Joan Sugerman is the founder of Gemini Worldwide, a strategic consulting firm that works with business leaders and executive teams to create breakthrough results. She says this is not so much a cultural shift, but a mindset shift, that can radically impact a whole organization and its people, values, goals, and measurable results. Every engagement is customized to their specific people and possibilities, as no two organizations are alike.
Joan grew accustomed to interacting with top executives at a young age. As early as 10-years old, she listened and learned intently about business and acquired business insights from different sources over the years. This included accompanying her corporate CEO father while entertaining high-level visitors at the family dinner table. In one instance, she sat next to the CEO of SONY Corporation visiting from Japan. Their exchanges were so rewarding they became pen pals for years.
Then at the start of her professional career, Joan had a job at AT&T as a video and film producer. When she met to prepare executives for the content of their on-camera videos, deep business conversations often arose.
Joan has a master’s degree in fine arts and a bachelor’s in philosophy. Once she discovered business coaching that focused on a specific methodology very similar to the philosophy she had studied in college, it seemed a natural extension of what she had been doing all along, and she jumped in with passion. She has worked with some very high-powered corporate and political leaders globally ever since, some with names we’d easily recognize.
“We engage in one-on-one sessions, group coaching, corporate transformation, and online seminars. It doesn’t matter where we start, in the end, an entire organization is transformed. Often, we create together new approaches and methodologies while working together.”
Joan says being at the forefront of new thinking is one of many assets that distinguishes Gemini Worldwide. She mentions being a keen listener, with an inquisitive nature, and the willingness to always go beyond the predictable or even the seemingly “impossible” as valuable parts of what she delivers to clients.
“When we move clients from what’s possible to a new realized future, there is often a correlation of the same in my own self-awareness and development. This is very satisfying and often inspiring. It’s not just a job to me, it’s my raison d’etre.”
Joan mentioned that her son, now 40, had just called for some coaching. He started this when he was 5 years old! This is another example of the trust she creates, the power of her work, and evidence it has long-term impact.
Joan also cites authenticity as an important aspect of effective leadership. She has worked with powerful CEOs who instilled fear in their underlings and then coached them in discovering their vulnerable and relatable side so they could “open the Kimono” as one executive said. This authenticity and openness was the critical factor that had his team build trust, a sense of partnership, and exponential company revenues as a result.
Joan spoke about some case histories throughout the past 25 years when Gemini has and still makes a big impact on leadership. This includes top executives of her current Being a Master-X Program, who find elevated purpose, performance, and peace of mind through her coaching philosophy.
Some of these include: a former newspaper CEO and writer who is now publishing a politically provocative book without fear; an athletic coach who has launched an innovative online app; another is a mild mannered, somewhat shy psychotherapist who blossomed into an international entrepreneur; and a high-tech entrepreneur who is fast developing a company to go public.
Joan has also worked with international members of foreign Parliaments as well as the U.S. Congress. Transforming their lives, she says, is more important than any award or acknowledgement.
Joan understands that every person, no matter what their leadership position may be, a government head, corporate CEO, or a solopreneur, has a huge commitment to aliveness, success, self-worth, wholeness, and peace of mind.
The Gemini approach is also centered on putting the past in the past, staying present, and creating future possibilities. Just as ice changes to water, human beings can shift their state of mind and become more productive and effective, not just in business dealings, but in every aspect of life.
Joan credits some of the success to her strong and supportive colleagues, years of practice and interactions with businesspeople, and her trust. I’ve learned to trust myself, and I learn from others, she notes. She is not afraid to be brutally honest and authentic, trusting what she has learned, hears, and senses, with an uncanny sense of innate “knowing.”
Some additional examples of Gemini’s strategic leadership that has led to extraordinary outcomes.
Leader’s master our highly effective state-of-the art in-depth coaching methodology to cause breakthrough long-lasting results, a state change in performance.
Gemini’s unique solution to leadership
Years of focused experience have led to causing the Impossible IS Possible. Gemini is masterful at elevating the “Being” of Leadership, that leads to the “doing,” and then the “having” results. The approach is unique and groundbreaking – revolutionary!!
This approach is very much the reverse of what is the usual thinking. Our approach is non-linear- counter-intuitive- and extremely effective. It causes a state change, like from ice to water, truly a transformation. Gemini has the view that knowledge alone is not sufficient, and that high performance must be “discovered” at the level of who a leader is “being” to have real effectiveness. “Being” has a wholeness to it, everything impacts the whole at all levels of an organization.
