TEAM
Principal & Founder
With over 25 years of clinical and consulting experience, Dr. Jennifer Messina brings a proven track record collaborating with boards, c-suite leaders and their teams across Fortune 500 companies, the private equity industry and unicorn start-ups to actualize their potential, drive strategic business objectives, build optimized teams, and promote positive change across organizations.
Jen serves as a thought partner, confidential resource, and motivational change agent for CEOs and their leadership teams in rich collaboration with boards. Her deep expertise in human behavior, systems dynamics and change management, equips her to be an invaluable partner - particularly during times of growth and change. Additionally, she serves as a thought and execution partner for optimized succession planning, leveraging the process to drive alignment, resilience, cultural health and leadership (immersion in the culture; strategic alignment; sophisticated evaluation of competencies and team dynamics; transformative relationships founded in trust; curation and development of future leaders; priming the entire system for seamless C-Suite transitions).
Jen partners with VC & PE groups to optimize their investments and realize the vision of their portfolio companies. Relatedly, the human dynamics involved in Private Equity transactions and M&A deals are often a critical component to the success of the business. Jen partners with investors, boards, and leadership teams to ensure team integration, the right people in the right seats, optimal leadership, culture building, etc. She also works closely with senior talent - maximizing effectiveness, improving interpersonal dynamics, and actualizing professional goals.
Jen’s competence-based approach is highly interpersonal – striving to harness and build health and positivity in individuals and systems. She brings a strong understanding of organizational dynamics and a flexible, collaborative style that drives meaningful change. With warmth and humor, Jen integrates wisdom from research and practice to help her clients flourish.
A graduate of Dartmouth College (’93), Dr. Messina obtained her masters (’94) and doctorate (’99) degrees in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia. Dr. Messina completed an internship at Duke University Medical Center and a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia. She is an author and professional public speaker with particular interest in Professional Actualization. Dr. Messina is the founder of Messina Leadership Advising and FORTE.
Leadership Advisor
Domonique Worship works with corporations, nonprofits and other organizations across a broad range of industries to provide custom leadership advising, consulting and training to executives and rising leaders. Domonique's holistic approach facilitates transformation of her clients' perspective, performance and mental and emotional well-being, empowering them to tap into their full potential and perform at their highest level. Domonique supports her clients in cultivating self-awareness and executive leadership presence, developing a strategic road map and taking action to turn their vision into a reality. Drawing on her formal coaching training and experience as an executive and corporate lawyer, Domonique creates custom programs that are tailored based on each individual's unique goals and needs. Her clients include leaders from the National Basketball Association, MasterClass, Under Armour and leading law firms across the country.
Domonique was previously the Vice President of Diversity & Inclusion at the National Basketball Association, where she was responsible for the development and implementation of the League’s internal diversity and inclusion strategy, with a focus on the recruitment, retention and advancement of women and underrepresented minorities. Prior to this, she acted as Senior Associate Counsel to the Global Partnerships group at the NBA, where she provided strategic and legal advice regarding all aspects of the NBA’s commercial and retail partnerships and merchandising business worldwide. Domonique began her career as an associate at the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, where she served as counsel to companies and sovereign nations conducting business in Latin America on a broad range of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, project finance, capital markets and sovereign debt.
Domonique earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2014 and her B.A. in Political Science and Spanish from the University of Florida in 2011. In 2019, she earned her Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential through the Co-Active Training Institute.
Leadership Advisor
Alixe Boyer is a strategic consultant and executive coach with 20+ years of corporate leadership experience working in global organizations in the fashion and consumer space. Alixe combines her business acumen, understanding of organizational dynamics and leadership training to help corporations and individuals maximize their potential to innovate and thrive.
As an executive coach, Alixe works closely with leadership to ensure teams are optimized for success within a values-oriented, high-performance culture. She also partners with individuals to drive peak performance and support growth. Her combination of professionalism and intuitive, down-to-earth style engages her clients in a trusting, progressive environment in which she co-designs practical strategies so they may become more effective in their capacity to lead, innovate, and thrive in their own lives and in their professions.
A certified mediator and trained in the ACT Leadership model at Brown University, an accredited program by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), Alixe’s training is grounded in developmental psychology, neuroscience, and research in leadership effectiveness. Specialized in Leadership and Performance Coaching, Alixe is completing her accreditation as an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) through the ICF. A graduate of Denison University, she resides in New York City with her family.
