Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Burchill & Melissa Klein.
Hi Lauren Burchill & Melissa Klein, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My journey into leadership development and coaching didn’t begin with a grand master plan. It started with a genuine curiosity about people and what helps them grow. Early in my career, I found myself drawn to the human side of organizations: the conversations behind the strategy meetings, the untapped potential in emerging leaders, and the moments when someone finally realized they were capable of more than they thought. That curiosity eventually became my life’s work.
Over the past 25+ years, I’ve worked across Fortune 500 companies, higher education, healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, and private consulting in roles ranging from leadership coach and corporate learning director to adjunct faculty and senior administrator. Along the way, I discovered that leadership isn’t really about titles; it’s about trust, communication, relationships, and helping people become more confident versions of themselves. Somewhere between succession planning meetings and leadership workshops (with plenty of mediocre conference room coffee along the way), I realized my passion was helping leaders navigate growth in a way that feels authentic and sustainable.
That passion ultimately led me to create a company built around the belief that leadership development works best through collaboration, trust, and meaningful connection. Inspired by the way honeybees work collectively toward a common goal, Thinking Leaders Collective was intentionally designed as a “collective of thinkers” focused on leadership coaching, learning and development, talent strategy, and organizational growth.
One of the most exciting parts of this journey came last year when my business partner Lauren Burchill joined the company. Lauren brings a background in School Psychology along with deep expertise in assessment, evaluation, collaboration, and problem solving. Her experience in education and nonprofit work adds an entirely new dimension to how we support organizations and leaders. More importantly, she shares the same belief that people thrive when they feel seen, supported, and challenged to grow.
Today, our work centers on helping individuals and organizations level up whether through executive coaching, leadership development, team facilitation, or talent strategy. The most rewarding part is still the same as when I started: watching someone recognize their own potential, often before they fully see it themselves. And honestly, that never gets old.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Like most entrepreneurs, the struggles along the way haven’t been especially unique but that doesn’t make them any less real. Building a business requires constant drive, focus, resilience, caffeine, and a willingness to keep moving even when uncertainty is riding shotgun and asking uncomfortable questions. There are always thoughts humming in the background: Where will the next contract come from? How do you navigate economic shifts? How do you balance ambition with health, family, and the realities of life outside of work? And, in my case, how many cups of coffee are considered “leadership fuel” before it becomes a formal concern?
The biggest lesson has been understanding that failure isn’t the opposite of success, it’s part of the process. Some ideas worked beautifully. Others…well, let’s just say they became excellent learning opportunities. There were moments where I had to pivot, rebuild, reimagine, and trust myself enough to start again. That takes courage, especially as a woman entrepreneur. Women are often balancing enormous personal and professional expectations while navigating environments that don’t always make space for our voices, leadership styles, or ambitions.
I’ve also accepted that my brain occasionally operates like a squirrel crossing traffic; highly energetic, deeply curious, and suddenly distracted by a completely unrelated idea that somehow turns into a future business strategy. Oddly enough, that curiosity and willingness to rethink things has served me well. Every challenge sharpened my focus and helped me become more intentional about the kind of company and culture I wanted to create.
Today, the heart of our work at Thinking Leaders Collective is lifting people up especially in a world where many people feel stretched thin, overlooked, or pressured to constantly prove themselves. That mission is especially important to me when working with women leaders. So many talented women are carrying organizations, teams, and families while quietly questioning whether they’re “enough.” We want our work to remind people that leadership doesn’t have to be loud or performative to be powerful. Sometimes the strongest leaders are the ones creating space for others to grow, collaborate, and thrive.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Thinking Leaders Collective is just that… a collective of leaders, partners in thinking. While Thinking Leaders Collective, or TLC, as I like to say, is just a year old, Melissa, our founder and CEO, has been doing this work for over 25 years. TLC is rooted in the desire to lift women up. We are very passionate about seeing more women in positions of leadership. TLC offers business consulting with a Human Resource focus. We partner with businesses, both large and small, to provide leadership coaching and training, talent search and recruitment, culture and engagement assessments, and learning and development services.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I’ve learned over the years that leadership work requires an enormous amount of emotional and mental energy. You spend so much time holding space for others, helping teams navigate challenges, coaching leaders through uncertainty, supporting growth and transformation and that if you don’t intentionally create space to recharge yourself, you eventually run on empty.
So while my work may look highly extroverted from the outside, there’s a very reflective side to who I am. I genuinely value stillness and solitude, even if I probably don’t take enough of it sometimes. It’s become one of the most important lessons we share with leaders, especially women: rest is not laziness, and quiet time is not unproductive. Creating space to think, breathe, and simply be is often where our strongest ideas and our healthiest leadership begins.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tlclu.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinking_leaders_collective
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TLCLU/
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/thinking-leaders-collective/
