About me
I've always been a people helper.
That part hasn't changed.
What changed — over time, through trial and a fair amount of error — is how I do it. And what I finally gave myself permission to do at the level it deserves.
About Me
Here's the honest version of my career: I spent a long time looking for the right combination. Different jobs, different employers, trying to find the place where what I was good at and what I was meant to do could actually live in the same room. If you've ever found yourself in that same search — cycling through options, wondering why something that looks right on paper doesn't quite feel right in practice — you know exactly what that's like. I lived that. It's part of why I understand it when I see it in the people I coach.
I spent significant time in HR, close enough to leadership to see what was working and what wasn't. I have deep respect for the people who do that work well — the compliance work, the culture work, the hard conversations that protect both people and organizations. That work is real and it matters. But even doing it well, I kept running into the edges of what the structure made possible. The development work — the deep, sustained, human work of helping someone become a better leader — kept getting crowded out by the things the structure required first.
The moment things changed. For good.
And then I learned to coach professionally. Really coach, in a business setting.
Something clicked that I couldn't unclick. There was no version of me that goes back from that moment. It wasn't a decision I made so much as a recognition I had — this was the work I'd been circling around my entire career. The people-helping I'd always done, finally in a form that could go somewhere real.
I knew the need wouldn't go away. There will always be capable people stepping into leadership without enough support. That's not a problem any organization fully solves. But inside a corporate structure, the development work competes with everything else that's more urgent, more measurable, more immediately necessary.
So I built the space where it doesn't have to compete.
Leading UP exists because the leaders who need this work deserve more than what a crowded calendar and a compliance-first structure can give them. They deserve someone fully in their corner — with the time, the training, and the honest commitment to help them figure out not just what to do, but who to become.
I'm an ICF certified coach, trained and certified in the ELI, EQi 2.0, and the 5 Behaviors of a Cohesive Team. Those credentials mean the work has real structure — even when a session feels more like an honest conversation than a formal engagement. But what I bring most is the thing I've always brought: genuine investment in the person across from me.
That hasn't changed either.
There's never a bad time to invest in yourself.
What Clients Say
"Trustworthy. Kind-spirited. Jovial." — T.S., Business Owner
"Paula has been my personal coach for close to five years. A testimony to her coaching is how much I notice if I have postponed a session for a week or two. Her support is invaluable." — Susan H., Long-term Client