MCALPINE CONSULTING FOR GROWTH - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Consultant
• Partner
• Partner Consultant View Profile

Jeannie Cella is a Board-Certified Coach and a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, who has more than 35 years of experience working with populations who have been challenged by life circumstances. As CEO of Wellness House, a non-profit cancer support organization, for 20 years, she honed her skills in leadership, fundraising, donor relations, board management/engagement, strategic planning, program development, finance, developing community partnerships and change management. As a Board-Certified Coach, Jeannie has special designations as an Executive/Leadership, Positive Intelligence and Personal/Life Coach. With her husband, Jeannie raised four smart, talented, funny, loving kids who are now collectively raising eight of their own. If you've been a child or have children of your own, you know why this is the first thing Jeannie wants you to know and why it is foundational to everything important that she's learned in her life! With her Bachelor of Science degree in Social Work in hand, Jeannie began her career as a juvenile probation officer working on the Southside of Chicago, where she learned how best to engage with young people and their families, as well as how our systems don't work equitably for all communities. After earning a master's degree in Counseling Psychology, Jeannie spent ten years developing and providing psychoeducational, supportive care programs to individuals and groups experiencing cancer. Some of her greatest teachers had bald heads, looked death in the eye, had no time for small stuff, lived with gratitude and cared deeply about others who were in the foxhole with them. As CEO of Wellness House (WH), Jeannie spent twenty years leading the effort to increase WH's services, expand its footprint, reach underserved communities, and serve more people while raising millions of dollars through philanthropy to provide all services for free. After retiring from Wellness House in 2019, Jeannie returned to the classroom and successfully met the professional standards in coaching. She is now a Board Certified Coach, with specialty designations as an Executive/Leadership, Positive Intelligence and Personal/Life Coach. Jeannie's coaching philosophy is best defined as a partnership in which the client is the expert on him/herself, and the coach is an expert on the process of coaching and change. It is her belief that all people have gifts, talents, and strengths, that, when fully acknowledged, can propel them to do whatever they want to do. Through coaching, Jeannie helps people increase self-awareness, build on strengths, acknowledge and address areas for development, set goals, and identify obstacles to overcome which leads to growth and increased work/life satisfaction.

Job Titles:

• Principal
• Principal View Profile

Laura McAlpine (she/her) is the Principal of McAlpine Consulting for Growth, LLC and has over 40 years of management and leadership expertise in non-profit health and social service organizations. She comes to her work as a consultant grounded by experience as a health worker and collective member of the Chicago Women's Health Center, as well as a policy advocate with the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health. Laura's focus on health/mental health access, maternal & child health, adolescent health, reproductive rights and anti-gay violence are as relevant today as they were in the 1980s. Laura's skills, gained in front-line positions and as executive director, manager, and board member, include strategic planning, organizational development, leadership coaching, and financial management. She particularly enjoys engaging staff from multiple nonprofits in peer-to-peer shared learning via learning collaboratives, using a mix of her facilitation, coaching, organizing and improv skills. An experienced facilitator and presenter, she has led retreats, training sessions, and focus groups for a wide variety of organizations. Laura is a licensed clinical social worker and has a Master's degree in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. Always the looking to the future and building a plan to get there, Laura is currently starting drum lessons so that in 20 years she will become the next Nana Dorothea, who won a drum-off with Questlove. In the present moment, besides practicing her drums in the basement and working upstairs in the MCFG office, she can be found outside her back door, tending her vegetable garden and flock of backyard chickens, or hitting the river path for birding, jogging, boating, or swimming. Education University of Chicago: School of Social Service Administration

Job Titles:

• Consultant
• Partner
• Partner Consultant View Profile
• Writer

Mac is a writer, year-round biker, and frantic knitter. She also takes every learning opportunity she can get to study and serve as a psychedelic peer supporter through the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and Zendo Project. Her current music obsessions include Ludovico Einaudi, Nina Simone, a renewed love of The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness, and pretty much every song Rage Against the Machine has ever released.