Dr. Lauren Van Koughnett

My starting premise is that you are a capable, complex human being who, like every leader I’ve worked with, has patterns worth understanding, blind spots worth examining, and a leadership style that becomes more effective the more clearly you can see yourself. My job is to create the conditions where that kind of honest, useful self-examination happens and reframes thinking and behavior.

As Associate Partner at Convergent, I design and facilitate custom leadership cohorts, executive coaching engagements, and organizational change initiatives for early-career and mid-level leaders across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. My clients have included corporate teams advancing to the next level of people leadership, public agencies and university teams rebuilding trust, and high-potential emerging leaders ready to lead more intentionally and less reactively. What brings them to this work varies. What they leave with is usually the same: more clarity about how they’re showing up, more agency over what they do next, and improved interpersonal outcomes in the workplace.

My practice draws from adult learning theory, emotional intelligence research, neuroscience, organizational development, and attachment-informed coaching because each one helps explain what’s actually happening when a talented person keeps hitting the same wall, or when a high-performing team quietly fractures, or when someone’s intentions and their impact consistently misalign.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve partnered with universities and colleges, state agencies, corporate executive teams, and cross-sector coalitions. I’ve led successful statewide leadership programs, managed multimillion-dollar initiatives, and guided organizations through the kind of change that requires more than a new strategy. It requires leaders who are grounded enough in themselves and in their organization’s true values to remain steady when things get hard.

I hold a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Washington, where my research examined the relationship between emotional intelligence, leadership effectiveness, and organizational health. That academic foundation informs how I design engagements: with rigor, with evidence, and with genuine respect for the complexity of human systems.

If you’re looking for someone to help you or your team get real about what’s working, spark curiosity about what isn’t, and develop real tools for leading through complexity while balancing accountability and humanity, I’d welcome a conversation with you. Most of the leaders I work with weren’t sure they were ready when they reached out. That uncertainty is usually a good sign.