Leadership Coach
I grew up in Massachusetts and spent formative years living in Germany and Colombia, including earning my master's degree in Medellin.
Living across languages and cultures shaped how I listen, build connection, and understand people whose experiences are different from my own. Working for high growth organizations based in San Francisco and NYC, I spent years leading large and diverse teams, advising executives, and operating at the intersection of organizational complexity and what drives how individuals and teams function.
Over time I became increasingly drawn to the deeper questions underneath performance: identity, meaning, relationships, and how people want to live as their lives and responsibilities evolve.
For years, I pursued roles where I could demonstrate competence and achieve measurable results. I was good at that work, but I also spent considerable energy managing perceptions and chasing a sense of arrival that never quite came.
What energized me most was never hitting the targets. It was the conversations that helped people slow down and think clearly. The kind where something actually shifted.
I've always been genuinely curious about people, not just what they're doing but who they are underneath it. People tend to open up around me, and I've learned to take that seriously.
It took me time to realize that my empathy and my need for meaning weren't obstacles to good leadership. They were what made me effective.
That history, navigating complexity inside organizations, doing my own work on the patterns that held me back, is what I bring into every conversation now.
I am less interested in quick answers, and more interested in helping you arrive at clarity that actually holds.
If you are curious about working together, let's talk.
Sonya has a powerful yet gentle coaching style. Her questions help to illuminate a path forward with clarity rather than overwhelm. I always left our sessions feeling less urgency, greater clarity, and with concrete next steps to ground my work for the week. Sonya has a gift of using visualization as a tool to gain clarity about practical steps needed to bring a vision to life. I would recommend her coaching to anyone I know!
Chrissy, Educational Consultant and Parent Coach, Western Massachusetts
Certifications and Training
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ICF Coaching Certification (In Progress, Co-Active Training Institute, 2026)
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Organizational Design (Cornell ILR School, 2024)
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DEI Immersive Training (Groundwater Institute, 2023)
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Project Management Professional (PMP, 2019)
Community Leadership
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Board President, International Language Institute, Northampton, MA
Education
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BA, International & Intercultural Studies (Pitzer College, Claremont CA)
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MA, Political Studies (Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellin Colombia)
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Graduate Certificate in Geopolitics (Universidad EAFT, Medellin, Colombia)
LET'S CONNECT
Please contact me to schedule an exploratory call.