Coaching is at its peak in Peru. And with global warming posing a real threat to its welfare, coaching is moving to save the day.

by Fernando Gil


I am an economist and a defender of business, economic growth, welfare and so on. I represent the Western World (the Eagle).

 My wife, on the other hand, is a biologist, ecologist, defender of nature and convinced that human beings have no more rights than any other living creature. She represents native and ancestral communities (the Condor).

Our life together has been a discussion of priorities. After finishing my studies in economics, I switched careers into organisational and human development, executive training and coaching.

Last year I participated in the Awakening the Dreamer symposium of the Pachamama Alliance, a not-for-profit US-based organisation linking the modern world with groups from the Amazonian rainforest.

It was an incredible breakthrough in my life. I realised why I had studied economics and business – to learn and understand the paradigm that has taken humanity into the situation we are currently facing on Earth. After almost 10 years of executive and business coaching I realised I had been coaching managers to be more productive in destroying the Earth.

 My wife and I are now working together, taking the best from both worlds. We’re delivering workshops and conferences, making people aware of how we can take responsibility for global warming, social injustice, poverty and lack of self-fulfilment. And Peru is one of the countries most affected by global warming. 

In 2005, the Peruvian Coach Federation (la Asociación Peruana de Coaching – APCO) was set up to develop a transcendent vision of the role of coaching in society.

APCO is committed to protecting Peruvian society and nature. Coaching is the art of developing awareness of paradigms that make us unhappy, unproductive and ineffective. It is the art of helping people develop new practices that make them better people.

This year APCO launched the 1st International Coaching Congress in Peru. The theme was coaching and social and environmental responsibility. In Peru we believe we can use coaching to help transform our society and avoid the crises other countries are now facing.

At APCO and at other coaching organisations we deliver a programme for the corporate world called Transformational Leadership, which calls on people to take responsibility for their own life and that of the planet.

We are also training young people so that they can coach 15 to 17-year-old teens and first-year university students to be aware of what is happening with the Earth. 

At the congress the final keynote speech was delivered by Isabel Rimanoczy, a legacy coach and my wife Pilar, an NLP-trained coach. We used team coaching tools such as action reflection learning and formed taskforce teams, asking them: “After what you have heard and seen, what are you going to do to save the Earth?” The awareness was amazing as a result of incorporating coaching into the process.

Coaching is at its peak in Peru. The international coaching community has been very active in training and certifying some 150 coaches. The International Coach Federation (ICF) Peru chapter was constituted last year.

Along with APCO, the chapter is organising the 2nd Iberoamerican Coaching Congress here. And as part of ICF Global, the Ist Latin American Coaching Conference will take place in Lima in July 2010. 

As Sir John Whitmore said recently, perhaps Peru is setting the pace for a new understanding of the role of coaching in the world: taking a stand and moving into action to save the Earth.

Fernando Gil is president of the Peruvian Coach Federation (APCO). www.apco.org.pe