The coaching is extremely useful! Working with Sofia as a mentor gave me clarity and momentum at moments when I felt stuck. Keeping things structured helped - taking notes and deciding an agenda beforehand. I gained useful skills like giving feedback and outreach strategy, and also received help to prepare for and handle difficult conversations at work. It's also really nice to have a thought partner to talk out my uncertainties with. Especially one who has more context and experience than I do.
Shrilaxmi Patil
After 2 Magnify Mentoring sessions
José Ramón Mallén Vargas-Machuca
Former Fundraising Manager at Observatorio de Bienestar Animal (formerly Equalia), after a few months of internal communication consulting
Thanks to Sofia, the Equalia team was trained to use Asana as a project management tool in a professional, agile and efficient way. During her time in our organization, we were able to reach the next level for working remotely. Sofia developed a communication protocol for the use of communication tools that guided us through a period of rapid growth. Sofia is a great professional and her commitment to effective animal advocacy is a great asset to activists and groups around the world.
Kale Risdale
Former Managing Director at We Animals Media. After a few months of internal communication consulting
As a remote team, we already loved and heavily relied upon our tasks management tool, but not everyone was using it in the same way. As a manager, I was concerned about being too rigid and imposing too much structure -- but the result was that balls were occasionally being dropped. In Sofia's training, we were able to see that the tool only works if everyone agrees on the rules of use. There were many "ooohhh!" and "ah-ha!" moments for the team on how to use certain functions (that others thought were obvious!). We were also able to use the training to improve our onboarding process; instead of assuming new team members would sooner than later get the gist of how to use our task management tool, we now have training materials to ensure new team members use it the way everyone else does, resulting in far fewer balls being dropped.
Testimonials
I have worked with people as a manager, mentor, and consultant for over 7 years. Here is what they say about working with me.
Sam Chapman
Sam Chapman — Managing Director at Sentient Futures, given after a 30 minute call
I found my chat with Sofia to be one of the most value-dense conversations I’ve had in my personal development as a leader/manager. While I was already aware of some of the advice Sofia gave me in theory, and I’m sure I could have accessed much of the advice if I had spent enough time reading, it was very useful to have someone (1) narrow down the specific strategies and considerations to overcome my specific challenges, and (2) affirm that these are strategies that could work in my situation, and implicitly “give me permission” to try them out - particularly where the strategy was bold and a departure from the way things currently work. Here, it was particularly important that I trust and respect Sofia, and know that she has implemented such strategies herself with great results. As a general point, I also think Sofia’s empathetic and emotionally intelligent nature helped me to well articulate my challenges and feel listened to.
Specific topics covered:
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I need to have some space to think to best perform my role, not just executing 24/7.
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Helping me better define what is and isn’t in scope of my role as MD - and what I should expect of others in my team (especially re: decision-making).
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Highlighting my ability to say no to new work streams/ideas if I’m at capacity, or ask for extra resource/support to do it.
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The value of explicitly aligning on vision.
Who would benefit from Sofia’s coaching:
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I am a managing director with less than 1 year of experience (but with ~2 years of prior management experience) and found it very valuable, so certainly newer or aspiring MDs, executive directors, and managers.
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I find it very plausible that more experienced leaders than I could benefit from Sofia’s coaching, especially if they don’t quite feel like they know and are implementing best practices for their situation.
Let's untangle the execution together.
Kevin Xia
Managing Director at Hive, Sofia's direct report for 2 + years
As someone new to leadership, having Sofia as a manager, mentor and coach supercharged my growth. She provided me with extensive resources to help me find my grounding and continuous kind and direct advice whenever needed. More importantly, she made a lot of space for me to think through my challenges autonomously and set up a well-structured professional development plan for me to keep an eye on my growth.
An aspect I have found uniquely valuable is the culture I inherited and continued to cultivate across the organization. It was only after my reports pointed out how much space and psychological safety they feel to provide and seek out feedback that I noticed all the habits and pointers Sofia had instilled in me over time.