Pooja has a Masters in Business Administration (MBA), is a Master Certified Coach (MCC), Certified Mentor Coach (CMC), Dare to LeadTM trained facilitator, and most recently was credentialed as ICF’s Advanced Certified Team Coach (ACTC),  making her one of the world’s 134 pioneering coaches having this credential. She is currently the Director – Career Retention, Navigation and Transition at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Her team focuses on building leaders’ individual resilience and capacity in retaining talent and supports a workforce of over 10,000 employees with their career resilience in a continually changing environment. In 2018, they won an Honorable Mention at the ICF Prism Awards, recognizing organizations that have built strong coaching cultures. They have pioneered projects within the IT and Finance portfolios to influence and partner with 100 senior leaders in applying a coach approach to team engagement and retention, while managing multi-billion dollar change initiatives. Through her pioneering leadership, a third of all employees in transition are reemployed within their notice period and half of them find new roles within the university.

She began her coaching journey in 2007 becoming one of the first credentialed coaches in India. After moving to Vancouver, Canada, she was hired into the first full-time internal coach position at UBC. In 2015 she became their first Master Certified Coach (MCC) bringing recognition to UBC’s 15-year-old robust coaching program that comprises 40 internal and 30 external volunteer coaches. Pooja actively coaches academic leaders and other senior executive leaders to uncover and empower their unique leadership styles and build agility. At any given point she has a client base of over 100 employees.

Pooja has served on the ICF Vancouver Chapter as the Director for Coach-Giving. During her tenure, they pioneered the ‘Leadership Coach-Giving program’ that won the International Coach Federation’s award for innovative initiative for two consecutive years in 2014 and 2015. She was one of the founding mentor coaches for UBC’s certified ACTP program on organizational coaching, continues to serve on the team of mentor coaches at the Global Academy of Coaching (Greece), and is an associate trainer and faculty at CoacharyaTM. 

Before she embarked on a coaching career, she spent 15 years in business development and client relationship management across a variety of industries.

Here are some recent webinars facilitated by Pooja.