Executive Coach · Clinical Psychologist · Leadership Advisor
Executive coaching grounded in clinical science, systems theory, and sixteen years at the intersection of psychology, education, law, and senior leadership.
Years of Practice
Licensed Clinical Psychologist with deep expertise in sustainable behavioral change, organizational culture, and leadership development in complex, high-performing organizations where excellence is the baseline.
Global Reach
Regular travel between the United States, Panama, and Europe for personal and professional engagements informs a genuinely global perspective on leadership that enriches every client relationship.
Institutional Experience
Two decades working alongside senior leaders at elite research universities, Ivy League professional schools, and top-tier law firms — environments defined by intellectual rigor, high stakes, and the particular pressures of excellence.
About
There are nuanced challenges that arise in senior leadership in fast-paced, complex institutions; challenges that technical excellence, alone, cannot solve. Unspoken assumptions, deeply held narratives, and politics, that hierarchical culture make difficult to name or discuss, and that most coaching frameworks are not built to conceptualize or address. I have spent my career at precisely that intersection.
I am a licensed clinical psychologist with sixteen years in clinical practice, a certified executive coach, and a former (Interim) Senior Vice President at a college who has worked directly alongside other senior higher ed leaders, lawyers, C-Suite executives, and other institutional leaders navigating some of the most stressful and consequential decisions of their professional lives.
My forensic assessment work has given me an uncommon window into the psychology of lawyers; specifically highlighting how they think under pressure, how they conceptualize their work, how they manage the relentless pace, and areas for growth. My consulting, facilitative, and supervision work at Yale School of Medicine and the Yale School of Management has consistently deepened my ability to engage with professionals from around the world who demand intellectual rigor and passionately pursue excellence in leadership.
"The most important leadership development happens in the space between what an organization demands and what a leader determines is most authentic, meaningful, and true for themselves."
I divide my time between the United States and Europe, working with clients across global contexts, in-person and virtually. My clients are, in a word, exceptional, and, as a result of all they have accomplished, require a different kind of coaching support to reach the next level of leadership.
Methodology
Most executive coaching is loosely based on various frameworks with little continuity or clearly defined, measurable outcomes. My coaching is grounded in an integrated, proprietary framework. Realizing that we all develop in a context, my approach supports increased understanding of the systems and interpersonal dynamics that often contribute to feeling "stuck", burned out, stressed, or increasingly apathetic or overwhelmed. Before we can understand why a consummate professional and highly accomplished leader experiences these difficulties, we need to understand the invisible forces surrounding them and which contextualize their work. The cultural norms, the role and group dynamics, and the competing commitments, narratives, or assumptions that quietly undermine professional and leadership growth including motivation and intentions to change.
Sixteen years as a licensed clinical psychologist has given me a deep understanding of human behavior and the dynamic, environmental factors that shape it, meaning I hold my clients, their goals, their fears, and unique perspectives in ways many coaches cannot. As both a clinician and entrepreneur, I know firsthand how and why high performers get stuck. As a certified executive coach, I know what it takes to move them forward, producing durable shifts and real transformation even under ongoing pressure.
Drawing on seminal organizational, behavioral, and psychological frameworks, I help leaders develop more self-awareness and reflective capacity, while increasing their understanding of the systems they inhabit; including the structural forces and hidden commitments that shape choices, drive decisions, and encourage certain behaviors.
As a proprietary tool, The Leadership Telemetry Diagnostic™ draws on ecological momentary assessment to capture data across 10 key domains from a leader's actual lived experience, building a real-time intelligence picture, not retrospective recall like most other leadership assessments.
Theoretical foundations:
Services
For Presidents, Provosts, Vice Presidents, Deans, partners, senior associates, and counsel navigating the demands of elite institutions and law firms. Addressing leadership identity, performance, and interpersonal dynamics while supporting the transition from technical expert to transformational leader. Sixteen years of direct experience working alongside higher education leaders and lawyers gives me a nuanced, firsthand understanding of the specific pressures that define these careers at the highest levels.
For C-suite and senior leaders navigating institutional complexity, leadership transitions, or the particular demands of leading at scale. Engagements combine individual executive coaching, regular advisory sessions, real-time decision support, and the Leadership Telemetry Diagnostic™ for evidence-based coaching calibration. Typically six to twelve months.
Explore the 90-Day Engagement →For organizations seeking to embed rigorous, empirically validated leadership development at scale. Programs designed and facilitated for leadership teams, emerging leader cohorts, and partnership-track professionals, drawing on the same frameworks and methodology as individual coaching and facilitative work, adapted for group learning and organizational context.
Explore the ACUMEN Skills Architecture →For senior leaders navigating the organizational, ethical, and human dimensions of artificial intelligence integration. I provide consultative support to leaders who are responsible for AI adoption decisions, managing the risks of AI implementation, and leading teams through the cultural and psychological shifts that AI integration demands. Drawing on systems thinking, change management theories and growing expertise in AI integration for business, I help leaders develop the judgment, frameworks, and confidence to make consequential AI-related decisions with clarity and integrity.
For organizations whose wellbeing initiatives need scientific credibility and behavioral depth to program initiatives and efforts land with the precision and effectiveness intended, not simply as "add-ons" but as integral, strategic leadership infrastructure and foundation.
The SLI™ Engagement Architecture
Engagements are structured across three tiers — begin wherever your season of leadership calls for.
Executive Coaching for Exceptional Leaders; designed to unlock unique and personal pathways of professional excellence and meaning.
Nakia Hamlett-Nunes, PhD
Contact
Engagements are by direct inquiry and referral. If you are a senior professional-or are reaching out on behalf of one-I welcome the conversation.
I respond personally to every inquiry, typically within 48 hours.
All inquiries are treated with complete confidentiality.