Nominating Committee

The Nominating Committee is a committee of the Board of Directors.  Its role is to find appropriate candidates for the Board of Directors and for the International Leadership Council (ILC).  Appropriate people are those who know Focusing and believe that learning the skills of felt sensing has great value for individuals and for society.  For the Board, the Nominating Committee seeks people who are trustworthy to guide and steer The International Focusing Institute (TIFI) and who will be a good fit so that the Board can work together in a respectful and effective manner.  For the ILC, candidates should be Coordinators, but since diversity on the ILC is especially important, to achieve diversity candidates might be Coordinators-in-Training.

The Nominating Committee meets monthly year-round to get to know potential candidates.  Once someone seems to be a good fit for the current needs of the Board or the ILC, then the Nominating Committee will send their names to the Board for consideration.  The Board votes on whether to approve candidates both for the Board and for the ILC, but the Nominating Committee always gets the ILC's approval of candidates for the ILC before sending those names to the Board.

The Nominating Committee always has at least one current member of the ILC, one current member of the Board, and additional members from the Focusing community at large.

Any TIFI member can suggest potential nominees or ask the committee questions or make comments by writing them at [email protected].

Nominating Process

• Why we use a nominating committee
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• Criteria for nominating
• Steps and Timeline for the 2016 process
   

Florentina Sassoli (TIFI Board)

Florentina is from Buenos Aires, Argentina.  She is a Focusing Coordinator, and works professionally as a Focusing-Oriented Counselor.  She co-founded Focusing Para Todos (“Focusing for All“) which is a Focusing Training School.  She also served as President of the  Asociación Civil Argentina de Focusing, which is an organization promoting cooperation among Focusing Trainers and Coordinators in Argentina.  Florentina has also been very active as a volunteer with TIFI, having started the free-for-members programs of Cafecitos and Mesas Redondas.  She also is a regular translator at many events, and has served as a Collaborating Coordinator at the Weeklong for Advanced Focusers, among many other roles.

Massimo Zarghetta (ILC)

Massimo is a Focusing Coordinator and a member of the International Leadership Council.  He began his career as a governmental economist in emerging regions of East Africa and the Middle East and later worked as a marketing strategist and account executive. After having worked for almost 20 years in those various positions, he became a management consultant with the Italian branch of one the world's largest corporate consulting firms. While doing all this, he was also studying and practicing traditional Eastern psycho-physiological disciplines.

Later in life, he turned toward the non-profit sector, setting up two non-profit associations which support overall individual wellbeing.  He studied Rogerian Counselling and learned there about Focusing. He says: "The inherently gentle and respectful attitude of Experiential Listening allowed me to abandon the more orthodox, mainstream approach of ‘assisting’ others by means of a ‘consultancy’. I was able to undertake a lighter and more joyful path towards a total listening approach."  He joined the team as a Mindfulness trainer at the Scuola Italiana di Focusing’ (www.sidf.it), founded by Italian Focusing Trainer and Coordinator and Mindfulness trainer, Emmy Parisi. Emmy and he developed an extended mindful-focusing approach for individuals and groups and co-conducting two-years full Focusing courses.

Amona Buechler

For more than 32 years, Amona Buechler has studied and deeply practiced a variety of process-oriented, experiential approaches, including Feldenkrais, Meditation, Focusing, Systemic Constellation, Conscious Touch, and more. She is a Focusing Coordinator-in-Training with The International Focusing Institute. Amona offers both beginner-level courses and Professional Focusing Training, online and in-person. She also offers a Nervous System Reset course that integrates several modalities. Most of her in-person courses, retreats, and a Changes Group are offered in German. Amona seeks to offer a learning environment in which participants dare to experiment and explore by following their curiosity—an environment where mistakes are nothing but invigorating opportunities to discover more possibilities.

Nelle Moffett

Nelle served as President of the TIFI Board of Directors from 2020 until 2025.  She has had a long and illustrious career in higher education, and is an ordained interfaith minister.  She is a dedicated philanthropist who has worked hard to end homelessness.  She has a wide variety of skills and interests which eventually led her to Focusing in the early 2000's.  In the News Feed interview of her upon her departure from the Board Presidency, her interviewer summed up the theme of Nelle's life as "How can I serve?" You can read more about Nelle in that News Feed from Augst 2025.