The Experience

The Chocolate Villa experience challenges you to do more than you ever thought possible. You will gain profound insight into your professional and personal aspirations, as well as recognition of the internal and external barriers that may be holding you back. You will connect with a support network that will help you achieve your goals. And, most importantly, you will walk away with the confidence, energy, and passion to achieve your “next.” Here are some of the anticipated outcomes of attending Chocolate Villa:


Becoming in-tune with your natural abilities and strengths is key to professional—and personal—success. Research has shown that women are more inclined to underestimate themselves, often contributing their success to “luck” rather than to their own actions. Once you are able to see your own abilities clearly, you can act with the confidence to motivate and inspire others.

Each woman has her own set of skills and strengths that contribute to her success as a leader in her job, her community, and her home. Chocolate Villa will help you shape your own, authentic leadership style, and help you recognize that influencers of the future will have a new set of skills and capabilities to meet the challenges of guiding the upcoming generations. 

Our experience with more than 600 women from all over the world--as well as consistent data from the research--indicates that “lack of confidence” is the most common barrier women report that keeps them from setting and reaching aspirational goals.


Surveys of our alumnae have indicated that “increased confidence” is the outcome that they reported most often, and many have indicated in follow-up reports that their increase in confidence has sustained them for years beyond their program. The tools for building and maintaining confidence can be practiced throughout your lifetime.

Emotional and social intelligence are key to becoming a great leader. At Chocolate Villa you will have the opportunity to evaluate your own emotional intelligence competency using the EQi 2.0™ assessment instrument. You will receive EI instruction and feedback that helps you focus on strengths and learn skills to build your emotional and social intelligence to impact your leadership capabilities.

Finding your “next,” and how to achieve it, is a key part of the Chocolate Villa experience. You will create a clearly defined action plan—your “Business Life Plan”—to help you make the next step in your career and life and maintain the momentum you need to succeed.

Our alumnae often reach out to us to say that one of the most rewarding parts of the Chocolate Villa experience is the connection that they have made to other executive women from around the world. Alumnae form lasting networks of support with professional women that have a great impact on their professional and personal lives. Many of our alumnae participate in follow-up peer coaching and group mentoring, or stay in touch through access to our monthly newsletter and social media communities, web-based resources, and support from our facilitators through follow-up checkpoints and individualized coaching, if desired.