From a business card to a coaching culture

Learn more about the MA in Executive & Organizational Coaching.  

Annie Boyer held on to a business card for 10 years before it changed the direction of her life. 

At the time, she had already experienced the impact of non-directive coaching in the workplace after her organization invested in training for the Human Resources team. When leadership changes in another role shifted her organization away from coaching, she knew something was missing. She kept asking herself one question: “How do I bring more coaching into my life?” 

That’s when she picked up the business card and made a call. 

 “I remember feeling like an imposter” 

The voice on the other end belonged to Tammy McLennan, an executive coach who had provided Boyer’s first training experience. McLennan, now a Royal Roads University associate faculty member, was preparing to help launch the first cohort of the MA in Executive & Organizational Coaching program.  

“I knew eventually I wanted to do a master’s, but I knew I didn’t want to do an MBA. There wasn’t anything that was really calling me,” Boyer says. “When Tammy said it was the first master’s of coaching offered in Canada, I thought, ‘Are you kidding me? This is the thing!’” 

The timing was daunting though — the first cohort was starting the following week. 

“Sometimes timing is everything,” she says, noting Royal Roads’ flexible approach allowed her to start with just one course. That was all it took to fall in love with the program, and two years later she was defending her thesis. 

Every person I interacted with at Royal Roads gave me a little bit more courage to say, ‘Wait a second, I belong here. Every course gave me that opportunity to feel that sense of belonging.”

“I remember going in that first class feeling like an imposter. I didn’t have my International Coaching Federation credential, and I am French speaking,” she says. “I live in Montreal, Quebec, and I thought it might be above my head.” 

Through the program’s experiential learning model and with support from faculty and classmates, her confidence began to grow.  

“Every person I interacted with at Royal Roads gave me a little bit more courage to say, ‘Wait a second, I belong here,’” she says.  

That sense of belonging would eventually shape her thesis research. 

Research with purpose 

Graduating in June 2026, Boyer is being honoured with the Governor General’s Gold Medal for her academic excellence and the Royal Roads Founders’ Award. 

Her thesis — How Coaching Cultures Create Conditions for Belonging to Emerge — explored how coaching cultures can survive leadership change by fostering a deeper sense of belonging among employees.  

Initially, Boyer envisioned creating a coaching culture playbook for HR. The idea evolved into a broader question: How can organizations create cultures that endure beyond any one leader? And more specifically, how coaching-centric organizations create the conditions needed for workplace belonging to emerge.  

“It’s not just about the feeling that you are part of a larger group, but you feel like you can contribute and adding value,” she says, noting it’s a feeling that is deeply personal for her. “All of my experiences at Royal Roads led to belonging — to a place, a culture, an organization, to school.”  

Her research found that when employees are coached and empowered to contribute ideas and solve problems, those behaviours become embedded in the organizational culture itself.  

“This return on investment is much more important than efficiency dollars,” she says. “It just becomes part of who people are, regardless of who is leading them.” 

Today, her research is already shaping her workplace through her HR role as a manager, people and culture. After defending her thesis in December 2025, she helped launch a group-coaching initiative within her organization to break down silos and foster collaboration across teams. 

And the business card? It’s still in her desk drawer, a tangible reminder that a connection can lead to transformation.