My Story
As the daughter of a refugee, I was raised with deep gratitude for my family’s sacrifices. Early on, I grappled with the dilemma of wanting to fulfill their dreams and listen to my own. They were hoping I would live a conventional life, but I chose another path.
I have always loved to write and listen to others’ stories. I wrote my first book, Odd Girl Out, in 2002, which became a New York Times bestseller. After co-founding the national nonprofit Girls Leadership, I spent nearly a decade teaching leadership skills to girls. In 2010 I wrote The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Girls with Courage and Confidence, also a national bestseller.
As I got older, so did my students. I led the Phoebe Lewis Leadership program at Smith College, then wrote Enough As She Is: How to Help Girls Overcome Impossible Standards of Success to Lead Healthy, Happy, Fulfilling lives.
In 2017, I joined the faculty of the Google School for Leaders, where I moved from preparing young women to lead to supporting women leaders in the trenches. I was trained as an executive coach at the Hudson Institute and joined Cultivating Leadership, a global firm that teaches complexity navigation and adult development theory to corporate and nonprofit clients. In 2020, I began designing programs for male allies to serve as sponsors to women and other non-dominant groups. I fell in love with training men to support women.
As a lifelong athlete, I was always energized by thinking on my feet. Live television is the closest I get now to the joy I felt on the court and field as a kid, and I love supporting ABC’s Good Morning America as a parenting expert.
I am a single mom by choice and proud gay parent to a tween daughter. We live with our two rescue dogs, Mabel and Charlie, in New England. I love to mountain bike, cook for friends and family, and read.
