Leadership isn’t something you perform.
It’s someone you become.
Thirty years in executive marketing leadership. More than 7,000 hours of contemplative practice.
I help leaders strengthen two operating systems: the one that runs their organization and the one that runs themselves. Because lasting leadership begins with the person behind the title.
ICF PPC Certified Executive Coach with three decades of experience.
I believe great leadership starts within.
Leadership isn't just about making good decisions or mastering communication.
It's about becoming someone who can stay steady when the stakes are high.
Someone who can enter difficult conversations with confidence.
Give honest feedback with care.
Lead through uncertainty without losing themselves.
Build trust by showing up with authenticity and courage.
That kind of leadership isn't built through knowledge alone.
It asks you to grow—not just as a leader, but as a person.
Because the person you become shapes every conversation you have, every decision you make, and every room you walk into.
That's the work we do together.
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Cari Jacobs-Crovetto spent three decades in corporate roles, from Fortune 100s to startups. In 2019, she was named one of the Top 50 Chief Marketing Officers by Forbes. Despite professional success, she felt unfulfilled and began pursuing personal growth. At 30, she started studying meditation and mindfulness and by 40, she had completed 5000 hours of silent sitting and three months of silence in India.
In 2020, Cari left the corporate world to found Brave Directions, a company focused on transforming lives, careers, and organizations. She empowers high-achieving individuals and teams to turn pain into power, patterns into purpose, and uncertainty into breakthroughs.
Cari also coaches MBA students in Stanford's Interpersonal Dynamics course, known as “Touchy Feely.” Guided by her personal mantra, Fierce Heart, she embodies the belief that compassion is key to personal transformation.
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86%
Improved Ability Identifying and Managing Emotions
Research shows 86% of companies tracking coaching ROI report a positive return, median 5–7x
- ICF/PwC Global Coaching
61% vs. 27%
Classified As High Performing Teams
Organizations with a strong coaching culture are more than twice as likely to be classified as high-performing
- ICF Research
85%
Who Hire A Coach Report Increased Self-Confidence
Leaders who receive coaching report 85% increased self-confidence, and 61% report improved work/life balance
- ICG Global Coaching Study
Real Impact.
Leadership Has Two Operating Systems
Every leader works within an external operating system.
Strategy.
Communication.
Decision-making.
Teams.
Execution.
Culture.
But every leader also has an internal operating system.
Your relationship with pressure.
The stories you tell yourself.
Your nervous system.
Your anxiety.
Your patterns.
Your ability to stay grounded in conflict.
The way you recover from setbacks.
Your capacity to build trust.
The influence you carry.
Where you feel deeply connected.
When the internal operating system is working well, the external one becomes more effective. When it isn't, no amount of strategy or communication training can fully compensate.
That's why our work develops both. Because organizations don't change until leaders do.
Individual Coaching
Team Coaching
Workshops & Events
Managing Difficult Relationships
We get to the root of difficult dynamics with a boss, peer or partner, not just the surface conflict, and build skills to navigate it with precision, authority and grace. You will practice the “intent and impact” model, proven to reduce friction and build connection.
Delivering &
Receiving Feedback
We work on delivering and receiving feedback with clarity and care, and how to build psychological safety where honest dialogue happens naturally and regularly. Not just at reviews time. We help you and your time become high functioning and productive.
Building Self-Awareness, Presence & Authority
We build a path to power and influence through presence, trust and confidence that doesn’t depend on your title. It comes from knowing your inner landscape, tapping into untapped potential and finding authentic self worth in times where we risk destabilization, like high stakes meetings.
Anxiety, Burnout
& Overwhelm
Anxiety can be crippling, at work and at home. Together, we work with proven exercises and frameworks to help bring immediate ease and longer term training to help you set boundaries, manage more with less output, and let go.
Interpersonal &
Team Dynamics
Team, stakeholder and board level dynamics depend largely how well you know yourself. Learn how to listen, understand and navigate how you show up, how others experience you, and how you skillfully manage one:one and group level dynamics.
Career Confusion, Clarity & Shifts
Whether you are thinking of making a change to a new organization, an all out career
shift or a second chapter, we
will unpack what you value
and need most, and what
brings you more meaning, joy, reward and purpose.
Testimonials
The Latest From Me
A Sacred Pause
You Are Invited on Retreat
This retreat is an invitation to pause. Not to step away from life — but to return to the center of it. To remember who you are beneath the roles, the striving and the noise.
Finding Treasures in the Trash
Podcast Series
A podcast for high-achieving, soul-seeking humans ready to transform life’s toughest moments into their greatest breakthroughs. Here, we don’t just navigate pain—we alchemize it into power.
Monday Night Meditation
Weekly Class
Meditation curious? Live in the SF Bay Area? Join me every Monday evening at 7:30 for a candlelight meditation class where you will learn to connect with your nervous system, identify your inner landscape and make better personal and interpersonal choices on your way to finding your true purpose.