About Jean
Jean has an unparalleled professional background that has enabled her to build an expanding global client base. In person, video conferencing, phone, text or email, Jean is fully accessible to meet her client’s needs around the world.
She provides client-centered and result driven sessions based on an optimistic approach to find opportunities rather than getting bogged down in problem solving. Her personalized approach is incredibly valuable in growing her client base, as word-of-mouth brings clients from around the world to learn and grow under her guidance.
With a wealth of experience in Executive Coaching, Career Counseling and Leadership/Management Development across a broad range of industries, non-profits and boards of directors both nationally and internationally, her client list includes international marketplace leaders from TATA, Halliburton, Oracle, MAN Diesel & Turbo, AXA Asset Management, Nike, and Groupe Bollore, etc. It includes companies from the very large to small, those who have historic footage in the culture of their countries along with start-ups. Government entities, health care and academia are in her portfolio right along with individuals who are ready to take on the challenge of creating their futures.
Jean added author to her professional profile with the release of The Age Advantage: Making the Most of Your Midlife Career Transition, (Putnam Penquin 2000). Publishers Weekly described her as, “Blunt, compassionate and effective.”
Public speaking is her opportunity to challenge people to rise above their own limitations and expectations and she has enjoyed speaking to the Harvard School of Business Alumnae in Cambridge, MA and the Wharton School of Business Alumnae in Boston, MA as well as numerous professional associations including the International Association of Career Management Firms in Prague, the Czech Republic, and Vancouver, BC, multiple keynote addresses and seminars to the International Association of Career Management Professionals including Montreal, London, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Chicago, and leading a panel discussion in Puerto Rico for career professionals from 29 countries and the UN.
Jean has been internationally certified as a Career Management Fellow (CMF) and is Past Chair of the Board of Governors of ICC International, the only independent, not-for-profit international board certification for career management professionals. She was a partner in OI Partners International, a global career services firm with 200 offices in 27 countries. She served on the Board of Directors for three years, following six years as VP of Research and Development. She established and led the International Board of Advisers with professionals from nine countries.
As Facilitator of the ExecuNet networking groups for Portland, OR/Vancouer, WA, she had the opportunity to learn about the struggles of senior level leaders and managers seeking new positions. She was a popular presenter for over 10 years on ExecuNet’s on-line sessions, where she provided techniques and strategies for job seekers and answered their questions. During a time of few job opportunities, the sessions on-line brought in large audiences of 150-400 people, at the same time on-site local group grew to 79. As she helped participants, Jean acquired a wealth of knowledge of their struggles and successes that served her in helping her own clients.
Jean’s own background gives her perspective on multiple ways of life and reflects her instinct for entrepreneurship, seeing a need or an opportunity and jumping in to expand it to help people. A colleague once said, “It doesn’t occur to you that you can’t do something and by the time you have done it, you have not only learned it but gone on to make it successful.” She grew up on a cattle ranch in the Little Badlands of North Dakota and has traveled to 47 countries, spending extended solo periods of time in France, Italy, Mexico, and Spain, and leading Friendship Force groups to India and to Israel/Egypt.
Developing and running a high school for US Navy dependents in the Caribbean through the University of Nebraska; Creating a gourmet restaurant and art gallery, The Sunbonnet, between Denver and Colorado Springs, CO; providing Career Management seminars and workshops for international conferences of Project Management Institute (PMI); developing on-line courses in Project Management for Digital Think, which were translated into 5 languages; teaching in five colleges/universities, all while obtaining an MA and a Doctorate in Education; publishing three books: life is an adventure waiting to be discovered and this is a philosophy she encourages her clients to adapt.
Jean is also an amateur photographer and provided all images for this website.
Honor the person that you are, peel the layers and find the richness within. Our sessions are a partnership, an exhilarating adventure to the future, just waiting to unfold.
Jean Erickson Walker