Darcy Luoma, CEO and founder of Darcy Luoma Coaching & Consulting, is one of America’s most highly credentialed coaches. She’s worked in 48 industries, with 210 different client organizations, and has impacted tens of thousands of leaders and employees.
Darcy has coached company founders, board chairs, CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CIOs, CMOs, CTOs, entrepreneurs, U.S. senators, congresswomen, state senators, chiefs of staff, college presidents, nonprofit executive directors, Chief Medical Officers, surgeons, attorneys, emerging leaders, an NFL Super Bowl champion, and even clients’ children.
Darcy has four prominent coaching credentials, including the prestigious “Master Certified Coach” from the International Coach Federation – a distinction held by only 3.8% of coaches in the world, Certified Professional Co-active Coach, Organization and Relationship Systems Certified Coach, and a Board Certified Coach.
Four times, Brava Magazine and The Isthmus newspaper have named Darcy Madison, Wisconsin’s favorite life and executive coach. (The year she didn’t win, she finished second.)
The University of Wisconsin–Madison, a Big Ten university, sought out Darcy to design its rigorous 9-month-long professional coach training program, which earned the International Coach Federation’s accreditation, and has a waiting list every year. She also served as the program’s director and lead instructor for five years, and now holds the title, Director of Training and Quality Assurance.
She completed her Master of Science in Organization Development at Pepperdine University–Graziadio Business School where she did her master’s thesis on “the effectiveness of coaching on overall life satisfaction.”
Darcy began her own coaching and consulting firm in 2013 and built it into a half a million dollar a year company in a short amount of time in a challenging industry. Before launching her firm, she worked for a leadership consulting firm and ran U.S. Senator Kohl’s office for 12 years (Kohl was president of Kohl’s department stores and owner of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team), where she was entrusted to handle sensitive, urgent matters and contentious situations. She met with savvy lobbyists and concerned citizen groups, organized political events and rallies with tens of thousands of people, and managed protestors who staged die-ins and hijacked her office for days at a time to protest the war, requiring her to sleep there with federal protective services by her side.
She worked in Florida for 38 days on the grueling presidential recount. She’s done national advance work for the White House, traveled the country for a year while working for two U.S. presidential campaigns, and served as a trusted advisor and Deputy Transition Director to a Governor.
She received the prestigious Certified Speaking Professional™ (CSP®) designation from the National Speakers Association in 2019, held by fewer than 20% of professional speakers worldwide. The CSP is the speaking profession’s international measure of speaking excellence and signals a proven track record of experience and expertise, as well as a commitment to outstanding client service, and ethical behavior. Prior to that, Darcy earned the “Rising Star” award from the National Speakers Association – Wisconsin Chapter in 2017. She has spoken at more than 500 events, conferences, workshops, and corporate events in the past eight years in front of audiences ranging from 25 to 2,500 every month.
Darcy is a lifelong learner. Okay, a self-help junkie. She is continually studying the best ways to develop strong leaders, create high-performing teams, and transform organizational culture. As such, she regularly has ten books on her nightstand, attends professional conferences and webinars more often than she goes to the movies, and has more degrees and certifications than shoes. Her Thoughtfully Fit model weaves together all of her research on the hurdles that get in the way of being high-performing to help leaders be intentional in all their interactions for greatest impact.
As a regular contributor to NBC15 and WKOW27 in Madison, Wisconsin, she’s affectionately known as The Official Life Coach of The Wilde and Tausch Show on ESPN radio. She is an athlete and has participated in 22 years of triathlons, including a full Ironman, six marathons, and too many other races to count. At age 16, she rollerbladed 300 miles from northern Minnesota to the state capitol to raise money for the March of Dimes. She uses her grit and determination in both her athletic and professional endeavors.
She was featured on the cover of BRAVA Magazine where she shared the story of how her life blew up in the most extreme way when her husband of ten years, and full-time stay at home dad, was unexpectedly arrested for sexual assault of a minor he met online. He was sentenced to ten years in federal prison. Darcy became ground zero to test drive her new leadership model, Thoughtfully Fit, that was finalized five days before his arrest. It became her lifeline to handle the daily stressors of navigating the legal system, filing for divorce, parenting two daughters on her own, keeping her company alive, and learning to use the washing machine.
Along with her favorite job being a mom of two energetic teenage daughters, she enjoys adventure travel, yin yoga, kickboxing, spicy chai lattes, and afternoon naps. She is an avid triathlete and Ironman. While she has a double major in German and Mathematics, the only time she uses these skills is when trying to double a recipe for German Black Forest Cake.
Coaching
- University of Wisconsin–Madison – Director of Professional Life Coaching Certificate (PLCC) program
- International Coach Federation (ICF) – Master Certified Coach (MCC), Active Member and Registered Mentor Coach
- Center for Credentialing & Education, Inc. (CCE) – Board Certified Coach (BCC) with speciality designation as Executive/Corporate/Business/Leadership Coach
- Coaches Training Institute (CTI) – Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC)
- CRR Global – Organizational and Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC) to work with teams and couples
- Institute of Coaching Professional Association (ICPA) – Member of ICPA at McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate
- Brava Magazine – Voted Madison, Wisconsin’s Favorite Life Coach, 2016, 2017, 2018
- Isthmus – Voted Madison, Wisconsin’s Favorite Life Coach, 2012-2013
- International Coach Federation–Wisconsin – Active Member and Former Board of Directors
Professional Experience
- United States Senate – Director for 12 years
- White House – National Advance Staff
- Wisconsin Governor – Deputy Transition Director
- Public Policy Research Non-Profit – Senior Education Outreach Specialist
- Leadership Institute – Coordinator and Lead Facilitator
- Hallatt Consulting Group – Consultant and Motivational Speaker
Community Service and Professional Organizations
- National Speakers Association – Professional Member
- Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce – Member
- Madison Area Business Consultants (MABC) – Member
- Consulting for Organizational Reflection and Effectiveness (CORE) – Founder’s Circle
- Wisconsin Women in Government (WWIG) – Scholarship recipient, Past president with keynote speaker Elizabeth Edwards, banquet chair with keynote speaker Hillary Rodham Clinton, and board member
- Greater Madison Federal Agency Association (GMFAA) – Active participant and award-winning committee member
- TEMPO – Active member since 2003 of this professional organization of women in executive and leadership positions
- Wisconsin Women’s Network
- Madison Organization Development Squad (MOD Squad)
- Organization Development Network (ODN)
- Association for Training and Development (ATD) – South Central Wisconsin Chapter
- Wisconsin Institute for Learning Disabilities/Dyslexia, Inc. (WILDD) – Advisory Committee Member
- Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) – Greater Madison Area Chapter
Education
- Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management – Masters of Science in Organization Development (MSOD), Master’s Thesis on the Impact of Life Coaching on Overall Life Satisfaction
- University of Wisconsin–Madison, La Follette School of Public Affairs – Public policy graduate seminar graduate
- University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, Bachelor of Science – Double major in Mathematics and German with teaching degree
- Landmark Forum – Chicago, Illinois
Other
- Mom –To two spunky, challenging, confident, fun-loving daughters
- Triathlete –Competed in triathlons every year since 1998, including multiple sprint, olympic, half-ironmans, marathons, and a full Ironman
- Small Business Administration – Certified Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB)
- 20 years experience – Facilitating, coaching, training, motivational speaking and consulting in small businesses, universities, non-profits, and corporations throughout the United States, China, France and Mexico
- And before that…Rollerblade Demo Team instructor, corn detassler, photographer’s assistant, babysitter, house cleaner, camp counselor, resident assistant, secretary, office manager, dishwasher, raspberry picker, peer counselor, mathematics tutor, dormitory front desk worker, apple picker, lawn mower! Not even kidding.