Amy Holdsman is the Founder and President of Essential Leadership, coaching and inspiring her clients to authentically identify their values, know their strengths, and step into their power with purposeful engagement. Amy is a trusted leadership coach and philanthropic advisor who guides her clients to identify their voice, vision and values in order to make strategic and impactful investments of their time, talent, treasure, and leveraging their ties. Amy has served in leadership positions in the Greater Philadelphia nonprofit arena for nearly twenty-five years.
Amy served as the Executive Director of the Maguire Foundation for five years. As Executive Director, Amy was primarily responsible for the overall operations, strategy, and grant making administration for $10 million in grants each year. She was the co-architect of the Maguire Scholars Program, partnering with more than 80 educational institutions and serving over 1000 students in grade school, high school, and college with scholarship support.
She led White-Williams Scholars and the Charles E. Ellis Grant and Scholarship Fund for more than a decade. During her tenure, she led the successful transformation of the organization from a single purpose of providing monthly stipends to high achieving young people from low-income families in Philadelphia to a more holistic, high impact program that provides hundreds of low-income, high achieving young people with the necessary support for college access and success.
Prior to assuming leadership at White-Williams Scholars, Amy worked for seven years at Leadership Philadelphia where she introduced the concept of board service to hundreds of executives and placed them on boards of directors. It was there that she became familiar with the nonprofit landscape and invested herself in meaningful service to the community.
She is a 21/64 Certified Advisor for Multigenerational Philanthropy, completed the Teleos Leadership Development Program as a certified leadership coach and is pursuing a certificate in Applied Positive Psychology with The Flourishing Center. She is an active member of Impact100, a women’s giving collective, where she mentors an Impact Fellow, a young professional in search of coaching on how to navigate the philanthropic landscape. She mentors a young woman through Mighty Writers on navigating the college going landscape. She is the past Board Chair of Philabundance, and past board member of The Farmers Market Trust and Congregation Rodeph Shalom. She proudly serves as the Pronouncer in the annual Philadelphia Tribune Spelling Bee. The winner of the competition competes in Washington, D.C. at the National Scripps Howard Spelling Bee. Amy lives in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia and can be found walking daily in the Wissahickon with her three dogs, Raffi (a certified therapy dog), Rosie and Reece.