After more than 22 years in the information technology field, Loretta Pickford was highly accomplished and well respected but wasn’t fulfilled. So she stepped off the bank of corporate comfort and plunged into the swirling waters of entrepreneurship. “I wanted to have a bigger impact on people’s lives,” says the 44-year-old professional coach and founder of Women’s Entrepreneurial Success Institute.

It is Loretta’s fervent belief that women who start their own business need a different kind of training than has been traditionally provided. When Loretta coaches people, she combines traditional methods, such as honing skills in time management, and goal setting, with nontraditional aspects, such as spiritual intelligence and how to approach your work from your heart and not just your head. The spiritual tone included in her coaching is because she believes that there is a power greater than ourselves that operates in our lives and that our thoughts are the creative seeds that produce the results we experience. Loretta’s coaching philosophy is, “We are our whole life; we are not one person at work and another at home. We are who we are no matter where we are.”

Loretta likes to work with people who are ready to take their life to the next level, and to do that from the inside out. Says one former client: “She held me accountable and challenged me to think outside the box and approach some challenges differently … and enabled me to overcome some perceptions that were blocking me in the selling process.”

Loretta says her life purpose is to awaken consciousness and propel people toward their dreams. She herself struggled as an entrepreneur just as many of her clients struggle. She found the key to making a new business work is “to align your belief systems with your thought processes.” When she did her training to become a certified professional co-active coach (CPCC), she was still employed in the IT field and her first clients were colleagues. After that, she started networking at mostly women’s groups.

As with most entrepreneurs, Loretta has been pretty consumed with the demands of her profession, particularly since starting up the Institute in early 2003. The vision of the Institute is to bring resources and experiences from all directions to one place where women come to create their success, blending business with spirit.

As a native of Michigan and having worked in the Midwest and northern Virginia, Loretta loves the more casual, friendly Florida lifestyle. At home in St. Pete Beach, Loretta enjoys spending time with people she loves, cooking, gardening, basking in the sunshine, and walking the beach regularly to “clear her head.”