About
Meet Ginny Belden Charles. An educator, consultant, manager and coach with a 30-year proven record of bringing people together to address complex challenges.
From small teams to large cross-sector projects, Ginny understands how to build relationships across cultures, levels and disciplines. She is masterful at helping groups find coherent direction in the complexity facing organizations and communities today.
As a founding partner of Waterline Consulting from 1991-2009, Ginny is the co-creator of the Waterline Coaching method, used by thousands of line managers for innovative, inquiry-based coaching. In 2006, Waterline Consulting was awarded the national "2006 Top Champion Award" by the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) for "modeling and embedding the culture and values of facilitative leadership...to help leaders, teams and organizations develop insight and increase innovation."
In 1998, Ginny and her partner co-founded the Center for Emerging Leadership and its Women's Leadership Community (WLC), a learning community involving over 100 women leaders in MN and Canada that supports women in bringing their whole selves to their work and into the world.
Prior to that, Ginny managed Human Resources at Conklin Company and St. Paul Companies, and Management and Organization Development at Diversified Energies Inc.
Belden Charles Today
Ginny’s clients include large and small business, nonprofits and education, government and community organizations. In addition to an active consulting practice, Ginny is an adjunct faculty with the College of St. Catherine in their Master’s in Organization Leadership Program. She also serves as learning group coach for Pepperdine University's MSOD program, where she completed her master's in organization development as a Bush Fellow in 1991. Currently, Ginny is a PhD candidate at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
Training & Certification
- Institute of Cultural Affairs: Technology of Participation (mentor trainer)
- Interaction Associates: Facilitative Leader
- Power and Systems: The Organization Workshop
- Hosting Methods: Open Space, World Café, Appreciative Inquiry
- Barry Johnson: Polarity Management
- Instruments: Firo-B, Meyers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Learning Styles Inventory (LSI)