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Join Us for Our Annual Conference Sept. 18 — Register Now!

Home2026 Conference Sessions
 
 

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Meet Our Speakers

Early bird pricing is available through August 18, and space is limited — please register soon!

Our conference sessions offer something meaningful for every coach, wherever you are in your practice, with a carefully curated mix of topics and perspectives. 

Browse our session lineup below and start planning your day.

CLOSING KEYNOTE
What AI Can’t Coach: Breaking the Habits That Hide Your Human Advantage
with Janet M. Harvey, MCC



AI can generate questions. It can summarize sessions, reflect content back, and deliver frameworks on demand. What it cannot do is stay present with resistance without resolving it. It cannot hold uncertainty. It cannot model the embodied shift that happens when a generative question actually lands.

Those capacities are structurally human. The question is whether your current coaching habits are letting them show.

This session names what makes coaching irreplaceable, then turns the lens inward. Three specific habits, common in experienced coaches, quietly suppress the very qualities AI cannot replicate.

Participants will leave with:
  • A clear articulation of what coaching delivers that AI cannot.
  • Identification of which habit most limits their own practice.
  • A concrete internal signal to notice in real time.
  • One recalibration practice to use in live sessions.
This is not a session about defending coaching. It is a session about sharpening it, so that what coaches bring to every conversation is unmistakably, demonstrably human. Coaches leave knowing exactly what to amplify and what to release.

 GENERAL SESSION
 
 


BREAKOUT SESSION 1
The Whole Picture: Sharpen Your Intersectional Lens for Deeper Coaching Impact
with Brian Arao, ACC



We cannot coach who we cannot fully and clearly see.

Join us to sharpen your coaching lens by understanding how your clients’ intersecting identities — race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and more — create unique experiences of power and privilege.

This session introduces intersectionality as a vital framework for deeper client understanding and trust-building. Through practical reflection on your own “constellation” of identities, you'll learn to recognize power dynamics that influence coaching conversations.

You’ll gain an actionable toolkit to help clients navigate leadership, career, and wellness decisions with greater clarity while honoring their whole selves.

 SKILLS DEVELOPMENT TRACK
 
 


BREAKOUT SESSION 2
Presence Before Promotion: Building Trust in the First Coaching Conversation
with Karla Van Havel, PhD, ACC



Many coaches are comfortable once the coaching begins, but the conversation before someone says yes can feel awkward. We may overexplain coaching, soften our value, talk too much, or avoid clearly inviting the next step.

This session reframes the first coaching conversation as a trust-building conversation, not a sales pitch. Coaches will explore how presence, listening, clarity, and brevity can help a potential client feel heard while also understanding the value of coaching.

Participants will leave with a simple framework they can use in introductory or discovery conversations.

 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT TRACK
 
 


BREAKOUT SESSION 3
When Fear Is in the Room: A Coach’s Toolkit for Moving Clients from Paralysis to Forward Motion
with Dr. Amanda Fernandez, PCC, BCC



Fear shows up in every coaching relationship, in the client who can’t seem to take the next step, the one who knows what to do but doesn’t do it, the one whose goals and actions keep drifting apart.

This session gives coaches a practical, compassionate toolkit for working with fear in real time: how to name it, reframe it, interrupt the catastrophizing spiral, and guide clients toward small, concrete actions that rebuild agency.

Drawing from real coaching work, Dr. Amanda Fernandez translates what fear actually looks like in session and what skilled coaches do when it’s in the room.

 SKILLS DEVELOPMENT TRACK
 Amanda Fernandez
 


BREAKOUT SESSION 4
How To Build A Referral System That Grows Itself
with Vlad Moskovski, ACC



In this session, Vlad Moskovski will introduce a structured referral conversation and a system for asking, getting, and tracking referrals that builds on itself and grows your business organically, through relationships.    

Most coaches ask for referrals. Few have a system that actually produces them.

The difference isn’t effort. It’s structure. You’ll learn a practical framework for turning your warmest relationships into a steady stream of introductions, and you’ll leave with a referral conversation you can use the same week.

By the end, you’ll have:
  • A map of your three best referral moments and what to do in each one
  • A practiced chain-of-needs conversation structure
  • A simple system to track and tend the relationships that feed your practice
 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT TRACK

 


BREAKOUT SESSION 5
Start Sensing: An Exploration of Somatic Coaching
with J Sikes, PCC



This session introduces coaches to somatic coaching, which integrates thinking, emotions, beliefs, actions, how we relate, and physical ways of knowing. Coaches often help clients uncover new perspectives and insights through conversation, yet real transformation occurs when new behaviors and actions are embodied and take root within the client’s soma. 

During this experiential workshop, coaches will explore how the body holds patterns that influence habits, decision-making, and transformation. Coaches will learn how to help clients access embodied awareness, shift limiting patterns, and sustain meaningful change. 

This workshop offers tools to deepen our coaching impact by engaging the full human system. Coaches will explore how the body holds patterns that influence habits, decision-making, and transformation. This information can then be used to strengthen one’s effectiveness as a coach, and support clients in their own growth and transformation.

 SKILLS DEVELOPMENT TRACK
 
 


BREAKOUT SESSION 6
How to Use AI to Build Your Coaching Brand
with Morice Mabry, PCC

Building a coaching brand can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re unsure how to communicate what makes your coaching unique. In this interactive session, discover how AI can become a thought partner that helps you identify your strengths, clarify your message, and transform your existing ideas into a consistent body of work. 

Using the evolution of his podcast as a real-world case study, Mo will demonstrate how conversations, transcripts, and intentional prompting helped him uncover the patterns, language, and themes that shaped his coaching brand. 

Participants will leave with practical prompts, a clear starting point, and confidence to begin using AI intentionally.

 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT TRACK
 Morice Mabry
 



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Conference space is limited — please register soon!

Whether you’re new to coaching or well into your practice, there’s something here for you.

Register Now
ICF Sacramento
3308 El Camino Ave, Suite 300-110
Sacramento, CA 95821
United States of America