Portfolio Profile: Ileana Vassiliou
We have devoted so much time in this column to communicating the ideas of well-known thought leaders and management gurus who have published best sellers that we’ve started to wonder: maybe it’s time to toot our own horn in our own newsletter. This month we’re profiling Ileana Vassiliou, a certified professional co-active coach and member of the International Coaches Federation with over 25 years of progressively complex leadership experience with a range of US-based and global Fortune 500 corporations. Ileana, we’re very proud to say, is one of Sage Portfolio Group’s coaches. She works one-on-one with executives and helps to develop and deliver team training.
Ileana is one of those people who keeps you on your toes. Perhaps it has something to do with her first career as a professional ballet dancer, a formative experience which she states best prepared her for a coaching career. “I learned early on how to be a champion and bring out the greatest potential in people,” Ileana explains.
Ileana jumped from the stage to school, completing her MBA and then working for 25 years in a range of corporate roles and fields including manufacturing, distribution, materials management, quality control, organizational development and training. She discovered a passion for seeing organizations and leaders move to the next level, a revelation that led to her decision to expand the number of organizations she could assist. “I had a personal thirst to assist individuals and organizations,” she says. “But I also realized there is a thirst out there in the world to experience the benefits and impact of leadership development and coaching.”
She founded her own company in Reno, Nevada and has clients in India, the UK, Argentina, Canada and the US. She was born in Venezuela, moved to the US when she was a child, and is fluent in Spanish, English and Romanian. Ileana’s commitment to lifelong learning means she is a master certified coach and is certified in the Emergenetics Profile instrument, EQ assessments, Myers-Briggs, Achieve Global’s customer service and leadership program and can administer all of the assessments of the Center for Creative Leadership, including the 360 instrument.
Ileana prefers to work with both the executives in an organization and the organization itself. This unique approach recognizes the interface between leader and company which must be strengthened in order for sustainable improvement to occur. In addition to her work with a number of Fortune 100 companies, she has been working for the past three years with a high profile government client in Nevada providing individual coaching and training.
In addition to her coaching and training work with corporations and the public sector, Ileana teaches an 18 month management certification program for Nevada’s government leaders. We are honoured to have Ileana as a member of the Sage Portfolio Group team. Our organization and clients have benefited from her experience, skills and grace. Perhaps someday we’ll get her to sidle up to the barre and teach us a few moves. Plié anyone?
