She has dedicated her professional pursuits to supporting the development of leaders towards later stages of vertical development. Such mature leaders have been shown to thrive in midst of disruption, operate with more wisdom, build adaptive cultures and better balance the inherent polarities of profit, people, and sustainability within their businesses and beyond. 

Alis is an experienced coach trainer and mentor, having supported hundreds of external and internal coaches on their path to ICF credentialling and is a regular guest speaker at ICF regional and global events.

Alis has completed her PhD studying leaders’ psychological transformation (also called Adult /vertical development) and the developmental impact of leadership programs in one of the largest cross-sector/industry executive programs in Australia and NZ. Her core discoveries highlighted the previously unexplored role of contrasting (positive and negative) emotions to leaders’ transformative growth and illuminated how such growth can be purposefully fostered through specific program design, coaching and facilitation methods.

As a researcher-practitioner, Alis’ main interest is in translating the insights from human development research into effective learning programs and coaching processes and in embedding action-research principles into program structure to maximise the measurable impact on individual participants, their teams and the broader businesses. She blogs and hosts a podcast on vertical development at verticaldevelopment.education