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Fred Jones

Fred Jones

Austin, TX, USA

Fred has taken a deep interest in developing people and the organizations they lead for more than two decades. His core work has evolved to focus on how individuals and collectives develop in relation to questions they hold and how they stay with the challenges they face. This most often takes the form of an experience designer and facilitator, and also as a 1×1 coach and leadership team coach.

Most simply, Fred helps people learn from and develop through their challenging experiences in life and leading others. He is known by those he partners with for his thoughtfulness and care, his breadth and capacity to reflect, and his instincts for generating forward progress in things that matter. In what he calls his studio, he keeps a set of R&D projects through which he plays with practical ideas and cultivates imagination for realistic possibilities. For more about Fred’s work, go to www.meanwhile.studio.

Fred loves theater and takes advantage of how theater practices help us prepare for high-stakes moments and show up in a way that is congruent with our intentions. He takes special interest in transitional periods in work and life overall, and supports people designing sabbatical experiences even while still engaging their current responsibilities.

Before engaging clients though Cultivating Leadership Fred worked in the United States with Humana and Texas Children’s Hospital, both of which shaped his ongoing interests in health care. He previously worked in a range of roles at Progressive Insurance and Ernst & Young.

Fred earned a doctorate in adult learning and leadership from Columbia University, Teachers College, and holds a master’s in public and international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation, and a graduate of Georgetown University’s renowned Leadership Coaching program. He uses The Leadership Circle Profile and Hogan Assessments, which are helpful for gaining insight into a person’s practice of leadership.

Fred lives with his wife in Austin, Texas (USA) after many stopping points since his Chicago origins. About himself: “Generationally speaking, I am Mid-Century Modern. I have places still to see, bread to bake, short stories to edit and dogs to walk. I could have been the journalist who expanded your horizons, the playful game show host who relieved your burdens, the priest who helped you reconsider your relationship with church or the professor whom you now realize you should have been paying more attention to. Privilege has made my way through life relatively easy, which leads me to recognize and support meaningful ways the world needs to change.”