The ThirdWay Team
The ThirdWay team is a diverse group of practitioners who bring skills and expertise in coaching, leadership, organizational development, assessments, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, customer relations, talent management and cultural fluency.
Uniquely positioned to deliver a truly exceptional experience, they are passionate about the work they do and the impact they want to have in the world.
In their work with individuals and organizations around the globe, their unfailing commitment to growth serves as a driver for creating sustainable change.
In addition to our primary team, we maintain relationships with a number of talented adjunct coaches, facilitators and trainers which allows us to scale the scope of our services to meet the needs of organizations both large and small.
Gina Paigen, PCC, CPCC, CNTC
Gina Paigen, PCC, CPCC, CNTC is a professional coach and leadership consultant; passionate about guiding individuals and organizations to a deeper sense of purpose and higher levels creativity, engagement, and inspired action. She brings over 25 years diverse experience as coach, facilitator, speaker, entrepreneur, artist and writer.
Gina’s work is focused on building a new organizational paradigm that fuses a focus on the strengths of the individual with service to the mission, vision and desired outcomes of the organization.
Prior to taking the leap into coaching and leadership work, Gina spent 17 years as founder and CEO of a multi-million dollar commercial historic restoration company which she built from the ground up. Having honed her own special blend of business acumen and creativity, she is uniquely qualified to assist organizations and their leaders tap into their own entrepreneurial spirit, helping broaden their perspectives and expand their creative potential.
An accomplished writer and program designer, Gina is both insightful and analytical. She is also highly intuitive, and is known for her ability to build trust and create dynamic relationships that allows her clients to stretch well beyond their comfort zones.
Gina is a dynamic presenter, and as part of her commitment to engaging in difficult conversations, she presented “From Fear to Forgiveness to Forward” at TEDxBuffaloWomen. She has also been published in The Huffington Post.
Gina is a Certified Professional Co-active Coach (CPCC) through the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) through the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and a Certified Neuroscience Transformational Coach (CTNC) through BeAbove Leadership. She is also a certified practitioner of The Leadership Circle Profile™ 360 Assessment and a graduate of CTI’s Leadership and Leadership Way programs.
Along with her private coaching practice, Gina is a member of CTI’s Organizational Coaching Team, and she serves as a program designer and facilitator for SUNY Buffalo Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Her list of credits includes work with The World Bank, UNICEF, Stantec, MIT/Sloan, The Jackson Laboratory, Plato’s Closet, The Clothes Mentor, Leoni , Kenco, The Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) and Mindcamp.
Gina is an avid reader and a life-long learner. She has studied Art and English Education at Empire State College, photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, and Theatrical Stage Design at Northwestern University.
Deborah brings a wealth of industry experience and knowledge to her position as a Senior ThirdWay Associate focusing on business development. She uses critical thinking skills, creative problem solving techniques and a consultative approach to help organizations maximize talent, leverage diversity and inclusion, and drive innovation.
Deborah works collaboratively with her clients to address their unique challenges. Her intellectual curiosity, energetic style, and breadth of experience with both sales and delivery of talent development initiatives, allow her to create elegant solutions to complex and sometimes seemingly unsolvable problems.
Prior to joining the ThirdWay team, Deborah was Principal, Talent and Leadership Development practice at LHH Knightsbridge (formerly Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions). She worked with clients across industries on the development of smart, ROI-focused leadership and team effectiveness solutions.
Throughout her career, Deborah has served her clients as business development consultant, assessor, instructional designer, facilitator and leader. She is an accomplished speaker, and has spoken at the national conferences of Retail Council of Canada, The North West Company, Supply Chain Management Association (SCMA), The Conference Board of Canada’s Workforce One-Stop 2013, Women in Leadership and Business, and an International webinar for HR.com Virtual Conference.
Deborah has an Honors Bachelor of Arts degree from Western University in London, Ontario, and is certified to conduct psychometric assessments. She has lived and worked in Europe and Asia, and draws on her international experience to help organizations challenge assumptions and embrace diverse, global perspectives that lead to exceptional results.
Leonid Frolov, CPCC, is a highly-sought after coach, trainer and leadership facilitator who works with a variety of private individuals, groups and organizations. He is passionate about bringing the topic of cultural fluency into the leadership conversation, particularly in multicultural environments.
Leonid holds a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) certification through The Coaches Training Institute (CTI), and is a graduate of their Leadership program. In addition to his private practice, Leonid serves as a member of the certification faculty at CTI.
In partnership with COPE, Leonid is co-designer and facilitator of a program that provides coaching for employees of the World Bank and their spouses. He is also co-founder of the Crossing Borders with Confidence partnership, which launched in September of 2014 at the International Student House in Washington D.C.
Leonid is an engaging public speaker who brings his own rich life experience to his audience. His involvement with language and literature has given him a deep appreciation for the art of storytelling and he has recently launched his own storytelling event.
Leonid considers himself a true “culture vulture”. Prior to coaching, he ran his own successful interpretation and translation business for 18 years and then joined International Launch Services as a senior interpreter. In that capacity, he traveled the world gaining experience with a myriad of cultures, and his role naturally expanded to cultural consulting and mentoring. He has a deep knowledge of a broad spectrum of cultures in the Americas, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and the South Pacific.
Leonid grew up in Russia where he received a B.S. in geology from St. Petersburg Mining Institute and worked on two geological expeditions in the Russian Far East and Central Asia. He later received a Masters in Linguistics from St. Petersburg State University, and upon graduation, was invited to join the faculty as an English and French language professor at St. Petersburg State Institute of Trade and Economics.
Leonid has direct personal experience with upheaval and change. The first major life change came when he set out on his own and moved to the U.S. to start his own interpretation and translation business. Twenty years later he made another leap of faith and entered the field of professional coaching. He is committed to his own development, and continues to explore opportunities for personal and professional growth.
Leonid has a passion for dancing and acting (he danced in Russia for 17 years, from the age of 6), and he performed a central role at the Carnegie Hall world premiere of an operatic tableau.
Leonid is an active member of International Coaches Federation (ICF) and currently makes his home in Washington, DC.
At the age of nine, Indy Batth and her family immigrated to Vancouver from India via a seven-year stopover in England. Having grown up “caught between cultures,” she now finds herself compelled to work for equity, inclusion, and social change.
Indy has a Bachelor’s Degree in Physical Education and Master of Arts in Education from the University of British Columbia. She spent much of her early career in academia, working to enhance student experiences, and through that gained expertise in the effective design and delivery of educational programming.
In 2002, Indy was introduced to coaching and has since gone on to become a Certified Executive Coach through Royal Roads University.
Indy is fascinated with the field of learning and human development. Her work integrates the latest in neuroscience, positive psychology, change management theory and social justice. She is grounded in her own wisdom and intuition, and is deeply committed to exploring social responsibility, transformational leadership, transition and change, cultural fluency, diversity and wellness with her clients (as it pertains to both their personal and professional lives). She has the capacity to engage in powerful, heart-centered conversations that taps her clients’ potential, opens them to new perspectives and ultimately leads them to committed action in the direction of their goals and objectives. Indy has been called a compassionate change catalyst.
Indy is pursuing her certification as a Transformational Neuroscience Coach (CTNC) through BeAbove Leadership. Originally from Vancouver, BC, she currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Mike Hutchins, CPCC, brings a unique combination of talents to his work as a coach and organizational development specialist; blending his early training as a CPA / Chartered Accountant with a Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma, a coaching certificate, leadership training and a passion for theater and improvisation.
Mike has chalked up over 15 years consulting experience with Price Waterhouse Cooper, IBM Business Consulting and KPMG; where he focused on change management, organizational and instructional design, strategy, program management and leadership development.
Mike has significant international experience, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, and he is fluent in Spanish, French and English. Over the years, his clients have included Vodafone, Safaricom, O2, Telefonica, Orange, BBC, Wolseley, National Health Service, Novo Nordisk, Alliance UniChem, Cemex, AECOM and Saudi Telecom.
Mike is a Certified Co-Active Coach (CPCC), specializing in executive coaching, a graduate of the Coaches Training Institute (CTI) Leadership Program, a certified practitioner of The Leadership Circle Profile and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
As an avid student of improvisational theater, Mike loves to act, and he has a passion for bringing acting principles into the world of business.
Mike typically divides his time between the U.S. and the UK, and he is currently writing his first novel, “The Theater of your Mind”.
Chris Neilands, CPCC, PCC, is a leadership coach and consultant with more than 20 years of experience supporting the personal and professional growth of others. Her focus is on working with individuals and teams committed to expanding their personal and collective leadership potential.
Chris has experience with a wide range of organizational clients; Fortune 500 companies, small to mid-sized companies, educational institutions and non-profits. She enjoys working with a diverse range of clients; from full-time MBA students to entry level supervisors to senior level executives. Chris’ approach to development is oriented around increasing self-awareness, crafting a leadership vision, developing a plan with concrete action steps and deliverables, and holding clients accountable to bring the plan to fruition. She is known for her personalized service and her passionate commitment to her client’s growth.
Chris’ transition to leadership coaching and consulting was born out of her own leadership experience in university settings where she spent 16 years in marketing, career management and leadership development; first for the MBA program at Purdue and then for the MBA program at the University of Georgia. In those positions she was responsible to lead teams and manage projects that required building and maintaining relationships with both internal and external stakeholders. Chris currently manages the leadership coaching component for the MBA programs at the Terry College of Business and has served in a coaching capacity at that institution for the past six years.
Chris also spent five years as a human resource consultant with Lincoln Financial Corporation where she provided human resource expertise to line managers on a range of issues; recruiting, staffing, training, performance management and employee relations.
She has designed and delivered workshops, training programs and distance learning content on a variety of topics related to leadership and talent development.
Chris earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resource Management and Master’s Degree in Higher Education Administration from Purdue University. She completed a rigorous coach training program through the Coaches Training Institute (CTI) and is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC). She is also certified as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) through the International Coach Federation (ICF).
Chris is a certified practitioner in a number of assessment tools including: The Leadership Circle Profile, The Leadership Circle Culture Survey, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Strong Interest Inventory.
When she isn’t working, Chris enjoys rowing her boat on the Chattahoochee, hiking and climbing in beautiful parks and discovering new places off the beaten path. She resides in Atlanta, GA.