Our Team

Who we are

For many years, our leadership work and our trauma work were separate things with separate groups. People who sought trauma work didn’t think of it as leadership work and vice versa. But as our collective awareness of the impacts of trauma grows and traumatic events encroach more into the workplace, we unite these two bodies of work to help individuals and organizations effectively and sustainably lead through trauma.

Headshot of Gretchen Schmelzer

Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD

Gretchen is a licensed psychologist, executive coach and consultant who has worked for 25 years with the complex issues of trauma, integration, and behavior change across every level of system from individuals, to groups, to large systems and countries. She is the author of Journey Through Trauma, published in 2018 by Penguin Random House. Her expertise in long-term trauma was used to inform the design and delivery of a four-year large-scale intervention for the UN in Cambodia working with survivors of the Khmer Rouge in a leadership initiative to strengthen the country’s response to HIV/AIDS. She is currently a faculty member in the Medical Education Masters Program at UPENN GSE, and faculty in the Executive Education Program at the Brookings Institute. She was recently featured on CNN with Anderson Cooper and Working from Home with Richard Quest. Gretchen recently moved to Philadelphia from Boston and has created a wild urban garden in her backyard.

Headshot of Carolyn Murphy

Carolyn Murphy, MA

Carolyn is an expert in helping individuals discover how to lead authentically and making collaboration work for even the most complex teams. Throughout her decades of coaching, facilitating, leading teams, teaching, and working as a psychotherapist, Carolyn embraces the “paradoxical theory of change”—which is that change occurs when an individual becomes what they are, not when they try to become what they are not. Carolyn has 25 years experience working in corporate roles, including as Director of Operations at Cisco Systems. She has coached and consulted with all levels of leaders in over 30 client systems across tech, finance, pharma, biotech, government, and nonprofit organizations. She is a master at creating engaging, professional, and highly applicable learning programs. Carolyn holds a clinical master’s degree in Counseling Psychology and is certified by the International Coaching Federation. She splits her time between Northern California and Western Massachusetts and loves hiking with her husband and their dog, Roxy.

What people are saying

“We were able to embrace the traumas that had been in our way and had us feeling stuck. Through the work we did, we felt empowered to move forward.”

Tiffany Simmons, Tribal Government Development, Tanana Chiefs Conference

“Gretchen's background and experience with trauma, psychology, and leadership development is hard to find in the consultant world and a unique and powerful gift to teams working through trauma.”

Sarah Medary, City Manager, City of Eugene, Oregon

Ready to transform your workplace?

Our resources and learning programs give leaders practical, useful, and supportive tools for leading in a trauma context.