I’m Sara — a coach with twenty years of HR inside Microsoft, Redfin, and Stitch Fix. I work with leaders building the strength, clarity, and focus it takes to move forward — as the kind of boss they wish they’d had.
30 minutes · free · no sales pitch · no obligationWhy I do this.
I’ve spent twenty years inside HR — big-machine HR at Microsoft, IPO-era HR at Redfin, APAC HR for a multinational based in Shanghai, and now People & Culture work at Stitch Fix. I’ve sat in a lot of conference rooms during a lot of hard moments.
What I noticed, over and over, is that the leaders I admired most weren’t the ones with the cleanest frameworks. They were the ones who could stay in a hard conversation without flinching. Who listened longer than was comfortable. Who refused to be either cold or performative.
That’s the work I do now. I help leaders practice being themselves — on purpose — in the rooms that actually matter. I don’t have a 7-pillar model. I have twenty years of having watched what works, and a real curiosity about what you’re trying to do.
— Sara
Most coaching is people waiting to speak. I don’t do that. I’ll often replay what you said back to you because hearing your own thinking out loud is half the work.
There is no version of good leadership that requires the people on your team to be smaller. Hard feedback, performance moves, painful goodbyes — all possible with dignity intact.
The conversation you’re avoiding with your direct report is the one most likely to be quietly hollowing out your team. We’ll practice it in here, then you’ll have it out there.
You don’t need a 7-pillar model. You need to try the thing this week, look at what actually happened, and adjust. Two decades of HR taught me people are not playbooks.
For a leader mid-step. We meet weekly for twelve weeks; you’ll move on three things you’ve been circling for months.
Most engagementsCoaching for the whole leadership group through a hard moment — a re-org, an acquisition, a sudden scale.
Fractional HR for founders past 25 people, before the first full-time People hire. Monthly retainer, clear scope.
Keynotes & workshops on leading across cultures, having the hard conversation, scaling teams without losing the people in them.
Most engagements look different from each other. But after a few hundred coaching hours, a handful of patterns keep showing up. Here are the ones I’m most useful on.
The one you rehearse on the drive home. We’ll figure out what’s actually in the way of saying it.
When the playbook that got you here is the thing slowing you down. New altitude, new posture.
After two years running HR in Shanghai, this is the one I have the strongest opinions about. Most cross-cultural advice is wrong.
Usually the team knows something is off before you do. We’ll work on what to do with that, without flinching.
You can advocate for your boss, your team, and yourself in the same meeting. I’ve watched it done well.
When the things that worked at 30 are quietly breaking at 120. What to keep, what to retire, what to invent.
She helped me stop performing the job and start doing it. The difference in my team was visible inside a month.
Sara is the rare coach who has actually run the function. The conversations land because she’s sat in the chair.
I expected frameworks. I got a real thinking partner. Way more useful, way harder, way better.
We’ll talk for half an hour. You’ll know if I can help. I’ll know if I’m the right person to. That’s the whole first step.
