Our Team
Our talented team of professionals . . .
About Laura Belsten
Dr. Laura Belsten is the founder and president of CEO Partnership, Denver’s premier executive coaching and leadership development firm. Laura enjoys a reputation among executive coaches nationally for her confidentiality, integrity, keen insights, client satisfaction, and leading-edge coaching expertise.
Laura works with intelligent, high-achieving, over-worked executives, managers and leaders to navigate the whitewater conditions and rocky shoals of life in the world of business today. With her background in communication, management and leadership, Laura helps executives with their influencing and negotiating skills, conflict management, team-building, political and organizational savvy, emotional and social intelligence, decision-making and problem-solving skills, as well as their strategic, critical and visionary thinking – all aspects of what makes up today’s successful executive.
She helps her clients translate their vision into action, build exceptional teams and high-performing organizations, lead change and manage transitions, improve employee competence and commitment, build a healthy, respectful and fulfilling workplace, improve executives’ abilities to coach and develop emerging leaders as well as work with difficult individuals (supervisors, peers and direct reports), and implement lasting improvements in their own performance and business results.
With 25 years in management and leadership positions, including senior line and staff management positions in small, medium and large organizations, Laura is a gifted executive coach and consultant who understands first-hand the challenges her clients face. In addition to relevant, in-the-trenches executive experience, Laura’s educational background rounds out her unique expertise in coaching. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Denver in leadership, communication, teams, emotional intelligence and conflict management. Her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees are from the University of Colorado.
In addition, Laura has completed specialized executive and organizational coaching training through three national coaching institutions, and holds the highest coaching credential awarded by the International Coach Federation, the Master Certified Coach (MCC). She is also a professionally trained mediator.
She is qualified and/or certified to use a wide variety of business assessment and psychological instruments in her coaching practice, including Myers Briggs, DiSC, various 360 tools, FIRO-B, emotional intelligence tools (the ECI, the EQ-i and the EQ Map), the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking instrument, the Conflict Lens, and many more.
On the faculty at the University of Denver since 1990, Laura’s popular courses in leadership, communication, coaching, emotional intelligence and conflict management have sold out for over 17 years.
She is Immediate Past President of the Denver Coach Federation, and a member of the International Coach Federation. She is the author of the best-selling Coaching Emotional Intelligence and has developed one of the nation’s leading emotional intelligence tests, the Emotional Intelligence Profile.
Laura and her husband reside in Denver, Colorado. She has two grown sons.
Amy Kelsall, Ph.D.
Executive Coach & Counselor
Dr. Kelsall specializes in communication effectiveness, conflict management and valuing differences as they related to strategic personal and professional growth, health, change and balance. She is effective in providing safe, creative and open, yet challenging environments for individual and organizational assessment and change.
Amy’s background includes experience in marketing, sales and business initiatives for hospital community relations, physician education, worker’s compensation programs, and clients with special needs. She has group facilitation and individual coaching experience within business organizations and market segments, including aerospace, technology, manufacturing and law. Amy is certified in medication practice and is trained in the use of the Personal Profile System and is a certified trainer of the Enneagram.
Amy’s doctorate is in Human Communication from the University of Denver. She has also completed a two-year post-graduate program in counseling (with a systems and solution focus).
Brenda J. Wagenknecht-Ivey, Ph.D.
Organizational Consultant
Dr. Wagenknecht-Ivey has special expertise in organizational development and behavior, organizational change and improvement, and high performance teams. Her work focuses on helping organizations, leaders, and teams of all types achieve their visions and goals, seize new opportunities, and create and implement practical and effective responses to widespread change and ongoing challenges.
Over the past 20 years, Brenda has developed keen diagnostic, assessment, intervention, and delivery skills, and has acquired a national reputation as a skilled change agent, strategic planner, facilitator, and researcher. She uses a variety of tools including 360-degree feedback assessments, organizational climate surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, and other team building resources in her work.
Dr. Wagenknecht-Ivey consults with a variety of private, public, and non-profit organizations such as the Michigan Pharmacists Association, U.S. Sprint, Samsonite, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the California Judicial Council.
Dr. Wagenknecht-Ivey holds a Ph.D. in Organizational/Human Communications from the University of Denver, a Master’s Degree from Michigan State University, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Western Michigan University. She has published numerous articles and guidebooks on strategic planning, executive leadership, managing change, and continuous quality improvement.
Virg Setzer
Executive Coach & Organizational Consultant
Virg Setzer is an executive coach, organizational consultant, and an adjunct management instructor. He is a Partner Executive Coach with the CEO Partnership and also has his own Executive Coaching and Organizational Consulting business, Performance Point Solutions, LLC.
Virg is an executive coach specializing in Leadership and Managerial Performance, Team Effectiveness, Organizational Performance, Communications, Human Resource Management Effectiveness, Social and Emotional Intelligence, and in teaching managers and leaders Coaching Skills. Virg has over 15 years experience in coaching executives, leaders, and managers both as an internal and as an external coach.
His focus is on helping leaders achieve individual and organizational performance results and personal growth and satisfaction. He helps leaders capitalize on their strengths and improve their developmental areas for maximum results. He works with established senior leaders as well as developing, and high-potential leaders. Ultimately his focus in on the success of the individual and in turn the success of the organization. He is seasoned business executive with over 35 years business experience in Operations Management, Organizational Development, and Human Resources. His experience includes both domestic and international responsibilities for Operations Management, Human Resource Management, and Organizational Development with four different companies: Ariba, Inc., Alliente, Inc., Johns Manville, Inc., and Russell Stover Candies, Inc. He has experience across North America, Europe, and China. He is experienced at Corporate, Group, Division, and Plant levels. As an Adjunct Business Professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, his classes include, Leading Organizational Change, Managing People for Competitive Advantage, Talent Management, Performance Management, and Managing Compensation.
Virg has a Masters of Science in Organizational Performance from Bellevue University, Omaha, Nebraska, and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration and Business Education from the University of Nebraska. Additionally he has completed the Executive Human Resources Program, and an Enhanced Organizational Development Program at the University of Michigan. He is a graduate of the Senior Leadership Program with the Center for Creative Leadership. He has completed the Advanced Conflict Management program with National Training Labs, and has completed a number of Executive and Business Coaching programs including Corporate Coach University, Coach University, and The Business Coaches Alliance. He is a member of the International Coach Federation, ASTD, HRPS, SHRM, and the Human Capital Institute. He is past National Chair for CUE – Organizational for Positive Employee Relations. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Diabetes Association for Colorado. Virg served in the USAF and is a Vietnam Veteran.
Terry H. Hildebrandt, PhD, PCC
Executive Coach & Counselor
Terry Hildebrandt is an executive coach organization development consultant,
researcher, and author with over 18 years of coaching experience and over 29 years
direct corporate experience.
Terry has worked as a coach and organization development consultant to companies
and organizations in multiple industries including high tech, financial services,
manufacturing, professional services, healthcare, insurance, energy, construction,
network communications, farming/ranching, government, schools, and nonprofit. He
works primarily with senior-level executives including members of the executive
committee, board chairs, chief executive officers and vice presidents. He also works
with selected promising leaders.
He has worked with the leaders of global business units and their teams to design and
implement organizational change initiatives resulting in increased revenue, greater
market share, improved executive team effectiveness, and alignment of organizational
culture with new business strategies. Terry is an expert in the principles of evidence-
based coaching, which involves using the best existing theoretical and researched
knowledge, in combination with his personal coaching skills and knowledge of the
client, to develop and deliver an effective coaching engagement.
Terry’s expertise includes:
- Leadership Development
- Strategy Development
- Organization Design
- Organization Culture and Change
- Team Development
- Process Development
- Innovation and Creativity
- Integral Theory and Practice
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Mediation and Conflict Management
He was formerly at Hewlett-Packard Company for over 22 years where he served in
several positions including Production Manager, Manufacturing Development
Engineer, Reengineering Manager, Business Manager, Quality Engineer, Sr. Quality
Consultant and Development Engineer. He has worked in Germany, Israel,
Singapore, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and the United States. Terry also grew
up working on his family’s vegetable farm and cattle ranch for over 12 years.
Terry has completed extensive coach training and holds multiple certification including
being a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coach Federation
(ICF), a certified Evidence Based Coach from the Fielding Graduate University, a
Social & Emotional Intelligence Certified Coach from the Institute for Social +
Emotional Intelligence (ISEI), and a Certified Productivity Coach with the International
Association of Productivity Coaches (IAPC). Terry is co-author of the book, Leading
Business Change for Dummies and a contributing author to the scholarly anthology,
Integral Voices on Sex, Gender, and Sexuality (SUNY series in Integral Theory).
Terry earned his PhD in Human and Organizational Systems from the Fielding
Graduate University. He also holds an MA in Organizational Design and Effectiveness
and an MA in Human Development from Fielding along with a BS in Materials Science
from Rice University. He has also completed Fielding’s Certificate in Integral Studies
and the Certificate in Evidence Based Coaching.
JC Heinen, PCC, BCC
Executive Coach & Consultant
JC Heinen is an executive coach and consultant working specifically with the C-suite to build strong leaders and teams that can successfully drive strategic initiative to successful business outcome. JC focuses on leader and organizational goals to ensure alignment that results in enhanced performance at all levels.
Ms. Heinen has over 30 years of business experience consisting of both corporate and field operations. She has expertise in developing strategic alliance partnerships and building global sales and delivery infrastructures. Previous experience has included leading marketing for a software development company’s HRIS product line and sales for a global computer hardware company. JC is also the founder of Transition Management Institute, a leadership consulting firm and Jessie’s Heart Foundation, a not-for-profit organization serving the financial needs of patients of Children’s Hospital Colorado with congenital heart defects.
Ms. Heinen believes in regularly sharing her expertise with the American Heart Association and The Women’s Leadership Investment who offer services in the Denver community.
