The best leadership development doesn't happen in a conference room. It happens when people are outside, a little challenged, and doing something that matters together.
About YOL
YOL (rhymes with soul) is Turkish for the path, the road, or the way.
Founded in 2014, YOL designs immersive experiences that build leadership capability, team cohesion, and resilience. We take teams outside, into nature, into service, and into the kind of discomfort that actually changes people. We also bring that same depth into the room when the work calls for it.
Our programs are grounded in behavioral science and somatic practice. Our facilitators, yoga and somatic instructors, coaches, and operations staff are among the best in the world at what they do. Amazon, Google, Sephora, and others have trusted us with their people. We've run programs on multiple continents and can work anywhere.
Meet the Team
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Melissa (Mel) Andrada
Experience Lead & Facilitator
Melissa is passionate about collaborating with diverse leaders and teams to drive inclusion and transformation at scale. As a queer Filipina American born in Nigeria who came to the States as an undocumented immigrant, Melissa brings an interdisciplinary, multicultural approach to the workplace where creativity, diversity, and strategy intersect.
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Ann Poolos Bailey, MBA, CEC
CWRI Implementation Lead
Ann brings more than 30 years of experience helping health systems translate strategy into real change at the team and unit level. Her work focuses on strengthening alignment, building trust, and enabling leaders to drive sustained performance in complex environments.
She has held senior roles at Press Ganey, Vizient, the UK National Health Service, and McChrystal Group, where she led large-scale performance improvement and culture transformation. Ann is a Certified Executive Coach and Certified Mediator.
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Michelle Bouvier
Experience Lead
Michelle is a somatic educator, GYROTONIC® trainer, certified yoga therapist & teacher trainer devoted to sharing embodied practice as a resource for personal and collective resilience. She empowers clients to understand the mechanisms of body-mind practices through the meeting of modern science and ancient wisdom, sharing teachings that have guided her life for 30 years. Michelle specializes in movement meditation that builds sustainability in the body while balancing the nervous system.
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Kelley Busby
Experience Lead & Operations
Kelley is a creative, resourceful and award-winning film/tv producer and communications professional. With 20 years of mindfulness/meditation practice, she is also a Kripalu-certified Yoga Instructor who leads classes and retreats. Her background as a producer helps with her work in operations for YOL and she enjoys helping bring balance, strength and peace to others both online and out in nature.
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Mark Carter
Experience Lead & Facilitator
Mark Carter brings over 20 years of expertise in leadership development, team dynamics, and organizational culture. With advanced degrees in education and spirituality, plus certifications in mindfulness, yoga, and DEI, Mark specializes in executive coaching, team communication and development, with a focus on creating environments where individuals and teams thrive.
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Megan Carter, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
CWRI Implementation Lead
Dr. Megan Carter is a board-certified nurse executive and AONL Nurse Executive Fellow with nearly 20 years of experience leading hospital teams nationwide. She is the founder of MC Health Care Consulting and creator of the Chaos Whisperer approach, helping healthcare leaders reclaim time and lead more effectively. She also hosts The Chaos Whisperers of Healthcare podcast.
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Marc Champagne
Facilitator
Marc is a mental fitness strategist who unpacks the best practices of some of the most successful and brilliant thinkers in the world to bring clarity, intentionality, and possibility. He is the author of Personal Socrates, a best-selling book exploring the pointed questions that stimulate our mental fitness and teach us how to direct our internal narrative to work for us instead of against us. Marc is the host of the top 50 ranked podcast Behind The Human, and also co-founded the journaling app, KYO, which reached 87 million people.
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David Cherner
Co-Founder & CEO
A serial entrepreneur, David founded and led several health services, research and advisory firms. He’s also been a leader in venture-backed growth, public and mission-driven companies, including serving on the executive team of Vicinity Corp. (acquired by Microsoft) through its $120M IPO.
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Damon Clark
Facilitator
Originally from the United Kingdom, Damon has led cross-functional teams for multinational companies, including Fujitsu Siemens, Acer, EMC, and Hubspot in the UK, Italy, UAE, and the United States. After a 2-year stint with Predictive Index, Damon is a talent optimization consultant helping organizations retain and develop talent and align teams with strategy. Damon is a certified Predictive Index, DiSC, and Five Behaviors consultant.
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Nancy Dionne
Special Projects & Operations
Nancy is an award winning documentary filmmaker and photojournalist as well as an adventure travel pro who brings operational experience from GeoEx in San Francisco and Rim Tours in Moab, Utah. She spends her creative time producing documentaries in California and New York and can be found at Lincoln Center or off the grid in nature.
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Kjartan Jansen, MA, CFA
Facilitator
Born and raised in Norway, Kjartan is passionate about the intersection of finance and wellbeing. He supports clients in navigating the complex landscape of wealth, communication and relationships. With over two decades of experience in economics and investing, he merges financial acumen with interpersonal communications skills to help individuals and families define their values, enhance their financial literacy, and live more meaningful lives.
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Marlis Jansen, MA, LMFT
Facilitator
Marlis is a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified coach with specialized training and experience in financial psychology and behavioral finance. She is keenly interested in the key determinants of decision-making and how people make decisions that impact their wellbeing. For the last decade, she has been focused on the identifying and relational drivers that get in the way of joy, purpose and financial freedom. Through her practice, Graddha, she consults with individuals, couples, families, family offices and financial advisors.
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Zanette Johnson, PhD
Director of Learning & Facilitator
Zanette Johnson PhD, YOL’s Director of Learning, helps teams increase engagement, wellbeing, and effectiveness, as they bring their shared values to life. Drawing upon her background as a neuroscientist and her 25 years as a mindfulness practitioner, Zanette teaches leaders to stay relaxed and consistent as they build alignment between their daily actions, shared values, and future goals.
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Andrea Manitsas
Experience Lead
Andrea is known for her spiritual classes and retreats that combine a lot of soul and a fierce flow. She has studied with Janet Stone, Jason Crandell, Jasmine Tarkeshi and Jai Uttal, and is an ambassador for Lululemon
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Erik Mazziotta
Facilitator
Erik Mazziotta is a leadership consultant and executive coach specializing in transformational leadership development, team performance, and coaching programs. After a 24-year career with Citibank, Erik has worked internationally building leadership capabilities at organizations including Amazon, Google, and MD Anderson, among others. Complimenting his corporate focus is his work as a spiritual healer, helping individuals understand, maintain, and heal their mental, emotional, and physical energy systems.
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Nadine McNeil
Experience Lead
Nadine has worked in challenging environments across the globe, providing key services as part of UN emergency response efforts, community development and logistical operations for over 20 years. Her own threat of burnout led her to yoga. She facilitates integrated workshops that combine her Sivananda, Kripalu and Baptiste trainings with leadership development.
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David Parks
Facilitator
With over 25 years of global experience, David has a remarkable background in helping leaders enhance their impact and achieve exceptional business and organizational outcomes. His international journey has equipped him with a wealth of life, leadership, military, and sporting experiences that deeply influence his approach to leadership and coaching. Notable past clients and engagements include Microsoft, GE, Mayo Clinic (Physician Burnout Project), Salesforce, and GAP.
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David Perls
Facilitator
David Perls is an executive coach, mindfulness teacher, and leadership facilitator. After spending the first half of his career in senior strategy roles at eBay and Landor, David’s work today is focused on enhancing conscious leadership through mindfulness. David graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and is a Certified MBSR Teacher through the Brown University School of Public Health.
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Claudia Q. Perez, MHA, BSN, RN
CWRI Implementation Lead
Claudia is the founder of Creative Qi Partners. A nurse by training, she has worked with more than 200 hospitals to drive frontline transformation, bringing design thinking into complex care environments. Her work focuses on helping leaders translate insight into practical, unit-level change that improves day-to-day conditions for staff and patients.
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Elizabeth Pierce
Advisor & Facilitator
Elizabeth is dedicated to driving a progressive learning culture throughout organizations to meet company, customer, and employee goals for strategic growth. Recently named one of the Top 50 Leaders in Learning and Development, her experience ranges from large-scale organizations such as Oracle and Walmart eCommerce to hyper-growth startups TaskUs, Uber, Eventbrite, Glassdoor, and Zenefits. A veteran YOLer, Elizabeth participated in the very first YOL Women's Leadership Intensive.
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Jackie Richards
Co-Founder
Jackie has worked with local and international communities for over a decade, in community mental health, social services and school settings. She holds a MA in somatic psychology and is also an experienced yoga instructor.
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Gitta Sivander
Facilitator & Experience Lead
Gitta is an executive coach for individuals and teams, using a holistic and somatic approach. Gitta has also been an international communications and presentations coach for over 15 years. Yoga has been her passion since she was 15 years old, and it complements her daily mindfulness practice. Gitta’s global experience of living across 3 continents in over 8 countries, and her quadrilingual upbringing, add significantly to her global perspective and multicultural insights.
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Mira Valeria
Experience Lead
Mira’s classes are rooted in gratitude—to self, to others and to all teachers. A student of Jason Crandell and Rusty Wells, her teaching is steeped in precision, mindfulness and Bhakti—the practice of love, surrender and service. She’s also a Yoga in Action leader for the non-profit organization Off the Mat, Into the World.
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Shannon Wallis
Advisor & Facilitator
Shannon is a leadership consultant and facilitator who coaches leaders to transform companies, organizations and communities. She has worked extensively with Amazon, Coca-Cola, Google, Guidehouse, Zillow Group, and Grameen Foundation. She is the former global leader of High Potential Leadership Development at Microsoft and author of WE the Change: Launching Big Ideas and Creating New Realities.
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Kari Zabel
Co-Founder & Experience Lead
A certified Jivamukt teacher, mentor and health coach, Kari has taught meditation and yoga since 2003. She leads workshops, teacher trainings and retreats worldwide and has extensive experience helping grow social justice non-profits.
Advisors
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Julia Jahn
Advisor
Julia is an empathetic leader, executive partner, community architect, coach and program designer. For the last six years she has led Culture and Wellness at AKQA, a leading global brand agency. A veteran YOLer, she also participated in the very first YOL experience nearly six years ago. -
Sari Miller
Advisor
Sari Miller has been a lead investor, partner and president in numerous start-ups, funds, companies, and social ventures. In the last decade, she has focused on impact-for-profit ventures. She serves on the boards of Purpose and Digital Divide Data, and as an advisor to Code Ocean and Biotia Inc. Sari regularly speaks at the UN, World Bank, Milken Institute, World Economic Forum, and at multiple universities. She graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University, and holds an MBA with distinction from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
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Corinne Murray
Advisor
Corinne is a future of work expert, strategist, and author with 15 years of experience shaping workplace strategy, organizational transformation, and employee experience. She has worked with leading organizations like WeWork, American Express, RXR, Gensler, and CBRE to redefine how people work and thrive. As the founder of AGATE, a consulting and innovation studio, Corinne partners with forward-thinking teams to develop cutting-edge approaches to the evolving world of work. A recognized thought leader in the field, she authors The Workplace Strategist newsletter and is co-writing the upcoming book WORK then PLACE: Navigating The Future of Work and Where It Happens.
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Marilyn Nagel
Advisor
Currently Chief Learning Officer of SAMI, Marilyn has served as CEO of Watermark, Chief Diversity Officer at Cisco, and Director of Operations Training at Amex, among other roles. She’s a recognized thought leader in executive development and learning, and frequent contributor to Huffington Post, Forbes, Fast Company and HBR.
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Michael Nieling
Advisor
Michael is a designer, educator, father, and full-time cyclone of energy. He is the creative director and founder of Ocupop and advisor to and investor in multiple impact-driven companies. Michael also serves on the executive committee of the Sierra Club and sits on the board of Sustainable America.
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Dawn Nott
Advisor
Dawn is a people leader and integral coach based in Silicon Valley, where she’s currently a Partner of People Practices at Andreessen Horowitz. The founder of BlueHive HR, she’s spent the past 17 years leading People teams for companies like Wish, Zenefits, Yammer, and Microsoft. Dawn is a certified Kundalini yoga teacher, longtime meditation practitioner, and YOL alum. She has a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and is completing her coaching certification with New Ventures West in 2022.
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Elizabeth Pierce
Advisor & Facilitator
Elizabeth is dedicated to driving a progressive learning culture throughout organizations to meet company, customer, and employee goals for strategic growth. Recently named one of the Top 50 Leaders in Learning and Development, her experience ranges from large-scale organizations such as Oracle and Walmart eCommerce to hyper-growth startups TaskUs, Uber, Eventbrite, Glassdoor, and Zenefits. A veteran YOLer, Elizabeth participated in the very first YOL Women's Leadership Intensive.
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Shannon Wallis
Advisor & Facilitator
Shannon is a leadership consultant and facilitator who coaches leaders to transform companies, organizations and communities. She has worked extensively with Amazon, Coca-Cola, Google, Guidehouse, Zillow Group, and Grameen Foundation. She is the former global leader of High Potential Leadership Development at Microsoft and author of WE the Change: Launching Big Ideas and Creating New Realities.
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Tom Whitty
Advisor
Tom Whitty currently serves as the EVP of Workplace Solutions at Upflex, a leading flexible workspace platform, where he spearheads sales, marketing, and customer success efforts. With a career that spans over two decades, Tom has cultivated expertise across various verticals and go-to-market models, with a special affinity for leading early-stage, high-growth teams. A graduate of Boston University's School of Management, Tom is a strategic leader who excels in fostering innovation and collaboration, positioning businesses at the forefront of employee experience and future-of-work initiatives.
YOL Careers
If you’re looking for an opportunity to have fun, work with like-minded people passionately dedicated to a worthwhile mission, and help build an inspiring and impactful company, product and workplace, you are in the right place.
Current Openings
