Why I Left Amazon
Pursuing the Craft of High-Performance Well-Being
I spent nine years at Amazon Web Services, including the last two partnering with tenured executives. My work was to support them see how they were showing up, identify where growth would unlock impact, and build a plan to close those gaps. It was a dream role, supporting high performing executives as they stepped into greater scope and complexity.
Over time, one pattern stood out. Technical excellence and day-to-day execution are table stakes. What truly differentiates leaders, especially as Generative AI accelerates accessibility of technical skills, is the inner game: the mindset and behaviors that drive sustainable performance.
When you strip away the noise, what rises in importance are inner capacities like:
Staying calm under pressure and making clear decisions.
Creating space for your team to solve hard problems.
Communicating urgency with composure and respect.
Adapting quickly when plans change, without fraying trust.
These aren’t “soft” skills, they’re performance multipliers. They shape decision quality, team effectiveness, speed of innovation, and retention.
Another pattern kept showing up in one-on-one conversations. I’d ask, “How are you?” The most common answer: “Busy.” The demand on leaders’ attention is relentless. The risk isn’t just burnout, it’s becoming someone you never intended to be. High performance without inner alignment leads to short-term wins and long-term costs.
I decided to leave Amazon so I could more fully dedicate myself to the craft of high-performance well-being. Integrating the strategies of scaling leadership with the inner work required to navigate pressure with clarity and deliberate calm. I want to dedicate my time to helping leaders and organizations scale performance and protect the person doing the work.
I partner with executives, managers, and HR to:
Get a clear, honest picture of how a leader is showing up today.
Align on what the role and business will demand next.
Build a focused development plan that changes real behaviors in real contexts.
The goal is simple: support leaders make a big impact without losing themselves in the process. So they arrive at a destination they actually wanted, with their integrity, relationships, and health intact.
If your organization is committed to world-class performance and the growth of the people who deliver it, that’s the tension I’m here to help you hold.