One year in: What my new role Taught me About Leadership & Leverage
One year ago, I stepped into a new chapter as Education Practice Leader within an insurance brokerage. It was a leap, not just in title, but in terrain. I had spent years inside institutions navigating risk, managing crises, and building strategy from the inside out. Now I was moving to the other side of the table, advising, designing solutions, and helping educational leaders do the work I once carried firsthand.
This year stretched me. It sharpened me. And more than anything, it reminded me that the work we do in service of others always circles back to how well we know ourselves.
I came into this role with a strong foundation. What I gained was elevation.
This role wasn't just a transition. It became a place where everything Empower Moves Collective™ is truly about got tested in real time. Every client conversation, strategic pitch, and team call was a space to refine what I now bring into my coaching, speaking, and facilitation:
How to lead with clarity. How to speak with purpose. How to move with intention even when the path shifts beneath you.
As I supported institutions navigating risk, I was also building something of my own, something rooted in all the moments when I had to be the calm in chaos, the voice in the room, the one who chose action over silence.
Those lessons didn't start in this role. But they deepened here. They built on my time at the University of Chicago, in higher education leadership, and in the countless moments before anyone was watching.
Empower Moves Collective is the culmination of all of these experiences. It's the work I've always done, just with a wider reach and a louder mic.
I'm still helping people assess risk. But I'm also helping them take it.
I'm still supporting leaders. But now I'm helping them lead more fully, more audaciously, and more authentically, whether in the boardroom, on stage, or in the quiet moments when self-doubt creeps in.
Empower Moves Collective is where strategy becomes personal. Where leadership is inseparable from identity. And where we don't just earn a seat at the table, we own the moment when we speak.
As I reflect on this past year, I'm walking forward with gratitude and clarity. I'll continue to serve the education community with the same energy and insight that brought me here, and I'll be pouring into Empower Moves Collective with everything I have.
Because every space I've entered, from campus offices to corporate boardrooms, has taught me this: we are all in motion. The question is whether we're moving with purpose.
Let's keep building, together.
Courtney…on the move
