Emily J. Gould

Emily Gould is an executive coach specializing in leadership development, negotiation and dispute resolution. A former criminal prosecutor, agency general counsel and experienced mediator, she helps senior leaders take charge and transcend the new challenges that come with increasing responsibility and growing complexity. It is not uncommon for her relationship with clients to begin with an intervention that centers on an internal organizational conflict, which surfaces leadership growth milestones toward which she then coaches senior leaders. She also has experience coaching towards other strategic goals, including diversity and inclusion.

While many of her clients are legal organizations, including global law firms, courts, agencies and academic institutions, her clients include both corporate and non-profit organizations. In addition, she brings decades of diverse, international experience to her coaching that includes a somatic approach based on a lifelong relationship to improvisational movement and meditation.

As a trainer and facilitator of leadership development, Emily has facilitated workshops for senior leaders domestically as well as several countries in Africa, Central and East Asia, the United Kingdom and Canada.  As a frequent guest presenter with a variety of consulting organizations, Emily has become adept at adapting a variety of coaching modalities to her diverse cadre of coaching clients across a broad spectrum of contexts. She is certified to offer the Leadership Circle 360 survey and also to present the Immunity to Change methodology.

Recently, Emily’s work in leadership development has brought her to academia, while maintaining an active coaching practice. She co-developed and co-taught a flagship course in Lawyer Leadership for Columbia Law School where she also was a leadership development coach in the law school’s Davis Polk Leadership Initiative. She has also been an adjunct professor at Vermont Law School in global restorative justice. As an international law reform consultant to the country of Rwanda, she authored a national policy on trauma - informed alternative dispute resolution adopted by the Cabinet in October 2022. Emily is also co-director of African Peace Partners, a US non-profit that supports the Ihumure Peace Center in northwest Rwanda near the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo..