Sonya Rudenstine

Personal Summary

Sonya is an executive coach who partners with clients to support them in moving beyond their comfort zone to uncover and foster their full leadership potential. She is a systems thinker who knows that none of us operates in a bubble. Her approach takes into account the complexities and nuances of the client’s environment—both professional and personal—to support them in constructing and implementing a mission-driven vision of leadership that aligns with their distinct values. She works with leaders to enhance their understanding of their own intersecting identities, inner critics, and saboteurs, empowering each client to lead with creativity and authenticity.

Sonya has a particular interest in working with leaders whose organizations are engaged in transforming their organizations to expand diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI). Addressing clients in their full human complexity, she helps them explore their own sense of identity and belonging in service of creating an organizational culture in which every employee can thrive.

Career Highlights

Sonya’s coaching is deeply influenced by her twenty plus years of experience as an attorney and business owner. She spent her legal career primarily representing defendants on death row and children sentenced to life without parole throughout the American South. As a law professor, mentor, and trainer, she took what she learned in the trenches and applied it to effectuating equitable, systemic change in the criminal justice system. In doing so, she served as counsel in matters before the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous other appellate courts on behalf of institutions such as the American Bar Association, Brennan Center for Justice, Constitution Project, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. By working to forge partnerships in the legal community on behalf of her clients and in service of systemic change, Sonya developed a collaborative, creative approach to her leadership that she brings to her work as a coach in both the corporate and nonprofit settings.

Sonya is a graduate of Georgetown University’s Leadership Coaching Program at the Institute for Transformational Leadership. She is an Associate Certified Coach through the International Coaching Federation and is also certified to administer the Leadership Circle ProfileTM 360º Assessment and the Hogan Personality Inventory Assessment. She is also an Internal Family Systems practitioner.