- Executive Leadership Coach
- 5-time Founder
BACKGROUND
Darrah Brustein coaches senior leaders and C-suite executives through the moments that define how they lead: when success feels hollow, when leadership has become isolating, or when the gap between who they are and how they’re leading has quietly grown too wide to ignore.
As a 5-time founder who has built, run, and exited her own companies, Darrah brings something most executive coaches can’t offer: she has lived the decisions, not just analyzed them. She knows what it feels like to make high-stakes calls, carry a team, and hold the weight of a vision. That lived experience shapes every conversation.
Her coaching holds both the tactical and the internal at once. She works with the strategy on the table and the mindset underneath it, because sustainable leadership performance requires both. Clients often describe her as part business strategist and part trusted thought partner; someone who asks the questions that cut through the noise and stays with them through what surfaces.
For years, Darrah studied what separates great leaders from good ones, spending nearly a decade writing for Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur and interviewing figures like Deepak Chopra, Seth Godin, and Adam Grant; partnering with organizations including Chase, Toyota, and Visa; and bringing her work to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.
The decisions, the presence, the culture a leader creates: all of it is a reflection of what’s happening beneath the surface. Most people coach the role. Darrah starts there and goes deeper, coaching the whole person leading.
APPROACH + PHILOSOPHY
“It’s lonely at the top” is a cliche for a reason. It can feel difficult to bring your challenges, worries, and stresses to your team and your loved ones, let alone explore them to the depths that you need to fully work through them productively. That’s why coaching and thought partnership is so valuable. It creates a safe space to let your guard down, share without fear, find and unearth the roots of the issues, and transplant in more effective and supportive methods.
Because of this, Darrah’s approach addresses you as a whole person who doesn’t leave parts of yourself behind when you show up in any environment. When you come from a place of integration and intention, everything you do improves. It’s why Darrah coaches this way and has a keen ability to navigate in and out of leadership, mindset, strategy, and more.
As a seasoned executive herself, founding, running, and exiting her businesses, she brings a unique lens of experience coupled with a rich legacy from the clients she’s supported. Darrah sees coaching as an intuitive dance between two people where at times you lead, and at other times she does, and she’s masterful at cultivating an environment where you develop the trust and rapport to do both, quickly. Her equal parts left-and-right-brained nature will support you in both the tangible and intangible hurdles, helping you get the clarity you need with the confidence to move forward in a way that aligns with your goals, needs, and values.
EDUCATION
- BA, Emory University
CERTIFICATIONS
- Alchemical Hypnosis
- Reiki
- ICF ACC
- Principles 5Cs Assessment
- PrinciplesUs
