Jan Irene Miller listens to the aspirations of successful organizational leaders wanting a deeper sense of satisfaction from their leadership and higher levels of performance from their teams. She engages leaders in design conversations, then maps out a path of learning engagement tailored specifically to bridge the gap between their current situation and the future they envision through practice. Her extensive experience in global industry leadership and management, as well as her expertise as a coach in embodied transformation, informs her work with clients to support their success in becoming self-learning and self-generating teams.

Jan Irene’s clients have included entrepreneurs, executives, scientists, managers, engineers, government officials and consultants. Before founding Fit for Leadership LLC and collaborating to launch Altus Growth Partners, she developed global management expertise building software development and professional services teams for Control Data, Silicon Graphics, AtosOrigin, and GTSI.

Through exploratory conversations and assessments, Jan Irene takes a deep dive into the way in which leaders and teams relate and work together. She shows clients how their current ways of relating, thinking, coordinating, and creating conversations both support and hold back intended outcomes and affect the value they want to create. By uncovering blindnesses and introducing new learning and practices, Jan Irene helps leaders bring new conversations, moods, and behaviors into relationships and to articulate shared standards for performance to become a cohesive team of their own design.

Jan Irene received her MBA from Indiana University, Bloomington. By continuously learning leadership skills, she advanced from software developer to director of professional industrial and technical solutions. She’s certified as a professional development and somatic coach and coach supervisor through the Newfield Network, Strozzi Institute, and Sandton Coaching Centre. She’s also a graduate of the 3-year Generative Leadership Program, a program coach, and an affiliate instructor for the Institute for Generative Leadership.

Jan Irene is passionate about leadership responsibility and how it contributes to a beautiful and healthy community—including all aspects of environmental, social, and economic health. As a performing artist, painter, swimmer, mother, and outdoorswoman, she thrives in the beauty and power of nature. Her dedication with helping others began with volunteer work at the age of 12 in the camps for migrant farm workers in Minnesota. Today, she is the on the Board of her local watershed council, she mentors MBA/JD and high school students, and she serves as a member of Rotary and Chamber of Commerce. After having lived and worked in South and Central America and Africa, she and her husband settled in Oregon, where they’ve restored and rebuilt a large woodland property in partnership with many organizations and craftsmen. Their three adult children and large extended family enjoy frequent visits to Bird Haven.

Volunteer work has been a consistent part of her life and in December 2009 she received the AAFSW Secretary of State Award for volunteer work abroad as a member of “La Comisión de Transporte, Cámara de Comercio, Industrias y Agricultura de Panamá”. This Commission worked to elevate urban transportation on the country agenda as part of the Panama Presidential elections of May 2009. In May 2013 she initiated and completed an infrastructure development project in Nsongwe Village, Zambia.

As an artist, her abstract paintings have been likened to Wassily Kandinsky and her art is a practice of presencing harmony in the face of chaos. Jan Irene likens the bare canvas to the unknown the leader faces when she makes big declarations to shape the future. Abstract painting allows Jan Irene the medium to listen and explore the emotional context of the unknown. Since 2009, Jan Irene has participated in the artist collaborative Spark Project. During each 10-day project round, participants create new work using someone else’s art, writing, or music as inspiration. All resulting work is then displayed online, alongside the piece that inspired it. She finds the experience challenging and rewarding and is keen on the collaborative aspect.