Veronica Conway

About Veronica Who is Veronica Conway? I am sharing my accomplishments with you not to impress you, but to make you aware of who I am, as well as the direct impact that I am making in the African-American and other communities. I overcame a challenging and difficult childhood to create a movement within the African-American community, and to live my life purpose. I was born the child of a former Black Panther who was incarcerated when I was six years old, and who has been incarcerated for the last 33 years. Prior to my father’s incarceration, I attended school under an alias, witnessed police shootouts and experienced death threats against my life. (Yes,that me at 3 years old in the photo, at a political rally.) At age 18 I experienced what I now call “identity trauma” when I discovered that the (white) mother who raised me for most of my life, was not my biological mother. I searched out, found, and reunited with my (black) biological mother. This was and still is a pivotal moment in my life as it set the stage for my inquiry into what it means to be human, and the meanings that people assign to commonly used words like “mother” and “black” and “free”. While putting myself through college at UC Berkeley, I began asking the questions about what it means to be Black, and began to literally re-create my own identity. I began to investigate the differences between a powerful Black identity vs. a disempowered identity, and discovering the impact of identity on the performance of the African American community. At age 31, after discovering the profession of coaching and acquiring the recommended certifications, I created the first gathering of African-American coaches, as well as founded my own coaching company. As founder of the BPCA, I negotiated deals to bring Success Coaching to organizations such as the Frasernet PowerNetworking Conference, The National Urban League, The National Forum for Black Public Administrators, and many other Black org