Former Corporate Executive Transitions to Leadership Coaching After Two Decades in Finance

After spending over two decades at a large Chicago consulting firm, where she progressed from senior accountant to partner during the organization's growth from approximately 100 to more than 2,000 employees, Nicole Shaver made a significant career transition to leadership coaching. Her background as a CPA and accountant provided strong technical foundations, but she discovered that her true passion lay in building teams and developing people rather than financial analysis. The timing became right when her firm underwent ownership changes that created an opportunity for her to pursue coaching full-time.

Several factors prepared Shaver for this transition, including growing up with parents who owned their own business, giving her realistic expectations about entrepreneurship. During her corporate career, she developed leadership skills while driving financial and strategic planning and working closely with C-level executives. What makes her approach unique is the combination of strong analytical capabilities with people-focused abilities and natural extroversion that serves both finance and coaching contexts. She emphasizes that her experience watching business development and building trusted advisor partnerships translated directly to her new profession.

The decision to pursue coaching came after Shaver worked with a coach herself to navigate career transition questions. Initially resistant to leaving her corporate role and identity, she experienced firsthand the power of coaching to create space for reflection and possibility exploration. She realized that supporting people's growth and helping them achieve goals had always brought her fulfillment, even when she was informally coaching and mentoring throughout her corporate career without recognizing it as formal coaching. Her certification through the International Coaching Federation provided the educational foundation for skills she had been naturally developing.

As the primary earner for her family with nine-year-old twins, practical considerations were crucial to the transition. Her husband's role as house and life manager created a partnership that enabled the career change. Healthcare coverage represented a significant concern when moving from corporate benefits to self-employment. After utilizing COBRA coverage initially, Shaver needed to transition to marketplace insurance and found support through her former employer's partnership with the post-employment platform When. This Chicago-based company provided consistent guidance through the insurance selection process, helping her maintain continuity with her therapist, children's pediatrician, and specialists at Northwestern despite the premium increase from approximately $1,800 to $2,200 monthly.

Shaver now finds deep fulfillment in creating space for people to reflect and grow, helping leaders navigate transitions and teams transform their dynamics. She views the ability to shift perspectives and embrace new possibilities as a significant blessing in adult professional life. For others considering similar transitions, she advises not underestimating the power of reflection and working with someone who can help identify unseen possibilities. Understanding authentic values and drivers is essential, as is ensuring practical foundations like finances and healthcare are secured before focusing fully on building a new professional path.