When a client told LaTonya Wilkins that her company’s coaching solutions had sustainably transformed their entire culture, Wilkins realized she was hearing the kind of feedback that was missing during her years in corporate leadership development and consulting firms.
Wilkins is the founder and CEO of Change Coaches, a leadership and organizational development consultancy designed to bridge the gap between superficial training and real psychological safety.
After seeing how often traditional professional development failed to address the systemic "below the surface" issues that actually drive culture, Wilkins created Change Coaches in 2018 and pursued it full-time in 2022. Today, the company serves hundreds of clients globally, including organizations like Google, Blue Cross Blue Shield and University of Illinois.
While Change Coaches initially offered standard workshop packages, Wilkins pivoted to a coaching-first model, recognizing that lasting organizational impact requires long-term relationships beyond one-off programming.
“It’s that relationship that is really important to us. Clients will say, ‘We never feel that we’re bothering you, and you always have space for us,’” Wilkins said.
Rooted in Wilkins’s award-winning book, Leading Below the Surface, Change Coaches offers signature solutions including executive coaching and customizable leadership development programs, targeted towards specific problems identified in an initial discovery session.
Each coach at the company is certified by the International Coaching Federation, utilizing the Change Coaches LEAD Assessment, alongside other diagnostic data gathered through a strategic partnership with Culture Amp, to measure trust and belonging on teams.
Whether a client is saying, "We've scaled fast and now everything feels harder," or "Our leaders are technically strong but struggling with people leadership," Change Coaches provides guidance through uncertainty and growth.
“We focus more on shifting identity to be aligned with change, decision-making and trust under pressure — basically the human side of leadership,” Wilkins said.
This focus on the human element is especially relevant to the current shift toward AI integration in workplaces. In her most recent white paper, Wilkins addresses a “culture of fear” permeating employees driven by AI-driven restructuring.
“I see that people are still stuck in the fear,” Wilkins noted. “They’re stuck because a lot of orgs are betting on AI and preemptively laying people off before they even see results.”
Wilkins introduces a perspective that positions AI as a tool to outsource busy work and reclaim time that leaders can spend with their teams. By automating routine tasks like drafting emails and data entry, leaders can reinvest that time to check in on a colleague or celebrate a teammate's milestone.
Having a physical home for Change Coaches was essential, and Wilkins found it in TeamWorking by TechNexus, Chicago’s innovation hub located in the Civic Opera Building.
Wilkins purposely chose this space to deepen her roots in the local business community, further using the office to meet clients, record podcasts and gather her team for offsites.
The partnership with TeamWorking proved especially vital when Change Coaches sponsored its first-ever panel and networking event in September.
"It was really great to have TechNexus backing us up,” Wilkins said. “It was wonderful how they supported the event and helped us get people here."
Wilkins’s physical presence in Chicago is an extension of her company’s commitment to accessibility for its clients. While the rise of AI is changing how many organizations operate, Change Coaches remains focused on the human side of that transition, building the trust within teams and leaders that is necessary for sustainable change.