I was referred to Petra by a colleague in an early stage startup. I was ready to throw in the towel. I came to the organization as a marketing analyst through the co-founder. Growing at an insane speed, I got promoted a few months in. I was super excited and proud to be acknowledged for my hard work. As part of the promotion came a team of 7. I was ready for the challenge. Managing a team would be awesome and with my MBA and some volunteering I knew I was ready to do this. 4 weeks later I wanted to quit. Had I known how much time and energy managing and leading a team would take, I may have declined the position. Most of the team didn’t like me because they had hoped for the job, and they didn’t hide it. They stalled timelines and sabotaged projects. I didn’t have time to do my actual job. Worst of all, I had no idea how to fix any of it. Petra helped me with immediate damage control to get the project back on track. Long term she helped me gain perspective and self-awareness (not always my favorite part when she prods) and quickly scale my skills to have tough conversations, work with a team of prior peers, and - hard to accept at first - tackle my need to micro-manage to stay “in control”. I am far from perfect as a leader, but I am much more confident and less stressed. And my team has not left and given me positive feedback. I call Petra my “angel coach”.

When I started working with Petra, I was transitioning from working at a massive corporation to a hyper-growth startup with about twenty employees. Her mentorship helped me trust my intuition and gave me the self-confidence to navigate the blurred boundaries in the organization and form relationships with cross-functional stakeholders. Thanks to her, I have learned how to turn the discomfort inherent in professional transitions into opportunities for growth.

I joined an early stage startup early on in my career. With the rapid growth and success of the company, my responsibilities grew from single contributor to Manager to Director in no time. Suddenly I was in charge of people and then of people leaders. I had read a lot about leadership and values driven organizations, but it is different in real life. And I became a little overwhelmed juggling both day to day tasks and also focusing on leading my teams, guiding them while I was drowning myself. So I started working with Petra, and boy - did she help me become the leader I always wanted to be. She helped me transition from overwhelmed Imposter to being in control of my time, empowering my team to take on tasks and projects, so I can manage up and find the time to develop them into better versions of themselves. I now feel in control of my day, I feel like I can make a difference in someone's professional life through my leadership. Thank you Petra, for being my guiding light in my leadership journey!