Background wanderings:
- A year at Holden Village in the Cascade Mountains at 17 (before gap years existed) exploring community, spirituality, and what makes humans tick together (where she first discovered that the most important leadership questions emerge from the space between us)
- St. Olaf College studying psychology and child development, followed by the zigzag path through education, art galleries, and eventually graduate degrees in organizational psychology and leadership (turns out there was a thread running through it all—how we learn to hold more complexity without losing our humanity)
- Microsoft in its early years, then healthcare, education, and global management consulting, followed by 25 years as an independent leadership coach (watching how humans actually work under pressure versus how we think they should—and learning that the best leaders aren't the ones with all the answers)
- 10 years as faculty and senior coach at Minds at Work, deepening her expertise in Robert Kegan's immunity to change methodology (discovering that what looks like resistance is often wisdom protecting something precious until conditions are safe enough for transformation)
- Community adventures: founding RiverSense (river safety program), a girls' choir, school enrichment programs, and serving on Providence Hospice board (learning that real change often begins in the spaces between formal structures)
- Raising two children and now delighting in five grandchildren (who continue teaching her that wonder and wisdom often arrive together)
Currenty exploring:
Threshold work—both her own and how to companion others through theirs. At her own threshold, she's learning that the leaders who thrive in overwhelming times aren't the ones who figure it all out first—they're the ones who can hold complexity without burning out, create conditions for others' best thinking to emerge, and stay human while making hard decisions.
The beauty of community and good company—what actually makes it possible for people to be with and for each other, especially now? How do we expand our curiosity enough to stay present with difference, with difficulty, with the complexity we all find ourselves navigating? What would it look like to create conditions where people can show up fully without having to perform being okay?
What she's discovering: When leaders learn to work with their own resistance patterns rather than against them, everything shifts. Teams find their courage, organizations become more resilient, and communities discover possibilities they couldn't see before. This isn't individual development that happens to help leadership—it's how real systemic change begins.
This understanding shapes how she works with leaders at their own challenging thresholds—not through expert advice about what should change, but by creating conditions where their natural wisdom can unfold safely. Small experiments that generate real data about what's actually possible when we stop fighting ourselves and start working with the intelligence of our own protective systems.
BACK TO ALL
The art of sensing where someone actually is developmentally and creating space for authentic growth. Understanding that transformation happens in relationship—in conversations where people discover what they couldn't see alone. The courage to trust not-knowing as creative force while still delivering results.
Recognition that every leader's immunity system is brilliantly designed to protect something essential, and that real development honors this intelligence while creating new possibilities.
(Still learning to receive the same generous attention she offers others—turns out this is both the hardest practice and the most important modeling she can offer.)
"Turns out the elephant I've been drawing all along might be this: how we learn to become more ourselves while serving something larger—and discovering that we don't have to do any of this alone."
meet Vic okerlund
Vic's been surprising herself since age three, when her mom asked about what she was drawing: "I'm not quite sure, but I think it might be an elephant." That element of delighted discovery has followed her through every decade—and become the foundation for how she companions leaders through the most challenging transformations of their careers.
What she brings:
