Through forty years as a master coach, entrepreneur, licensed marriage and family therapist and campus chaplain, Patricia Burgin is a recognized expert in bringing together and facilitating motivated groups and teams. She believes they can produce magic. 

As a leader, facilitator, speaker, supervisor, and coach of leaders, Patricia ("Patty") Burgin has advised and mentored thousands of individuals and teams toward better performance, communication and meaning. She is the author of the best-selling overview of leadership coaching, The Essential Coaching Leader, and of The Coaching for Leader's Playbook.

Whether it’s a class or a keynote, Patty values insight-creation as the crucial component of content delivery. “I love it when my brain lights up,” she says, “And it’s even better when everyone else's brains light up.” She works with an approach that is warm, practical, innovative, direct, playful, and generous.

With her background as a competitive rower, and as past president of Interlochen Rowing Club in Seattle, she sometimes takes executive teams out on the water with her. When a team sits together to find balance in a racing shell (60' x 18"), the experience quickly produces both soggy metaphors, and spectacular team learning.

Her faith still informs her life and work, helping her to explore how human brains and bonds flourish, how we make sense of the tough stuff, and how we live out the big "what's-it-all-about" questions that we share through the arcs of our lives. She thinks excellent coaching is like grace: rarely intrusive, usually disruptive, more nuanced than announced, and just as much about "how" as "what."