IAC Hosts First of its Kind Coaching Conference in China

At first, the pitch—an “excellent opportunity for you to meet about 100 attendees…for innovative and collaborative exchange and learning”—doesn’t exactly jump off the page.

But the title—and the location—does.

Next month, coaches will gather for a noteworthy event, the “2010 Shanghai Coaching Conference: the Centre of Coaching in China—Advancing to International Excellence.”

“I think it’s quite significant,” said Charlie Lang, managing partner, executive coach and trainer at Progress-U in Hong Kong. Lang says it’s the first time the International Association of Coaching (IAC) has held a conference in China. “The IAC seems (to be trying) to fill the vacuum that was left by the China Coaching Association,” a group which was created by the coaching company Top Human—at the time the largest in the country—which collapsed with the arrest of its leader, Eva Wong.

Wong’s arrest led some Western coaches and companies to consider China a risky place to do business. But that perception may be changing, and some coaches believe China may be among the biggest coaching markets in the world within a decade. “We’ll see an enormous number of coaches here,” said Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland, who runs China’s only ICF-accredited Chinese coaching program.

“I’m more than happy to support IAC in its development in Greater China,” said Lang, who will lead a workshop at the conference on “A New Map for a New Age: Corporate Coaching Culture.”

The daylong event March 19th will bring coaches to one of the fastest-growing markets for coaching in the world to take on key questions, including the impact of coaching for individuals and businesses in China.

The IAC’s decision to hold a full coaching conference comes as some coaches describe the boom in Chinese coaching as a lost opportunity for the ICF.  ”It seems the ICF has not been able to establish itself in Hong Kong or China,” said Lang.

“The perspective in the market is that the ICF is very U.S.-centric,” Bowery-Ireland told CoachReporter Mark Joyella in a December 2009 interview (watch the interview here).  And ICF president Giovanna D’Alessio has made expanding the group’s presence “around the globe” a top priority.

The China coaching conference was organized by the IAC’s Shanghai chapter—one of eight chapters the group has in East and Southeast Asia, where the group describes its membership as “growing rapidly.”

The IAC’s mission in March, then, is to bring together some of the world’s best coaches to educate and guide new and aspiring coaches in China: “to enhance their capacity from a good coach to a masterful coach, to get certified and continue to grow internationally,” said Bonnie Chan, the conference organizer.

Coach Natalie Tucker Miller is the Shanghai conference’s keynote speaker. Miller will lead a two part workshop on “Essentials of a Masterful Coach,” and an evening speech entitled “Coaching on the Global Edge.”

“Natalie has the greatest in-depth knowledge of the IAC coaching masteries—essential elements of masterful coaching which translate into any coaching methodology or culture,” said Chan, who said the IAC is “thrilled” about the conference and what it means for the expansion of professional coaching in China.