Women Leaders Association Names Erin Odenweller Hartford Coaching Partner

HARTFORD, US — November 12, 2026 — –REDPRESSWIRE– The Women Leaders Association, the largest publisher and events organization for women professionals with 43,000 members and more than 130 regional chapters, today announced Erin Odenweller, ACC, as the first Coaching Partner of its Hartford chapter, giving Hartford-area members a coach screened for credentials, track record, and client results.

Coaching is one of the highest-impact investments a professional woman can make in her career, and one of the hardest to shop for. Titles are unregulated and quality varies enormously. Under Coaching Partners, the association does the screening on the member’s behalf, vetting every coach for recognized certifications, verifiable experience, and excellent client reviews, so members can book a consultation with confidence.

Odenweller’s coaching niche is leadership and career development for women. Her ideal client, in her words, is “a female leader navigating the effects of the patriarchy while trying to reduce harm in their environment and protect themselves while doing so.”

For senior women in the Hartford area, that balance is familiar: leading well, protecting the people around them, and protecting themselves at the same time, often in organizations that were not built with them in mind. Odenweller helps them get un-stuck and move toward their goals at work and in life. “Uncertainty. Fear. Confusion. Chaos,” she writes. “When fear drives us, we make poor decisions… Conveniently, I eat ambiguity for lunch.”

She learned that the hard way. Odenweller spent more than 25 years in the technology industry, from startups and small companies all the way up to Amazon and Meta. She started her career answering the support line, moved into quality engineering, and rose into leadership as a QA manager, an engineering manager at Amazon, where she launched the first version of its Cloud Player music service, and Director of Quality Engineering at the mobile security company Lookout. She then spent nearly a decade as a technical program manager at Facebook and Meta, followed by her most recent role as Staff Technical Program Manager at Reddit, leading large cross-functional programs in infrastructure, security, and cloud spend. She helped Facebook migrate the entire company onto the @fb.com domain, and has managed capacity budgets from $100 million to $5 billion.

Along the way she found that what felt best was helping others, especially when they feel stuck. She founded Masquerade Coaching and Consulting in 2023 and has coached mid-career individual contributors all the way to founders and C-suite leaders through career pivots, pushes for promotion, managing ambiguity and change, and the thorny life transitions that do not stay outside the office. She speaks from experience: by her own account she has been laid off five times and has navigated the loss of a parent.

Her approach starts with safety. “I want you to feel safe,” she writes. “That means you feel physically and psychologically able to participate in coaching. I want you to feel seen, and heard, by me and also by yourself. If we can get there, you can step up and challenge yourself to reach for your goals.” Her signature Your Next Role program takes clients from a role audit and resume gap analysis through a weekly job search plan, interview practice, and negotiating an offer they are happy to sign.

Odenweller is an International Coaching Federation Associate Certified Coach and a graduate of the International Coach Academy, where she also completed FlipIt Framework Facilitation. She is a Project Management Professional, a Certified ScrumMaster, and a FinOps Certified Practitioner who spoke at FinOpsX 2025. She holds a B.A. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, a double major she completed while working.

“Women leaders spend a lot of energy protecting their teams and protecting themselves, often at the same time,” said Odenweller. “I want every woman I work with to feel safe, seen and heard, because that is where she can step up, challenge herself and reach for her goals. I’m glad to bring that work to the Women Leaders Association’s Hartford members.”

Hartford-area members can view Odenweller’s full profile, including her focus areas and credentials, or book a free 20-minute discovery call with her through her page at

https://HartfordWomenLeaders.org/CoachErinOdenweller

“Many of our Hartford members are doing two jobs at once: leading, and managing what it takes to lead as a woman in their organization,” said Lydia Price, 2026 Volunteer Chair of the Women Leaders Association. “Erin has sat in those rooms, from engineering floors to some of the largest technology companies in the world, and she helps women get un-stuck without losing themselves along the way.”

Odenweller’s appointment is part of a national rollout extending Coaching Partners across the association’s network of more than 130 chapters, pairing each city’s members with coaches selected for that market.

Coaching Partners extends the association’s mission of giving professional women both structural transparency and individual support. Research from Pew and others estimates that women still earn roughly 15 percent less than men on average, and the association’s Glass Ceiling Score project scores most major U.S. employers on how fairly they promote women into management and executive roles. Coaching Partners adds the personal dimension: once a member sees the landscape clearly, a proven coach helps her move through it.

About Erin Odenweller

Erin Odenweller, ACC, is a career, executive and life coach and the founder of Masquerade Coaching and Consulting, LLC, based in Madison, Connecticut. Her coaching niche is leadership and career development for women. An International Coaching Federation Associate Certified Coach and a graduate of the International Coach Academy, she brings more than 25 years in the technology industry, including leadership roles at Amazon, Lookout, Facebook, Meta and Reddit. She is a Project Management Professional, a Certified ScrumMaster and a FinOps Certified Practitioner, and holds degrees in Computer Science and in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

About the Women Leaders Association

The Women Leaders Association is a non-profit committed to the development and advancement of women in the corporate arena. With 43,000 members and more than 130 chapters in major cities, it is the largest publisher and events organization serving women professionals, producing conferences, leadership programs, original research, and daily publications for its members. We also celebrate the top 50 business women in each city, publish a Glass Ceiling Score ranking how well most employers advance women, and then recognize the best women’s employers in each city from these rankings.

Events Near You: https://WomanLeaders.org/r/

Best Employers Near You: https://WomanLeaders.org/r/GlassCeiling

Visit the Hartford chapter: https://HartfordWomenLeaders.org

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