Business View Oceania - June 2023

33 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6 INTERNAT IONAL COACHING FEDERAT ION Because the profession of coaching was, and to this day, is still unregulated, the ICF has also taken upon itself the responsibility over the years of developing and promoting codes and standards for the profession, while simultaneously becoming its main accrediting, credentialing, and educating body. Today, the ICF offers three highly respected credentials: Associate, Professional, and Master Certified Coach. Magdalena Mook has been ICF’s CEO since 2005, and she’s watched the profession take off. “The growth has been quite tremendous,” she exclaims, “especially in the last five years – accelerating by 10-13 percent every year, which is quite unprecedented. Right now, we are a platform for 60,000 individuals in over 160 countries.” While the COVID-19 pandemic years were difficult for many associations, ICF, after what Mook characterizes as “a little bit of initial panic in the coaching market,” actually expanded. “It was quickly obvious that coaches could easily and quite efficiently turn to virtual ways of providing their services. And the clients accepted it,” she states. “As organizations were struggling with remote work, coaching was becoming a proven methodology for leaders and individuals alike in finding ways to better cope with such a tremendous unknown.” “In the early days of the pandemic, people had time to complete their training and be eligible for membership and eventually for their credentials. So, for us, it was quite a period of growth with new members joining the organization and more individuals seeking the professional credentials that our organization offers,” she continues. The type of rapid growth that Mook witnessed necessitated a re-evaluation of the association’s structure, something which she says took place over the last three years, starting just before the pandemic and accelerating during its occurrence. “We were already in the way of transforming the organization when the pandemic hit,” she recalls. “It was challenging, but it showed our resilience.” Today, the newly reconstituted ICF comprises six Family Organizations that focus on specific sections of the coaching marketplace. According to Mook, one of the most significant brands in ICF’s Family Organization ecosystem is Professional Coaches. “They have organizing chapters; they provide leadership development and training; and they support community and networking for individuals,” she explains. Credentials and Standards is the brand that oversees and manages the credentialing of individual coach practitioners; Coaching Education oversees and manages the accreditation and approval of coaching education providers. The ICF Foundation is the fourth pillar and a philanthropic arm of the ecosystem. “It offers coaching for the population that otherwise would not have access to coaching,” Mook reports. “And we started offering scholarships for individuals that would become coaches who, otherwise, might not have easy access to coaching education.” Magdalena Nowicka Mook