Being a leader for yourself, your family, or your team requires more than learning a few new skills. Upward & Inward leverages a deep multi-modality approach to generate breakthrough results in how you lead. This entails directing your actions and aspirations following your particular definition of success, anchoring to your values, and uncovering your special genius.

By prioritizing your inner journey and staying true to yourself, you can create a life that is truly meaningful and aligned with your deepest aspirations, all while meeting and exceeding external success measures.

About Ari DeGrote

✔ 20 years of experience
✔ ICF Certified Coach (ACC)
✔ Foundations Certified Team Coach
✔ Self-Actualization Mentor
✔ 2x Certified High-Performance Flow Coach & Human Potential Coach
✔ Certified facilitator of Everything DiSC and Workplace Big 5

Ari is a curious human, hungry to learn with a growth mindset. She has creatively pursued many roles, courses, certifications, and uncomfortable situations to ensure this growth. Healthily addicted to behavior change herself, Ari’s found it’s even sweeter to champion and guide others alongside herself. She lives from the inside out and finds great joy in her purpose to help humans relish the process of growth. She aims to go beyond creating safe spaces to creating brave spaces.

She began her career leading change initiatives through organizational leadership, championing individuals and groups as they navigated the unknown. For eight years, she followed her intuition, gathered experience, and connected more deeply with human nature. When she discovered the startup industry, she eagerly shifted into entrepreneurial ecosystem-building and has supported leaders, founders, and internal innovators like you for the last 9+ years.

Intrigued when working on ‘what’s possible’ and expanding assumptions about what can be accomplished, Ari has found that she thrives on the fast-paced innovation side of business. While at T-Mobile Accelerator, she created and grew multiple programs, forging relationships with several levels of stakeholders to realize their shared mission. She developed the multi-faceted Leadership Growth Program for startup founders, which addresses the whole human as a leader, including flow, embracing ambiguity, working with fear/anxiety as an ally, and burnout resilience.

She is certified as a Human Potential Coach, achieved her ACC credentials with the International Coaching Federation (ICF), gained certification as a Self-Actualization Mentor, and has a Foundations certification as a Team Coach with GTCI. As an Everything DiSC certified facilitator and Workplace Big 5 Facilitator, she has guided individuals and teams through their own personal, life, and leadership growth. Ari started Upward & Inward, LLC in 2018, working with entrepreneurs and other high-achievers, and in 2024, expanded to working with teams to reignite Impact Leaders through the Impact Empowerment Program.

Ari’s robust career reflects real contributions to leadership, behavior change, content creation, training & development, coaching, and active collaboration. To sum it up in one word… transformation. She is deeply passionate about progress with purpose and thrives as an influential motivator, working with others to promote and achieve positive and measurable progress. Ari believes in creating impact-driven experiences for growth, teamwork, and lasting change. She unites and inspires others toward action by seeking diverse perspectives and blazing forward with contagious curiosity.

Ari has always found it helpful to ask:

• If not now, when?

• If not me, who?

• If not that, what?

At this point in human history, Ari believes we absolutely need more Impact Leaders. What does transcendence look like, and what may be possible for each of us through life? What are we capable of accomplishing together collaboratively? It’s time we explore this layer that goes beyond one's self and delves into the broader community of humanity. This interconnectedness is what it's all about!