Cynthia Whitfield

Cynthia Whitfield-is the President and CEO of INSPIRE1, LLC Consulting & Coaching Firm. Her expertise is executive and leadership coaching, leadership training and strategy development to achieve corporate goals.

For over 35 years, Cynthia has been a leadership coach, consultant, and mentor developing and enhancing the skills of seasoned professionals enabling them to effectively overcome challenges and achieve results.

Formerly a field senior vice president at Allstate Insurance Company, Cynthia was responsible for business results for the Southern Region encompassing five states, accounting for all profit and loss results and management of a business revenue stream of approximately two billion dollars with 2,500 sales professionals, and 86 regional employees. She rose to her position after holding various leadership roles in Operations, Accounting, Finance, Risk Management, and Product Operations.

Her passion for enabling skillful, experienced people to confront obstacles, problem solve and empower their direct reports led her to strike out on her own in 2020 and start her own executive coaching and consulting company, INSPIRE1. She is certified in Executive Coaching from Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching, Hogan Personality Assessments, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion from University of South Florida Muma College of Business.

Cynthia earned a degree in business administration from Rutgers University and a master’s in management from Indiana Wesleyan University. Cynthia uses her business acumen to support her community. She served as board chair of the Nashville YWCA 2022-2023 and was a major sponsor for the AMEND Together program. In 2018, Cynthia was honored by AMEND Together and the YWCA as their person of the year with the Macdonald-Negri Service Award. She is currently chair of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee, chair of Fifty Forward and serves on the Girls Inc. Advisory committee of the YWCA, the Advancing Women of Nashville Board and the Nashville State Community College Board. She is a member of Leadership Nashville and Nashville Chamber of Commerce.

In 2020, Cynthia was named one of Nashville Business Journal’s Women of Influence celebrating Nashville

women making history as a community supporter and the recipient of the 2024 ATHENA Leadership Award.