About Stephanie

I’m Stephanie Sansoucie. I work with professionals and leaders navigating periods of change who want greater clarity about what comes next.

Many of the people I work with are capable, thoughtful, and carrying meaningful responsibility. They may be adjusting to new expectations, stepping into expanded leadership, reorienting after a change they did not fully choose, or recognizing that familiar ways of working, leading, or making decisions no longer feel aligned.

From the outside, they are often functioning well. Internally, however, questions are surfacing that require more careful examination.

My work centers on creating the conditions for clear thinking, grounded communication, and deliberate growth during these periods of transition, without pressure to rush resolution.

How I Came to This Work

Before becoming a coach, I spent 20+ years in customer experience, UX, research, design strategy, and technology-adjacent leadership environments. I have led teams through enterprise transformation, distributed growth, organizational change, cross-functional complexity, and the ambiguity that often comes with senior responsibility.

My background includes serving as Global Director of User Experience at EY and Director of Customer Experience at Kohl’s. In those roles, I built and supported teams, developed leaders and senior practitioners, translated complex customer and business needs into clearer direction, and helped people navigate change inside demanding organizational systems.

Over time, I became increasingly interested in how people make decisions under pressure, how identity shifts as responsibility evolves, and how capable professionals can outgrow roles, assumptions, or ways of working before they fully understand what that means.

Coaching became a natural extension of this work. It allows me to bring together experience with complex systems, a deep respect for human agency, and a commitment to helping people think clearly when the stakes are real.

My Coaching Stance

I practice coaching as a collaborative, client-led process.

You are the expert in your own life and work. My role is not to prescribe direction, but to help you examine what is unfolding so that choices emerge from discernment rather than urgency.

I am comfortable working in ambiguity and unfinished questions. Rather than pushing for quick answers, I focus on helping clients clarify goals, examine assumptions, strengthen communication, refine judgment, and navigate complexity with greater clarity.

Over time, clients often notice sharper discernment, more grounded conversations, and decisions that reflect who they are becoming, not just who they have been.

What Informs My Work

My approach is informed by formal training in coaching psychology, behavior change, and lifestyle medicine, along with ongoing study in motivational interviewing, stress physiology, and self-regulation.

Equally important is lived experience in environments where responsibility is high, ambiguity is common, and decisions carry weight. This combination allows me to bring structure without rigidity and depth without pressure, adapting the work to what is most useful in the moment.

I am a National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach, NBC-HWC, reflecting a commitment to evidence-based practice, ethics, and ongoing professional development.

Who I Tend to Work With

I work primarily with professionals and leaders who:

Are navigating career, leadership, or life transitions
Are adjusting to expanded responsibility, visibility, or expectations
Are navigating communication challenges, role ambiguity, or stakeholder complexity
Carry significant responsibility and need space to think clearly
Value thoughtful, deliberate decision-making

Many clients work in design, research, product, customer experience, technology, operations, healthcare, education, finance, and consumer brands. Some hold senior leadership roles. Others are experienced professionals recalibrating their path.

What they share is a desire to grow through change in a way that strengthens judgment, communication, self-trust, and agency.

About Thrive Dept.

Thrive Dept. is my private coaching practice. I created it as a place for focused, relationship-based work with individuals who want to approach change with clarity.

The practice is intentionally small and centered on one-on-one coaching. I work remotely with clients across the U.S.

If You’re Considering Coaching

If you are navigating change and want space to think clearly before deciding what comes next, you are welcome to begin with a brief conversation.

There is no obligation, simply an opportunity to explore whether working together feels aligned.