Meet Janine Davis

Today we’re excited to be connecting with Janine Davis again. If you haven’t already, we suggest you check out our prior conversation with them here.

Janine, thanks for joining us again. Just to level set a bit for folks who may have missed our last interview together, can you briefly introduce yourself?
Hello! I’m Janine, an Executive Coach and Facilitator with a special passion for bringing leaders into nature with animals (more on that later). I’m a Managing Partner with Evolution, a group of about 75 global coaches providing executive coaching, offsite facilitation, leadership development /management training programs and culture creation support. Some of our clients include Slack, Notion, Glassdoor, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Planned Parenthood and Microsoft. Our roots were with venture-backed startups, which still makes up a big portion of our client portfolio. However, with our diversity of coaches and interests, our client base now spans early stage to large public companies, along with NGOs and non profits.

I made my way to coaching through a few rounds of careers. Round 1 – Software Engineer with Accenture who grew into being CTO at an Omnicom advertising agency. Round 2 – Pivoted to tech and product recruiting when I had my kids so I’d have a bit more flexibility. I spent 20 years in that world, including owning my own agency for 7 years. Round 3 – Coaching – the best and final Round! I was on the Women Founders Network board for 10 years, and during that tenure, I started providing pro bono coaching to early stage female founders. In that process, I discovered why I was put on earth. I got certified as an Executive Coach through the Hudson Institute of Coaching 10 years ago, and concurrently ran my recruiting agency while ramping up my coaching work. After a couple of years, I was able to move fully out of recruiting and into coaching.

A few factors play into my unique approach to coaching. I’m 50% left brained and 50% right brained. I think of myself as half scientist and half weirdo :), and bring a mixture of logic and sensing into my coaching work. I balance organizational development and business operations best practices with depth. Most of my coaching engagements blend purist coaching (inquiry-based) with advisory input. I’ve had the opportunity to work with early stage companies as well as global public ones. I’m quite familiar with the inflection points of growth that leaders need to scale alongside a scaling company. Those factors, along with my former operator experience in tech and service-based sales and services has set me up to support my clients well.

Great, so let’s jump into an update on what you have been up to since we last spoke. What can you share with us?
Since I did my first Voyage LA interview, I took on a role as Managing Partner with Evolution. I’ve had a lot of leadership experience in my past, and now get to put that to work as we scale globally and consider how to evolve our business as AI’s capabilities grow. So exciting! In my “spare” time :), I provide operational and strategic leadership to our collective. My primary function is still doing the actual work – coaching CxOs and facilitating offsites and leadership development programs. I love and respect my clients and am so grateful to work with them.

I’ve also built out a suite of unique programs that are my passion projects, bringing leaders into nature, working with animals – specifically, horses, wolves and wild animals in Kenya! Nature-based leadership tenets, and the team dynamics of non-human animals can provide incredible frameworks for healthy individuals and teams. Being introduced to these new frameworks alongside the simple act of getting out of one’s norm into nature opens the mind up to new awareness not typically accessible in a conference room. I love neuroscience – without becoming super nerdy, the ability for the brain to create new reactions, behaviors and ways of being starts with the spark of awareness (followed by a lot of practice). These nature-based programs are fabulous birthplaces for these sparks – the wilder the experience, the bigger the spark (and subsequent change and growth). It’s magical watching fundamental shifts take place during these events, as well as weeks or even months after – it’s hard to explain why, but often participants have delayed reactions.

People often ask me how I came up with my nature-based programs and I joke that the aliens just put the ideas in my mind. As I’ve observed wolves, horses and the wild animals of the Maasai Mara, obvious parallels to individual and team dynamics just come to me effortlessly. For example, a couple of nature’s tenets focus on collaboration and the concept of niche – that every organism has a job. Pack/herd animals (whether prey or predator) demonstrate these tenets brilliantly. Humans tend to structure hierarchically, whereas these animals have a model of circular leadership. Each member plays a necessary role, and the role’s importance might predicate rising into leadership depending on the situation. I could go on for hours on the many ways we can learn from nature, but I’ll control myself :).

Let’s see – beyond that, I am a big fan of using the Enneagram for individual and team development and I integrate it regularly into 1:1 coaching and team offsites.

We also want to give folks a chance to get to know you a bit better so we’ve prepared a fun lightning round of questions. Ready?

Favorite Movie: Princess Bride (but also Inglorious Basterds) (and Dodgeball) (and Life is Beautiful)

Favorite Book: The Alchemist

Sweet or Savory: Sweet

Mountains or Beach: Beach

Favorite Sport (to watch): Hockey!

As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up: Mail Delivery person (not lying), Veterinarian, Horse Trainer, Dog Trainer

French Fries or Onion Rings: French Fries!

Favorite Breakfast Food: Coffee

What would the perfect day look like for you? Please give us as many details as possible.
My perfect day is waking up in Kenya on the Maasai Mara. It’s pitch black when someone fetches you from your tent, and guides you with a flashlight to the breakfast lounge. Coffee (obviously) and then into the game drive vehicle to greet the sun’s rising and be in the magic of the wild. Hours are spent observing the most extraordinary animals and vistas one can imagine. The perfect day includes spotting many many baby animals, including but not limited to baby lions, baby cheetahs, baby leopards, baby hyenas, baby giraffes, baby baboons, baby zebras and needless to say, baby elephants. Part of the day includes sitting in the jeep on the savannah with the engine off and no other cars or humans around – being able to soak up the most pure and beautiful silence that I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist anywhere else on earth. Then back to the camp for lunch and a quick rest, and right back out into the wild for more (you guessed it) baby animals. Lots of adult animals too of course. After sundown, return to camp for an amazing meal and then to bed. Rinse/repeat for as many days as possible.

Website: https://www.janinedaviscoach.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janinedavisexecutivecoach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janineldavis/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JanineDavisHudsonExecCoach

Other: Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/janineldavis.bsky.social