By: Lisa Baker
Lisa L. Baker left the corner office behind. Now the Ascentim founder is launching a coaching cohort for senior leaders ready to lead on their own terms.
BALTIMORE, MD. In the Bay Area, we talk a lot about disruption. But the most meaningful disruptions aren’t always born in a garage in Palo Alto or a co-working space in SoMa. Sometimes they begin with a single, quiet decision to stop doing things the way everyone expects, and start doing them the way you actually believe in.
That’s the decision Lisa L. Baker made when she walked away from a decorated career at Citigroup, Microsoft, and Synchrony to found Ascentim, a leadership development firm built on the conviction that the most effective leaders are the ones who lead from alignment, not just ambition.
This fall, Baker is launching the next chapter of that vision, a 12-week virtual group coaching cohort for senior leaders, offered to a select group of executives ready to examine how they lead, how they decide, and what they actually want from their careers and their lives.
It is, by design, not for everyone. And that’s exactly the point.
The Problem Baker Is Solving
Silicon Valley has long celebrated the mythology of the high-performing leader, relentless, decisive, always on. But data is beginning to tell a different story about what that culture costs.
According to DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2025, 80 percent of organizations lack confidence in their own leadership pipelines. Just 20 percent of HR leaders say they have successors ready to step into critical roles. The pipeline isn’t just thin, it’s under pressure.
Baker has spent five years working one-on-one with senior leaders across industries, and she has seen the human side of those statistics up close.
“Many leaders have built successful careers, but they’re operating under constant pressure,” she said. “Over time, that pressure shapes how they think, what they believe they should do, and how they lead.”
Her fall cohort is structured to address that directly, creating a space for leaders to step back from the noise, examine the assumptions driving their decisions, and move toward what Baker calls their Area of Greatness.
“Over time, that pressure shapes how they think, what they believe they should do, and how they lead.” — Lisa L. Baker
The G.R.O.W. Framework
The 12-week cohort is built around Baker’s G.R.O.W. framework, a methodology developed through years of deep, individual coaching work and now being applied in a focused group setting for the first time.
The framework moves through four phases. Gain insight into the patterns, assumptions, and external expectations that have quietly shaped how a leader operates. Realize new possibilities by looking beyond the pressures and “shoulds” that accumulate over the course of a career. Overcome the real obstacles, internal and circumstantial, that stand between where a leader is and where they want to be. Win at life and leadership in a way that reflects their actual values, not just the metrics on their last performance review.
At the heart of the experience is Baker’s concept of the Area of Greatness, the convergence of a leader’s strengths, passions, and purpose. It is, she argues, the foundation from which the most intentional and sustainable leadership decisions are made.
The cohort format is deliberately intimate. Baker is not building a mass-market platform. She is creating a room, virtual or otherwise, where serious leaders can do serious work.
The Credentials Behind the Conviction
Baker’s credibility in this space is not theoretical. Before founding Ascentim, she spent more than two decades in senior leadership at three major financial and technology organizations: Citigroup, Microsoft, and Synchrony.
She knows what it feels like to operate at the top. She also knows what it costs and what it takes to sustain that level of performance without losing sight of why you wanted to lead in the first place.
That experience underpins everything Ascentim does. The firm works with senior leaders and their teams across industries, helping them strengthen how they lead, make decisions, and operate in high-pressure environments.
The recognition has followed. Ascentim earned the Inc. Best in Business award in both 2022 and 2023 for coaching and career development, two consecutive years, and Baker received the Globée® Woman-Owned Startup of the Year award.
A Program for Leaders Ready for What’s Next
The fall cohort is designed for senior leaders who are already performing at a high level and are ready to examine how they want to lead going forward. It is not remediation. It is, in Baker’s words, a space to move “from pressure to purpose.”
For leaders in the Bay Area and across the country who have built impressive careers but find themselves running on the fuel of obligation rather than intention, Baker’s program offers something the leadership development industry rarely makes room for: honest reflection, peer accountability, and a framework for deciding what actually matters.
In an era when the conversation about leadership is finally starting to include sustainability, alignment, and purpose alongside performance, Baker’s work feels less like a coaching program and more like a necessary correction.
“Baker’s work feels less like a coaching program and more like a necessary correction.”
About Ascentim
Ascentim is an award-winning leadership development firm founded by Lisa L. Baker. The firm works with leaders and organizations across industries to strengthen leadership, alignment, and culture. Baker is based in Baltimore, Maryland, and works with clients nationally.
The fall 2026 cohort is open to a select group of senior leaders. Learn more about Ascentim’s leadership development practice.
