A lover of words, people, and purpose-driven creative work, Elizabeth-Monier Williams (or EMW, as we fondly call her), was a member of the very first cohort here at Growclass.
Since then, she’s not only become one of our community champions, she’s also authored a brilliant book series, Chaos Calling: The Xenthian Cycle and launched a career-coaching business. She’s also officially joined us as a huge asset to the Growclass Career Accelerator—a supportive space dedicated exclusively to helping you build a career that feels good, through resources, education, and mentorship.
We’ve introduced EMW before as the fairy godmother of Growclass she truly is. Now, we’re giving you a peek into what having her as a coach is like, and how her background informs her approach to this work.
“My career has had three phases. In my first phase, I worked in communications. Specifically communications within the higher education, nonprofit, public sector spaces. Then, I had children. After starting a family, I decided to change directions and shift into marketing.
I worked for an accelerator to support academic founders taking their research to the marketplace, and it was a really great place to sharpen my skills and understand marketing in a holistic way. After two or three ‘tours of duty’ in-house at start-ups running marketing teams, I moved onto the third phase in my career, which has involved working for myself and shifting into career strategy.”
For EMW, becoming a career coach happened very organically, out of response to a need she was seeing in this community.
“In the five years I've been part of [the Growclass] community, people just started coming to my door and asking me all kinds of career-related questions. Over time, I realized I should look at this in a more serious way.
Now, I’m in the middle of being certified as a Career Strategist. It’s a multi-year process that requires 1600 hours of coaching time which I’m well into. I’ve taken a lot of templates, concepts, and discussions from that program and applied a lot of it to my work.”
During the marketing executive phase of her career, EMW gained expertise in communications, website building, analytics and data work. Growth marketing felt like a gap in her knowledge, which is what led her to study with Growclass.
Little did she know we’d be keeping her on board well after her cohort ended. We were so excited to invite her to join our Career Accelerator as a coach for our community members.
“I really specialize in working with mid-career marketers. People who've been in the game for a few years and are figuring out what comes next; what they need to be doing more of to get there.
I’m still levelling up my work with people outside that niche but the beauty of Growclass is that we have people from all walks of life who come through the door, which is giving me lots of practice.”
EMW is just one of those people who knows exactly how to make you feel seen and heard. She has a natural curiosity about people and her empathetic nature shines through in every interaction. With consistency and unrelenting kindness, she supports the Growclass community in big and small ways. She helps us all move forward.
“I’m skilled at having that holistic conversation with people to say, “Okay, if you don’t know exactly what you were put on this earth to do, or maybe you do but you’re like, how do bills make sense?”
I enjoy helping people do that kind of strategizing. It's gratifying to see people getting value out of it."
Clients love working with EMW because she always keeps it real with them, but always with compassion, softness, and a healthy dose of practicality.
“The thing I hear most often from the people I coach is “Oh, this is the conversation I needed to have.
[When I’m coaching] I often feel like I am talking to a version of myself however many years ago, so it’s healing for me as well to be the person I didn’t have back then and ensure that the people I’m working with aren’t going to flail and flounder the way I sometimes felt I was.”
If you’re looking for an expert (who also happens to be a wonderful person) to support you in developing your career strategy, improving your resume/portfolio, LinkedIn profile, or to simply help you figure out where you genuinely want to go next, EMW is the person to talk to.
And for those who might not know—if you’re a Growclass student from any of our 2024 cohorts, you have access to two coaching sessions with EMW, Gloria, or ZJ through the Career Accelerator included in your membership. You’ll want to take advantage of those.
