Whether in small-group coaching or full team sessions, my approach helps collaborators shift out of reactivity, competition, and confusion and cultivate clarity, cohesion, and alignment.
Are You Leading With Clarity + Confidence—or Just Putting Out Fires?
Empowering Business Leaders to Lead with Purpose, Confidence, and Ease
You didn’t step into leadership to feel buried under back-to-back meetings, endless decisions, or infighting. You became a leader to create something meaningful—with collaboration and flow.
But if somewhere along the way, leadership has started to feel heavier than you imagined with all the regular demands plus the pressure to be everything to everyone, here's the truth. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I’ve spent over two decades working with leaders who are passionate, emotionally intelligent and deeply committed to their vision—but who are also stretched thin and overwhelmed within their role.
Through my clinical work in emotional intelligence, trauma-informed leadership, and Nonviolent Communication facilitation & coaching, I’ve seen how the right support can completely transform you, your team's systems, and the way you lead.
About My Approach
What makes my work different is simple: I believe leadership includes personal and professional capacity-building.
As a CNVC Certified Trainer in Nonviolent Communication, I’ve supported leaders across industries—from tech giants like Google and PayPal to entrepreneurs scaling their first teams.
With a background in Marriage & Family Therapy and leadership development, I blend emotional intelligence with practical skill-building to help leaders create workplaces where people thrive.
Group Offerings for Teams
I help teams build trust and develop the collaboration skills to make greater impact.
My most-requested trainings include:
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NVC: Productive Conversations at Work – Learn to navigate high-stakes or sensitive conversations with clarity and skill.
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Collaborative Decision-Making – Build systems and habits that balance autonomy with accountability, creating buy-in across your team.
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The Enneagram at Work: Building Trust and Collaboration – Use personality insights to build relationships and leverage diverse strengths for shared success.
Also, if you’re interested in “teal” strategies for your organization—i.e. greater self-management and shared leadership skills vis a vis Laloux's Reinventing Organizations—let's talk. I can help.
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Participant Reviews
Earl Wagner, Ph.D.,
Senior Software Engineer, Google
Mary has taught everyone from tech engineers to middle schoolers. I’ve consistently seen her guide groups of learners right to the core issues that matter most. With Mary, you can expect to absorb some powerful insights that help you immediately put your NVC learning into practice. Even when covering difficult topics, she naturally and intuitively helps people open up. That engagement makes for a powerful learning experience. Highly recommended!
Gibran Khan
Google Startup Hubs
Mary possesses expertise on multiple fronts, including Nonviolent Communication, Enneagram coaching, and counseling. I’ve done all three with her and have personally experienced how she connects her knowledge across different disciplines… to go below the surface and address root causes.
Mary Roaf, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor
A key way that Mary’s coaching around communication has improved my effectiveness as a facilitator of cross-sector teams is to foster shared commitments regarding ambitious outcomes… The principles of conscious comm/NVC especially speaks to how to address adaptive challenges in ways that bring about substantive, impactful change. No words express how radically transformative this work is.
“Highly, highly recommend… I’ve worked with quite a few therapists, and Mary is the one I keep going back to.”
— Kim Flynn, Entrepreneur, Podcaster & Author
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