About
A career built on one question: how do people actually develop?
My work has crossed psychology, leadership, business, international partnerships and research. The settings have changed. The questions underneath them haven't.
How do people make sense of complexity? What changes behavior? And how do relationships shape what becomes possible?
The Thread
People, relationships and change.
My foundation is industrial and organizational psychology, but I have always been interested in people within context — relationships, teams, cultures, incentives and systems.
That perspective led into leadership development and executive coaching. Over the years, I have worked with more than 600 leaders across industries, roles and cultures.
The work rarely begins with an abstract leadership competency. It begins with something real: a difficult relationship, a team that isn't working, a transition, an important decision, or the sense that something needs to change.
That's where I prefer to begin — with the situation as it actually exists.
Business Changed How I See Leadership
The hardest part of strategy is rarely the strategy itself.
My work has also taken me outside the coaching room.
I've built businesses, designed and sold leadership development programs, and worked in strategic partnerships and international expansion. At UST, I developed relationships across the U.S. and Europe, sourced technology and partnership opportunities, worked with senior leadership on acquisition opportunities, and supported expansion into new European markets.
That experience reinforced something coaching had already begun to show me: getting people aligned, building enough trust to move, understanding different interests, having the conversations people would rather avoid, and translating an idea into action.
That is one reason I don't separate leadership from the environment in which it happens. What looks like a confidence problem may also be a stakeholder problem. What looks like a delegation problem may be about trust. A struggling employee may reveal something about the manager. And sometimes what initially appears to be the problem isn't the real problem at all.
What I've Come to Believe
Insight matters. What happens next matters more.
Insight can change how we understand a situation. But leadership happens after the conversation ends.
That's why my work moves between reflection and practice — making vague problems more specific, challenging assumptions, and asking what can actually be done differently.
- Sometimes that's a different conversation.
- Sometimes it's delegating something you've been holding onto.
- And sometimes it's finally making the decision you've been avoiding.
The question I keep coming back to is:
What will be different because we had this conversation?
The Path
Five chapters. One thread.
Psychology
Industrial and organizational psychology taught me to look beyond the individual — to the relationships, systems and environments that shape behavior.
Leadership Development
Designing and delivering development programs taught me that leadership is learned through practice, not content alone.
Executive Coaching
Working with 600+ leaders across industries and cultures brought the work close to real decisions, difficult relationships and transitions.
Business & International Partnerships
Strategic partnerships and international expansion brought the same questions into business — how trust is built, interests align and relationships turn strategy into action.
AI & Human Leadership
My ongoing doctoral research explores what happens when AI enters deeply human conversations — and whether technology can help us notice more without confusing more information with deeper understanding.
The Newest Question
What happens when AI enters the conversation?
Technology can capture language, patterns and interactions at a scale humans can't. What interests me is what happens next: how people interpret that information and whether it can contribute to deeper reflection.
My doctoral research in Leadership for Change explores how AI-supported tools may contribute to meaningful conversation, reflection, relational depth and learning in leadership coaching.
Can technology help us notice more without confusing more information with deeper understanding?
AI can analyze more. Understanding still requires us.
Explore AI + Research →Between Countries, Disciplines & Perspectives
I've spent much of my life moving between worlds.
I grew up in Bulgaria and later built my life and career in the United States. Much of my professional life has involved crossing boundaries — between countries, cultures, psychology and business, coaching and strategy, research and practice.
Today, I live in Los Angeles and work globally.
Outside the formal titles, I'm a mother, entrepreneur, researcher, educator and coach — and still someone who asks a lot of questions.
Education & Training
Grounded in research, practiced in the real world.
Master of Arts
Industrial & Organizational Psychology — Alliant International University
Master of Education
Fielding Graduate University
Doctoral Studies — Leadership for Change
Fielding Graduate University
Human Resources Development
UCLA
Professional Coaching Education
ADLER Faculty of Professional Coaching
Additional Professional Development
Organizational change, leadership development, coaching, assessment and adult development
Let's have a real conversation.
You don't need to have the problem perfectly defined before we talk. Figuring out what is really happening is often where the work begins.