Sabina's proven approach to rapidly identifying key development opportunities and then deploying focused actions has resulted in very positive results in my personal leadership development.  Sabina's classic textbook instruction combined with experiential learning enabled me to quickly deploy what I had learned, and the positive feedback I received from my peers as a result of the coaching was very rewarding.  I highly recommend Sabina to others looking to improve upon their own personal and professional capabilities.

Andrew Fraher, Vice President, ITT Corporation

Our work involves the creation of leadership programs for highly qualified and seasoned senior leaders in high-technology. Therefore, we carefully select the very best leadership development consultants – those that can develop the leadership skills of those technical leaders who are already at the top of their profession. Those consultants are very hard to find. Sabina Nawaz is a rare find as she can teach the highest level executives and individual contributors. Sabina customizes the leadership principles she teaches for the specific needs of each audience. Her work has brought our workshops’ reputation to a new level.  Caroline Simard, VP of Research and Executive Programs, Anita Borg Institute for Women Technology

Telle Whitney, PhD, CEO and President, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology

I particularly want to thank you for the feedback you provided, I found it enormously helpful.  My insecurity demons are ever-present, so it’s an ongoing challenge to put them back in the box and keep them there.  But you gave me some very helpful tips on how to do this, and also modeled a great example of how to give feedback. Thanks again for making it painless to receive.

Identity Withheld Upon Request

I highly recommend Sabina Nawaz as an Executive Coach. She is well connected, and has worked with the highest levels of management, so she brings an adroit understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and politics of the executive suite. She is an avid student of leadership and growth, constantly pushing me to examine and implement new ideas and new ways of being. She is very direct about pointing out the things that I need to work on, and very supportive in helping me to make the changes that I need to grow as a person and as a leader. My awareness, impact, and effectiveness as a leader have all increased as a result of her experience and expertise.

Lee Shupp, Executive Vice President, Cheskin Added Value

I've known Sabina for over a decade. There are very few people who I would feel comfortable recommending in this way. However when it comes to Sabina my recommendation is unreserved. Sabina brings a unique combination of experience and expertise to any engagement.  She draws upon her personal experience as a leader in both line and staff functions. This experience ensures that her contribution remains grounded in reality at all times. This makes for an efficient interaction saving both time and resources. Beyond this experience Sabina has an aptitude for this work that is uncommon. She clearly has a wealth of models and frameworks upon which she can call. However, the critical point is the way that she can work with both teams and individuals, facilitating their way to a useful outcome. Sabrina is honest, direct and respectful. She has been a great coach and a most trustworthy confidant for me.  

 James Douglas, General Manager, Office International, Microsoft

Sabina has enormous compassion.  She's non-judgmental, but doesn’t over empathize either.  She conducts a rigorous search for the most useful truth or insight.  She has an unerring ability to find that shining strand that’s most useful to illuminate, to find the most impactful thing to work on. Sabina doesn't rush to judgment.  She holds back until she’s quite clear and has enough evidence.  She doesn’t short circuit the diagnosis of the presenting issue so that the client gets thorough and robust work.  And when she finally says the truth as she sees it, she says it in a way that's both unapologetic and compassionate.

Liz Welch, Executive Coach

Sabina's facilitation of the Organization Workshop at our annual Leadership Retreat was outstanding. Her high energy, engaging style helped us to remain introspective and focus on learning, both from the simulation and from each other. Our team gained a fresh perspective on firm wide interaction and a shared resolve to support continuous improvement.

Eric T. Overton, President and CEO, Sparling

I have found working with Sabina Nawaz very valuable in helping me to think in novel ways about issues that arise in my work situation.  She has provided excellent suggestions for dealing with difficult issues and has helped me to see myself as others might see me.  She helped me in particular to set both short and long-term goals and to work on strategies for achieving them.  Her warm and supportive approach has been wonderful; I look forward to my discussions with her and the opportunity to share experiences and learn from her.

President, Name and College Withheld Upon Request

I can sincerely say that albeit short, these 3 sessions were the most helpful professional guidance sessions I have ever had.  You were really clear and specific in both your guidance and suggested actions, which really helped me a lot.  In all honesty, I was dreading the idea of … going through sessions  that I really didn’t think I had time for, but I have to say that I was proven wrong and it turned out that it was exceptionally valuable for me on so many fronts – much more than you probably realize. So thank you for being so easy to talk with and for your help.  These are insights that I will hold onto for a long, long time.

Jeana Jorgensen, Director, Microsoft

It was great having you help me confirm areas of challenge and guide me to options and solutions with clear examples and analogies that were both practical and easily adopted to effect change in habit and reverting to type .  You were also as good or better than I expected from a coach and I am very pleased that I had the opportunity to work with you.

Senior Director, EMEA region, Name and Corporation Withheld Upon Request

Sabina is hands-down one of the best professionals I have worked with. Her deep business know-how is augmented by an unrelenting commitment to integrity and results, high-level coaching skills, polished presentation ability, and keen wisdom. Sabina lives the concepts she teaches: authenticity, integrity, and values-based leadership. She brings humor, excellence, and generosity to every endeavor, whether she is facilitating a group, coaching an executive, designing courseware or being a friend. She challenges others to reach for new heights and they still enjoy the process.

Jane Gregg, Owner, Jane Gregg Consulting

I love the coaching sessions with Sabina! I was awed that with a few assessments that I sent her, she was dead-accurate in her interpretation of my focus areas and how I show up as a leader. She makes me feel comfortable about sharing difficult issues and offers practical advice about how to overcome [them]. I sense her sincerity in working with me to be more effective and not just because it’s her job or assignment. Thank you, Sabina!

Nina Chow, Finance Director, Asia Pacific Operations Center, Microsoft

Sabina is one of the best facilitators I’ve ever worked with.  She was able to draw out insights from every participant and to help the group synthesize the information to form their own conclusions and create concrete action plans.

Dr. Kathie L. Olsen, Senior Advisor, National Science Foundation

I would like to thank you once again for all the help you have given me throughout the training. I am particularly appreciative of you spending the time even after the training on the phone to provide feedback. I am really glad that I had the opportunity to attend the course, and I feel particularly fortunate that I get you to be our coach for many of our sessions. Your feedback was direct and helpful. This is a life changing event for me.

Identity Withheld Upon Request

Sabina’s warm and authentic style encourages me to be open and honest with myself such that I can do my best work.   Working with Sabina has enabled me to scale my leadership and become a better leader.   Sabina has an amazing capability to quickly recognize and articulate what is beneath the surface.  She is crisp, clear, and we are purposeful in our meetings.     Not a moment is wasted and she often surprises me with ‘extras’ in her follow-up.    Often, after a coaching session, I will continue to grow while considering the questions she asked me during the discussion.  Her coaching has helped me create long-lasting results in a very short time.   I have been challenged to grow exponentially while always having been treated with consideration and respect.   After a year of working with Sabina, I received the best 360 feedback of my career.

Carol Hedly, High Potential Leadership Development, Microsoft

If there is a bar to what excellence looks like in developing and delivering an intact workshop on strategy and leadership the Strategic Success workshop is that measure.  The way you consider the environment and the systems within which you are working, your ability to engage and connect with the participants, the time that is consistently built into this workshop for 1:1 coaching and feedback to help the participants recognize and grow from their behavior and thinking in the moment, real time, moves the needle for our company, every time.  Our Executive Leadership team anticipates the Strategic Success workshop to hear your insights, and to listening and learning from the presentations that the participants put forward.

...[you] have made a significant and positive difference in the working lives and performance of the employees you have been engaged with.  We have seen a marked difference.

Georgette Verdin, Pam Caughill, and Susanne Broman, Global Leadership & Talent Development Directors, the Fluid & Motion Control Platform, ITT

My work with Sabina was driven by her great passion, experience and insight into the challenges a leader faces in his daily work.  Her careful coaching, but also restless demand to really understand those challenges and to develop potential ways to address them, has been extremely helpful. She is very focused in follow up’s.  She's concerned with demonstrating progress and searching out improvements.

Ralph Haupter, COO, Microsoft Germany

First off let me say it has been a privilege working with you, I have learned so much about myself, especially:  

I have felt valued and appreciated, through your candid feedback
I have learned to communicate much more clearly, by pausing to take a drink, or reflecting back the question
I now know how to gain perspective, by climbing onto to the balcony
I can measure my responses, by observing interactions with those around me
I have many references to fall back on, you have provided me with a great list of books
I can pull together and articulate a strategy more clearly, through all the tools you have provided me.

My goal was to present myself more clearly, to work on my executive presence; I believe I have moved that needle, physically, mentally, emotionally.  

I know that I still have a lot of work to do... For now I need to take what you have taught me, and apply it to its fullest.

Identity Withheld Upon Request

There is no question you set a high quality standard for our [leadership events].  We think the world of you, and you are a great facilitator for [leadership events].

President and CEO, Non-Profit Organization, Name Withheld Upon Request

I chose to work with Sabina. My communication issues included being too outspoken, too willing to engage in debates and too quick to respond (with the result that people sometimes felt their ideas had not been heard).

Our work began with conversations between Sabina, myself and some of our trustees to identify the issues to be addressed. This was followed by a campus visit by Sabina in which she observed my participation in meetings and conducted one-on-one interviews with faculty, staff, and trustees. After Sabina provided me with feedback, books to read, and other helpful information, I worked with her to develop a detailed action plan. Over the next several months we discussed my progress on a regular basis to ensure that the plan was working. I found Sabina a delight to work with and I credit her with making the change process much easier for me to absorb and embrace than it might have been otherwise. Everyone at HMC has been impressed with her quiet professionalism and the positive effect her coaching has had on me.

I have spent some time thinking about what it is about Sabina’s approach that made it so effective. She is a superb listener and observer and is able detect to emotional and political nuances even when in unfamiliar environments. This was Sabina’s first time in coaching an academic leader, but she navigated the complicated faculty-staff-trustee relationships effortlessly. Sabina is exceptionally good at providing balanced feedback that stresses the positive aspects of one’s style as well as indicating the aspects that one might want to change in order to be more effective in interactions with some people. Sabina helped me craft an action plan that was tailored to my values and this made it much easier for me to implement.

I give Sabina my strongest recommendation.

 Maria Klawe, President, Harvey Mudd College

Two events during my 11 year career at Microsoft made the biggest impact on my job and me personally. The first one was the Dale Carnegie training and the second was the coaching sessions with Sabina Nawaz.

Bohdan Raciborski, Group Program Manager, Microsoft

Why do you need professional coaching? To escape making the default choices that have simultaneously defined your barriers and success to date.   Sabina’s crisp counsel, straightforward analysis of how to navigate frequent organization changes, emotional support, advice, and constructive criticism on how to approach situations, along with mentoring on how to take on new challenges in new domains and roles painted the choices that I needed to make in a new light.  She didn’t blunt the risk, rather, she made the risks more clear – both the risks of trying something new as well as the risks of staying with the tried and true.  

Tara Prakriya, General Manager, Technical Strategy, Microsoft