Anne WallestadSenior Fellow, Western New York

Leadership Coach to Social Sector CEOs, Anne Wallestad Coaching, LLC

Anne is an executive leadership coach focused on helping social change leaders turn their attention to themselves so that they can do more good in the world. Working primarily with nonprofit and foundation CEOs and executive directors, Anne helps leaders bring intentionality and focus to their leadership practices and habits – often leading to greater clarity, balance, fulfillment, confidence, and energy.

Prior to launching her coaching practice, Anne spent nearly 25 years as a nonprofit executive. Anne started her nonprofit career working as a one-woman development shop for a local youth development organization in Des Moines, IA and ended it as the CEO of BoardSource, a globally-recognized nonprofit focused on strengthening the board-staff partnership within nonprofit organizations and foundations. While at BoardSource, Anne was successful in transforming the organization’s programmatic and business model – a change that resulted in BoardSource being named a Top 10 Finalist for the prestigious Drucker Prize for Innovation. These structural changes made it possible for BoardSource to dramatically expand its leadership role in the social sector, leveraging its unique role to challenge boards to lead with purpose and center equity.

A native Midwesterner, Anne moved to Washington, DC in her mid-twenties to build a career working to create positive change in the world. During her 20 years in DC, Anne grew up, fell in love, got married, became an aunt, served on the board of a social justice public charter school, and made life-long friends. In 2019, Anne and her wife relocated to her native Baltimore, where they have been enjoying getting to know this fabulously creative city. She is passionate about urban renewal and reinvestment, racial equity, LGBTQ equality, and all that it takes to create sustainable communities where all can thrive. In Anne’s personal time, she enjoys traveling, reading, listening to records, exploring Baltimore’s food scene, and being in the company of interesting and curious people who stretch her thinking and make her laugh.