Elizabeth Seja Min cut her teeth guiding teams as a music director and conductor. At age 25, she co-founded and conducted a professional symphony orchestra, building the brand, the leadership, and the business from the ground up.
She went on to lead large jazz ensembles, mentor young, highly talented inner-city vocalists, see two of her projects nominated for Grammy Awards, and receive honors for her skill in bringing diverse, cross-cultural, and unlikely partners together to create something magnificent on the stage.
In 2001, she had the invaluable experience of serving as secretariat for the U.S. NGO Coordinating Committee, working on the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia. She was selected in serve in this complex role based on recognition of her work with a range of U.S. organizational leaders and teams on issues of diversity and inclusion.
This led to a decade as senior consultant to the Women’s Funding Network, where she worked with North American, European, Global South, and Global East leadership teams on essential skills and products related to developing people, rights, and resources. The root of all programs Elizabeth designed and led for these projects leveraged differences across race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, culture, economic position, country, and region.
This was a necessity for building an international network with a critical mass of leadership that could adapt, innovate, and collaborate on the basis of having had shared learning experiences. Elizabeth was in a key position to assist leaders to develop shared understanding, languaging, and methodologies that maximized the teams’ ability to work together across a range of projects and over an arc of time.
A master facilitator, Elizabeth is the strategic lead for the educational film company New Day Films and for the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which is headquartered in San Francisco.
As a coach and strategist, she is frequently called on by clients to work in high stakes situations where the mission, the development of people, and the business case must all align. As one of her clients put it, “Elizabeth has the sage’s touch, the ability to involve different kinds of people and ideas on a journey with solid measures and the will to move forward. Business goals are thoroughly accomplished, but – just as crucial – leaders and teams report a greater ability to act with clarity and purpose, empower self and others, and deliver results that matter.”
At the Institute for Women’s Leadership, Elizabeth is project lead for IWL’s Gender Partnership Diagnostic and a thought leader on issues of diversity and inclusion. She holds a Professional Coaching Certification from the International Coach Federation and is a Certified Integral Coach through New Ventures West. She is also an avid writer, musician, and tech geek. She lives in Oakland, CA. Her website is http://www.sejamin.com.
