Danny Ghitis, PCC
I built CredentialPrep because I needed it. I hold the ICF PCC credential, and I've been through mentor coaching and recorded-session review as part of the MCC process.
I'm also in a training program for the ICF Mentor Coach Specialization, so I can mentor other coaches. That's why I'm building Mentor Coach, a separate product for mentor coaches: the paperwork and evaluation process can be really tedious, and that gets in the way of the fun part of helping coaches get better.
How I got here
The only corporate job I ever had was a newspaper internship, and it was far from typical. I spent years as a photojournalist and editorial photographer before training as a coach at NYU. Right after, I earned my CAPP (Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology), and then my PCC credential from the ICF.
I have always been a tinkerer with design and technology, and AI let me close the gap I had with coding. CredentialPrep is what happens when those threads combine. The same person who understands the credential process from the inside also builds the software.
Journalism taught me to be thorough, and I am a perfectionist by nature, so I am not satisfied with mediocre. I like to learn by trying things and putting myself in uncomfortable situations, and I iterate on it daily with feedback from coaches preparing for their credentials. It is a work in progress and it is not perfect.
What makes this different
I see a lot of generic AI with a coaching label on it. That is not enough for coaches who put thousands of dollars into their education and hundreds more into a credential application. ICF application fees currently run from $175 to $900 depending on level and path, and some coach education programs list more than $10,000 in tuition. Even then, education often does not fully prepare you for the credential itself. I built CredentialPrep to stay tied to the ICF Core Competencies and to your own transcript, so you can check the reasoning yourself.
A few things to know about CredentialPrep:
The exam questions are a collaboration between me and AI. Through a lot of back and forth, I built a written review process that teaches the AI how the ICF thinks, and I review the questions by hand. AI Practice mode makes new questions on the spot, and it says so. Sub-behavior tags map to the current ICF Core Competencies. On PCC and MCC questions, the wrong answers are written to be tempting.
I named the transcript evaluator Calibrated Coaching Intelligence. A general AI model brings the broad common sense of the internet, and that does not map onto how coaching competencies look or how they should be evaluated. So I built it in layers. Your transcript goes through several passes before you see anything, until it evaluates the way a coach would. My mentor coach training helps me keep it calibrated, and it grades to the level you are applying for. Each finding points to a marker and quotes the moment in your transcript.
I talk with coaches all the time, and what I hear changes the product. I hold live PCC study sessions with candidates when I schedule one, and CredentialPrep users get an email when I do.
What I believe about AI in coaching
Three principles I try to hold, even when the shortcut is tempting:
AI amplifies judgment. If you already know what a well-graded coaching session looks like, AI helps you check your own work faster. CredentialPrep is built for coaches who already have the judgment and want to prepare more carefully, not for people looking to skip the work.
Structure beats fluency. Left on its own, AI produces nice-looking garbage. A well-worded evaluation that cites the wrong marker is worse than a plainly-worded one that cites the right one. So the evaluation cites evidence from your transcript, and you can check the reasoning instead of trusting the fluency.
Honest about limits.The product doesn't replace mentor coaching. It doesn't grant credentials. It sometimes misses things a human assessor would catch. Where I can improve accuracy, I do. Where I can't yet, I say so.
What I'm not
Not a coach training program. Not a way around any requirement. Depending on your path, the credential takes coaching hours, mentor coaching, the exam, and a performance evaluation. All of it takes real time. This is a prep and evaluation tool that fits alongside all of that.
What's next
I'm building a Mentor Coach product, still in development. It's aimed at the 2027 ICF changes. From January 1, 2027, new mentor coaching hours must be with a mentor coach who holds ICF's Mentor Coach Specialization. From April 1, 2027, a Competency Review Form from that mentor coach replaces the performance evaluation for ACC and PCC Portfolio applications, with Session Observation Forms kept on file for each session reviewed. The MCC performance evaluation stays. The mentor coach audience is different from the candidate audience, so it's a separate product, not a candidate upsell.
Talk to me
If you're preparing for an ICF credential and something on this site is unclear, or if you're a coaching school or ICF chapter interested in a cohort partnership, reach me at credentialprepicf@gmail.com.