According to the 2025 ICF Global Coaching Study, the coaching profession now generates over $5.34 billion in annual revenue — nearly double what it was two years ago. There are more credentialed coaches in the world than ever before.

And yet more than half of coaches globally earn less than $30,000 a year from coaching alone. The credential has become the entry point, not the differentiator. 73% of coaches now report that clients and organizations expect them to hold a certification. The profession has raised its floor. It hasn’t yet built the infrastructure to help coaches build what comes next.

This conversation is about that gap.

Coaches are trained to create transformation in others. What gets far less attention is the work of building a practice that’s actually sustainable — the decisions, the strategy, the unglamorous fundamentals that determine whether this becomes a real business or stays a beautiful idea.

Join Alison Geskin, PCC (Founder, The Art of Strategy), Edward Temple, MCC (Author, The Leader as Coach), Kim Schaaf, ACC-candidate (Founder, Momentum EQ) and Peggy Mann, President of ICF Calgary Charter Chapter, for an honest, unscripted fireside conversation about the things the profession thinks but rarely says out loud.

We’ll cover:

• Why credentialing is necessary — and no longer sufficient on its own

• What the data tells us about the gap between certification and a viable practice

• The client dynamics that don’t show up in coaching textbooks

• What coaches at different stages would tell their earlier selves

This isn’t a motivational session. It’s a real conversation — grounded in current industry research, lived experience, and the kind of honesty that’s hard to find at most professional development events.