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dena sue potestio, CAP®

Founding Principal and Philanthropic Advisor

Dena is a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy - CAP® and the founding principal of VincentViktoria Philanthropy Advisors (VVPA). She founded the company to honor her parents whose first names comprise the company's namesake. Dena envisions a world without as much suffering and has committed her life to addressing this notion. She's building VVPA to advance it.

Dena's leadership philosophy includes building productive, high performance, and disciplined teams and systems; inspiring a philanthropic culture of giving, creativity, innovation, and excellence; and intentionally centering all activities around a set of core values, embracing best practices. She's passionate about the transformative power of health, healthcare, and education and how philanthropy accelerates change in the lives of individuals, families, and communities.

Dena was previously the vice president for advancement at Touro University Nevada, the largest medical school in Nevada; and the president and chief executive officer of the Emporia State University (ESU) Foundation (Kansas) and the Colorado State University-Pueblo (CSUP) Foundation. She served in dual roles in Kansas and Colorado, including vice president for university advancement at ESU and executive director of university development at CSUP.

In collaboration with the CEO and Senior Provost and campus teammates at Touro (fundraising is a team sport), Dena facilitated two seven-figure grants to advance biomedical and human performance research and medical training for local first responders; and repurposed a third grant for scholarships and support for health care providers seeking to advance care for women and the underserved. And arm-in-arm with the university president, the board of trustees, faculty and teammates, and stakeholders, Dena led an effort to propel ESU into its next 150 years through the largest, most comprehensive, and most successful fundraising campaign in university history.

Prior to her experience in higher education advancement, Dena was a Series 7/63 financial advisor at Merrill Lynch and Charles Schwab in Colorado. She began her career at Arthur Andersen in Chicago as a financial consultant. Her diverse work experience also includes the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) where she was a senior policy specialist, raising public and private support from the Engineering Foundation, the NCSL Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

Dena holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration, both from the University of Denver. She also holds a Master of Arts and a Master of Sacred Theology, both from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, a seminary affiliated with Columbia University and a partner to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Contact Dena at denasue@vincentviktoria.com or 719-240-2233.

VIKI "VIKTORIA" POTESTIO

President, IntuitiveGroup

Coach, Mentor, Trainer

Viki is an avid lifelong learner. She believes our lives are a journey filled with a kaleidoscope of people and events that pass through our days—some good, some bad, some neutral—and if we’re perceptive enough to notice them, many of these interactions present us with choices and opportunities to learn. But here's the question: Do we take in these lessons so that we grow and develop into the human beings we’re meant to be, or do we instead listen to those ‘little voices’ inside our heads that whisper into our hearts that we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not educated enough, or not handsome or pretty enough to accomplish great things? These negative voices have a terrible knack at convincing us that we don’t have enough money, enough time, enough support, and any number of other “not enough’s” keeping us from reaching our goals and believing in ourselves. Even worse, these voices often tell us that everyone is against us and to not even bother trying.

Viki recognizes that these negative and destructive voices in every head are lies, and she’s skilled at recognizing them. These lies destroy self-confidence. They diminish self-esteem. They lock us into a mindset that constricts our spirits, like trimming the root of a bonsai tree prevents it from growing to its full potential. Unconscious brains aren’t able to tell the difference between fact and fiction, they only know and learn what we tell them. As a coach and mentor, Viki helps her clients to gain the tools and learn personal and emotional skills they need to conquer their negative inner voices, and instead grow their spirit as large and secure as an old oak tree.

Viki has had her share of twists and turns along her life's journey.  She had the privilege of being a stay-at-home mom in her 20s, 30s and early 40s. She used those years to earn her business degree at Colorado State University-Pueblo and build two successful small businesses as an entrepreneur, including Personally Yours, an interior design, drapery, and furniture upholstery company, and The Connoisseur’s Collection, a custom candy company. She remembers being ‘scared to death’ on her first solo drive to Colorado Springs from her hometown of Pueblo, Colo., in the early 1980s. Her destination was The Broadmoor Hotel, where she landed a contract to supply the hotel’s first monogrammed chocolate mints. “She was blessed,” she recounts. Through firsthand experience, Viki knows the challenges of front-line sales teammates as well as those charged with exceptional customer service.

May 18, 2014, presented Viki with the biggest twist and turn of her lifetime when her husband passed away unexpectedly leaving her alone and in shock. She continued to work as a corporate trainer with the Kroger Corporation, a job she held for many years. She came to realize however that she was facing a monumental moment of choice in her life, and understood what the outcome would be if she listened to those ‘little voices’ in her head claiming she was “too old, too sad, too depressed, too much of this or too much of that.” She recognized the negative voices in her head were all lies and instead pushed through them. 

Viki founded IntuitiveGroup in 2015. She’s pleased to be affiliated with VincentViktoria as a coach, mentor, and trainer. Viki has the skills, knowledge and ability to help her clients quiet those oh so convincing lying voices in their heads that are holding them back from accomplishing their goals and dreams. Together with Viki, you’ll identify the who, what, where, why, and how for you to grow into the human spirit you’re meant to be.

Per Dr. Stephen R Covey, “Coaches are neither born nor made. Great coaches choose to be great coaches.” I choose to be a great coach for you. Will you choose me?

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Viki's philosophy and scope of practice for personal coaching and mentoring:

I’ll move mountains to move your team forward on at least one performance level, ideally two or more.

I believe that coaches and mentors for fundraising teammates must embody a skill set that aligns with the mission of the client. You’ve probably heard from other coaches that they don’t need to know anything about your profession to be an effective coach or mentor. I disagree. The coach you hire should know the thrill of success and the angst of defeat in fundraising. IntuitiveGroup coaches and mentors understand the principles of consultative selling. We're expertly prepared to raise the bar for your fundraising team. 

We’ll help a discouraged teammate who has been rejected to pick up the phone and make the next call.

We’ll help a teammate elevate the stakes and overcome the fears associated with the ‘ask.’

We’ll help a top producer raise the bar to reach new heights.

IntuitiveGroup coaches and mentors have experience overcoming objections. We’ll counsel your teammates on ways to handle rejection and develop communication skills that enable them to listen more effectively and ask probing and thoughtful questions.

Sessions with an IntuitiveGroup coach and mentor will help your teammates to:

• Overcome fear and rejection

• Not take rejection personally

• Challenge paradigms

• Identify personal filters

• Name blind spots and obstacles

• Develop tenacity

• Learn to step out of their comfort zones

• Appreciate the rewards of success

• Identify how trust affects human relationships

• Execute learned skills flawlessly