Born July 31st, 1955, died February 11th, 2003.

Considered one of the most important popularisers of Coaching in the world.  An author, publisher, trainer and coach.

In the early 80s he worked as the Financial Director in Landmark Education in the USA.  Due to his education background, he was also a financial advisor.  During his meetings with clients, he noticed that he achieves best results when working with people individually, and not only in the financial sector.  He came to the conclusion, that financial troubles are merely a result, a derivative of issues hidden deeply in the psyche of a person.  This discovery inspired him to work with his clients individually thus creating the foundations under a coherent coaching methodology.

Further developing his approach, in 1998 he founded the College for Life Planning, began a training program called “Design your Life” and kept working on the development of the idea of coaching.

In 1991 he closed the College for Life Planning, because he no longer wanted to train coaches. A year later he established CoachU.

In 1994 Thomas Leonard created the International Coach Federation.  After three years he withdrew from the organisation because of a difference of opinions concerning the development of the organisation.  The ICF merged with the Personal and Professional Coaches Association (PPCA) creating one organisation called the ICF.

In 1996 he sold the CoachU to Sandy Vilas and created Coachville in 2001.

Thomas Leonard died in 2003 at the age of 47.