Sep 29, 2021
When Amii Barnard-Bahn graduated from college with an English degree, she didn’t know what she wanted. So she applied to law school. Amii said, “It was kind of a crazy, interesting thing to do.” Attending Georgetown Law School, she tapped the advocate within wanting to impact social change. She worked as an ACLU fellow and took the first LGBT sexual orientation class ever taught at a law school. Amii was the T.A. for Dr. Anthony Cook, a well-known scholar in critical race theory, and served as editor on her law journal. Amii’s piece on the black women’s anti-lynching movement in the 1890s was published in the UCLA Women’s Law Journal, resulting in her coining the term critical race feminism, now used regularly.
Upon graduation, Amii worked for a small employment law firm where she had the unique chance to handle both plaintiff and defendant cases. While it was a valuable experience, billable hours, and metrics were not aligned with her values. After three-plus years with the firm, Amii resigned although she did not know what she wanted to do next. She said it was the scariest thing she ever did, but Amii wanted to find a better way to help people.
Amii spent nine months exploring her options, determining that her qualifications and interests were best suited to Human Resources where she could combine her legal background with her dedication to equity, compliance, and ethics. She also pursued her graduate certificate in coaching through the Hudson Institute. Amii served in executive roles for McKesson, the California Dental Association, and Tetra Tech.
Today, Amii's an executive coach and consultant to C suite leaders at global companies like Adobe, and The Gap. Amii guest lectures at Stanford and UC Berkeley, and is a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Compliance Week, and is a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Coaching. She developed the Promotability Index Self-Assessment and published The PI Guidebook that works along with the assessment results.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Amii’’s journey:
- Amii is recognized by Forbes as one of the top coaches for legal and compliance executives, and she is a member of Marshall Goldsmith 100 coaches.
- She testified for the successful passage of the first laws in the US requiring corporate boards to include women.
Learn more and connect with Amii here:
https://twitter.com/amiibb
http://www.barnardbahn.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amiibarnardbahn/
https://www.instagram.com/barnardbahn/
https://www.facebook.com/barnardbahn/