Soar Strategies is led by its founder and president,
Janine Hill, PhD
Our Goal:
We intend to help you understand and demonstrate your value in the marketplace as an individual or leader, while still bringing your authentic self to work using customized personal and group processes.
Welcome to Soar Strategies!
Soar Strategies is a consulting and coaching firm committed to helping leaders and groups in the social good and corporate sectors to share their strengths, create goals, and achieve their professional as well as personal goals through a collaborative process.
We are passionate about teams and individuals. We believe that our diversity in experiences, knowledge, and thoughts are our best qualities, and our goal is to help your special gifts shine at work, school, and home by creating brave spaces for coaching interactions, as well as consulting engagements.
We believe that change is a collaborative process that must be guided by goals. We seek to continuously collaborate with organizations, individuals, and teams to facilitate crucial conversations that lead to transformation.
Janine’s Story
I enjoy working with diverse groups of coaching clients and organizations to navigate issues such as change management, diversity, equity, & inclusion, leadership development and executive transitions. Before Soar Strategies launched in the summer of 2017, I worked as the executive director of EverThrive Illinois for 6+ years, where I helped double its revenue, oversaw an organizational rebrand, and strengthen its private/public partnerships.
I loved being an executive director. I got to work on policies that mattered to the lives of women, children, and families; work with an amazing staff and Board; and develop my leadership skills. I still collaborate with many colleagues I met from that experience today! When I left, I realized that I wanted to make a larger impact–I wanted to touch individuals and teams from multiple organizations, not just one. My goal has always been to nurture, support, and advise fellow leaders; I’d like to leave the world a little better than I found it.
I am a self-described science nerd—I enjoy the academic environment and am a maternal and child health (MCH) practitioner by training. I recently completed my PhD in maternal and child health methods, programs, and policies at UIC – my dissertation focused on stress measurement and the development of a revised stressful life events scale, for use with a middle/upper income perinatal population. I also hold a BS in Biology from Georgetown University, and a MPH from Boston University. Currently, I teach a Maternal and Child Health Policy and Advocacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Public Health (UIC).
I take ongoing learning to be the best consultant and coach for my clients seriously. I received my Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) certification in 2019, my Associate Certified Coach (ACC) certification from the International Coaching Federation in 2020, and was a 2018-19 Fellow with the National Equity Project.
As I consider my work as a coach and consultant to be a healing profession, I try to practice what I preach to clients about the importance of self-care. In my down time, I love to read (“Wintering”, “The Comfort Book”, and “Inclusion Revolution” are recent reads), riding my spin bike, taking long walks down by the lakeshore, and hanging out with my daughter, godson, and family.
To learn a bit more about Janine in her own words, please listen to the Your Only Black Friend Podcast episode, “They Called Us the Huxtables”. In this 36 minute segment, you’ll hear about her early life experiences navigating white spaces at school, and how that has influenced her work as a DEI practitioner today.
For more information about what I’m reading and thinking about,
please follow me on LinkedIn.
My Approach
I believe that my clients have the answers to their issues, inside – my goal is to create an environment in which they can be thoughtful, authentic, vulnerable, and introspective. I do this by asking questions, sharing my own experiences (sometimes), and holding the vision for their lives, or a particular project, in the forefront. I value equity, discovery, creativity, learning, and accountability.
You want a multi-racial leadership team, but where do you start?
You’ve read books like How to Be an Anti-Racist, So You Want to Talk about Race, and White Fragility – now, what’s the next step? In the midst of the Great Resignation, how can you prevent the revolving door of staff members and leaders of color? There is a way to develop and maintain an organizational culture that celebrates multiculturalism and promotes racial equity, helps attract diverse candidate pools, and helps you sustain a leadership team that reflects your clients and communities.
As the president of Soar Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm focused on the program, policy, and organizational development of the social good sector, Dr. Janine Hill knows what it takes to implement and maintain a multicultural staff.
In Embracing Equity: Best Practices for Developing and Keeping a Winning Multi-Racial Leadership Team, author Janine Hill will take you step-by-step through a plan to:
- Begin recruiting amazing candidates of color
- Market your organization as a safe and brave space for all staff
- Understand accountability and better decision making
- Determine if staff are unhappy or considering leaving your organization
If you’re ready to have a happy, multicultural staff, read the best-selling book Embracing Equity today!
Recent
Blog Posts
What's the first step?
If you’d like to talk with Janine, please find a time on her calendar for an initial, complementary strategy session.