As the Director of Executive Communication Programs, Sarah Turner uses structured coaching models to help people reach their goals. She focuses on how ideas are interconnected and helps people understand patterns and systems that work.  She is a graduate of University of Virginia, majoring in French and Anthropology, is certified in teaching English as a Second Language, and has had the opportunity to work and travel in over 30 countries.  While working at Harvard Business School, she supported Lisa Lahey and Robert Kegan as they developed their Immunity to Change coaching model. She also provided support to some of Harvard’s top faculty in the following executive programs:

– Leading Professional Service Firms – led by Tom DeLong
– Authentic Leadership Development – led by Tom DeLong and Scott Snook
– Public Education Leadership Program – led by John Kim
– Disruptive Innovation – led by Clay Christensen
– Aligning Strategy and Sales – led by Frank Cespedes
– Achieving Breakthrough Service – led by Ryan Buell
– The CEO Program (twice) – led by Dick Vietor
– Senior Executive Program – Africa (twice) – Providing remote support in South Africa and onsite in Rwanda led by Srikant Datar and Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Sarah’s experience includes working onboard a ship supporting the Executive Dean for Semester-at-Sea traveling through England, Russia, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Moroccan, Ghana, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, and  Mexico. She planned and led a student trip to the United Nations in Geneva.  And she helped plan and deliver a TEDX event onboard the Semester-at-Sea ship in San Diego and Ensenada, Mexico.  She speaks French fairly fluently and has conversational Arabic and Korean.

Sarah loves to learn about other people and cultures, experience the world differently and see the world in a different light.  She believes poetry can help leaders make sense of the world around them and make conversations real as it provides an outlet to escape the jargon and gobbledygook that people often use in business.  She says, “Poetry makes people feel closer to something good.” Her coaching helps people focus and think strategically about what really matters.

Testimonial:

“Each session with Sarah was like a mini-coaching session for me. She is very careful about the needs of the student and she organizes the lessons to meet these needs.  So, she helps exactly where help is needed.  I worked not only on my business English, but also studied how to change, how to give feedback, etc. and as a result I have more structured e-mails, a clearer understanding of my professional needs.

At first, I was worried that I would not have enough time to prepare, but Sarah let me to choose the dates of the lessons and that really helped.

I would recommend Sarah’s sessions to middle managers and top managers who would like to work on their language and need to practice speaking while discussing interesting and relevant business material.” -Natalia Fedotkina