach and Learning Development Consultant Shawn specializes in developing coaching and learning solutions that maximize business results. She brings over 20 years of experience providing Consulting, Training, Performance Coaching, Leadership, and Employee Development solutions to mid and large-sized domestic and international companies such as Chase, Mt. Carmel Hospitals, and Barclays Bank. She has implemented distance learning solutions and provided coaching to both technical and non-technical professionals, developing skills and improving overall engagement. She earned both her MA and BS in Education at The Ohio State University.
Vicki Johnston
Development Expert with over 25 years of her career dedicated to professional training and development. Within this role she has been responsible for helping others become aware of their own growth opportunities through Training, Coaching and Mentorship.
Prior to becoming independent, she was employed by DHL, the largest courier company in the world and has extensive experience in managing and developing people in various supervisory and management roles, putting her in an ideal position to be able to relate to real business issues that her clients and delegates face on a day to day basis.
Viki is British and currently lives in Southern California with her Husband and Daughter, she is a self-confessed lifelong learner with a passion for helping other achieve their own goals.
Bob Welsh
Bob is a change leader who leverages over 25 years of experience leading large scale business transformation through the alignment of culture, processes, programs, and systems. He leads Talent & Learning functions for Fortune 500 and Global 200 companies domestically and internationally.
He is also a guest lecturer at The Ohio State University, a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences both in the US and Europe, an executive coach, and serves as an advisor to Leverage HR.