We were lucky to catch up with Angelina Darrisaw recently and have shared our conversation below.

Angelina , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

One of the areas I see a need for improvement in corporate America is the deepening of investment in people. When we talk about the future of work, we often focus on technology, AI, and innovation. However, at its core, the future of work will always be driven by people and their motivation.

We spend, on average, a third of our lives at work—a significant amount of time. Work can be more than just a paycheck; it can be a source of fulfillment, purpose, and meaning. When employees view their work in this light, their engagement deepens, leading to better business results, increased innovation, and revenue growth. Ultimately, companies benefit significantly when they invest resources to improve the employee experience and workplace culture.

Angelina , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Over time, the word I would use to define myself continues to evolve. Right now, my focus is being a champion of people, improving their experiences at work, and ultimately improving the way businesses operate.

I grew up in a low-income neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, to a single teenage mother who is now a Ph.D. and a superintendent. Her growth trajectory, in many ways, reflects my own. We both have a deep passion—one might even say an obsession—with personal and professional development. My mother was determined to ensure my outcomes in life looked different from hers, so she enrolled me in leadership and personal development programs at an early age.

I can’t recall a time when I didn’t have some sort of seminar, webinar, or professional development event on my calendar, even in junior high. These activities helped deepen my awareness and led to some professional wins early on in my career in corporate strategy and media.

I recognize that some people don’t have this level of investment and that some companies don’t leverage it for their senior or top talent. Many more working professionals could have this opportunity in their careers. I wanted to open up pathways to do that in a very inclusive and accessible way.

Since 2015, my company, C-Suite Coach, has offered robust professional leadership programming that includes skills-based training, executive coaching, and group coaching for global organizations. We tackle elements of leadership and development that don’t often get a lot of attention but make a huge difference in people’s experiences at work. For small businesses, we offer skill-based training to about 60,000 business owners a year.

For example, one project we worked on this year involved supporting managers who were first-time managers of employees with disabilities in APAC (Asia). We brought together executive coaches who either had a disability themselves or had a deep past working professionally with someone with disabilities. This provided coaching and a safe space for these managers to learn how to have conversations and confront bias around disabilities at work.

Another example of our unique and innovative programming includes group coaching and reciprocal mentorship experiences. Here, mentorship is not viewed as a top-down experience; instead, it’s a knowledge transfer experience that recognizes junior employees’ power to lead and guide their senior leaders. These experiences help improve culture, close gaps, and aid in succession planning—all elements that companies need to drive continued success and foster better working experiences across generations.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Sustaining a business for nearly 10 years has been the greatest challenge and honor of my life. Leading takes a toll on you in ways that many people don’t talk about. There is a lot of excitement in being trusted to lead, but also a lot of pressure to continue to be perceived as strong so that you don’t lose the trust of the people you’re leading. Leading a growing team and adapting to a constantly changing industry pushes me to grow every single day. You have to be resilient when you are a leader and especially in the line of work that we do.

Many challenges have tested my resilience, but they also made me a stronger and more adaptable leader. I’ve learned to embrace uncertainty, make quick decisions under pressure, and always focus on the needs of my team and clients, even when facing adversity. It’s about bouncing back, learning from setbacks, and never losing sight of the bigger vision.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

When most business owners start a business, they start because they’ve identified a problem that they want to solve and they have a really big Vision about how to bring that solution to life. The reality is leading a team of people is a very different skill set than building a compelling vision. Perhaps this is why only about 18% of US small businesses are employer firms with full-time employees.

I have had part-time help since I launched in 2015, and in 2018, I transitioned to hiring full-time employees. We have continued to grow since then. Managing people continues to be one of my biggest challenges as a small business owner, and I had to learn a lot along the way. I learned that people actually have to be managed. As leaders, we can’t expect good results without giving good direction. I’ve had to work on my transparency when making certain decisions to maintain the trust of my team. I’ve had to provide reassurance when those challenging decisions are made. I’ve had to take feedback about things that I could have done better and also provide a space to give my team members feedback. It’s taxing and time-consuming, But it’s a critical part of the process that can’t be skipped.

Engaging in therapy and executive coaching has helped me to understand my own deficits as a leader. It involves receiving feedback, which can be difficult for a leader to receive because your success often results from how well you have led up until that point. So, we are programmed to think as leaders that we do everything well, but feedback is the key to elevating that leadership And helping us unlock the new skills required to take us to the next level. The benefit of doing this is improving how you lead, and you have a much more solid chance of having a team, which means being able to scale a vision in collaboration with others versus doing it all alone.

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@mrkkess