Honoring Kay Cannon, Executive Coach

Kay was a force of nature, contributed tremendously to the field and profession of executive coaching, and sadly lost her courageous battle with cancer on October 29, 2018.  She exemplified the qualities that caused us to create the Gordon Lee Salmon Sustainable Leadership Award in the first place, and we are pleased to honor Kay Cannon with this award. She described herself on her website as:

…a bona fide member of the Type A tribe, battle-hardened by 25 years in the executive trenches. She can reasonably predict when a top Type A performer is on the path to a train wreck long before any visible signs appear. Since 1999, her no-nonsense executive coaching helped countless Type A titans correct course and launch on a smoother, faster trajectory to success – without any catastrophic side-effects.

An expert in leading organizations through challenging times, Kay’s known for her stellar turnaround track record. As a former healthcare executive, she played a key role in growing a start-up from $5M in venture capital to a company that sold for $79M within five years. Most recently, under her leadership, a nearly bankrupt non-profit organization became the global industry leader within three years.

 It is our pleasure to award Kay Cannon the Lee Salmon Award because of her extensive contributions to and sustainable leadership of the coaching profession. You can visit Kay’s site to learn more about her as well as read case studies of those she helped.

Now, a bit about Kay, from those who knew her best:

Dearest Lynn,
My deepest sadness and sense of loss over the passing of your/our beloved Kay. There are no words to capture the tremendous spirit, nimble intellect, awesome leader, inspiring executive coach, fearless thinker and remarkable human being that was Kay. To say that her spirit endures means that she lives in all of us who love her..and, because we love her, I like so many, find our world poorer without her physical presence.
I celebrate her life.
I celebrate how how Kay was so loved by Lynn
And loved Lynn and her family
And was so loved and admired by all who came to know Kay.
With a sense of brokenness-I join the circle of love sending Kay towards all she has earned..the rest and the sense of love…the liberation from pain
May we rejoice that we knew Kay and that Kay lived amongst us.

~ Dorothy Siminovitch, via Facebook

Watch a short video here of Pamela Richarde sharing a bit about Kay and announcing the ICF scholarship in her name.

(Please continue to the next page for more)