I also understand a
DAY IN THE LIFE.
The short version.
Kathryn Scovel spent three decades in K-12 education technology at HMH, rising from Account Executive to Senior Vice President of National Sales. She led a team of more than 300 people and carried responsibility for roughly a billion dollars in revenue. She guided high-performing teams through a full digital shift, from print to software, and through more than one corporate restructuring, adapting strategy every time the ground moved. She left that role recently, which means she is not describing a world she remembers. She is describing the one her clients are in right now.
Empathy and accountability, together.
People who worked for Kathryn describe her as approachable, a deep listener, and someone who made them feel heard. They also describe someone who set clear expectations and held the line on them. She does not believe leaders have to choose between caring about people and expecting results.
Why coaching, and why now.
This is not a career Kathryn invented after leaving. When she stepped away, leaders across the organization, including people she never managed directly, reached out to tell her what her leadership had meant to them, and to ask if she would help them. Coaching is the next expression of work she has been doing for years.
How she thinks about the work.
Kathryn believes performance is shaped by conditions. Give a capable person room to think, honest self-awareness, and something to be accountable to, and better leadership follows. Her work moves people from awareness to reflection to intentional change, and then holds them to it until the change is real. Her Walk and Talk method, getting people out from behind the desk to think and lead better, is a signature part of how she does it. One thing to be clear about. This is performance work, not wellness. Nature is a tool. Leadership is the point.
The rest of it.
Kathryn is a former NCAA Division I gymnast and an Ironman finisher, which tells you most of what you need to know about how she approaches hard things. Her favorite phrase for a skill someone has not built yet is “not yet.” She serves on the board of Girls in Gear, a nonprofit that builds life skills in young girls through cycling. When the work calls for it, she hosts the occasional in-person session at Lake Gaston, VA., a unique retreat venue she runs with her husband Curt. Most of her coaching, though, happens where her clients are, which is usually on a screen, in the middle of a real week.
Kathryn is the Founder of Scovel Leadership Coaching, where she partners with individuals and teams to deepen self-awareness, sharpen mindset, and create sustainable shifts in leadership and performance. Her signature Walk and Talk method integrates movement and nature into the coaching process, a deliberate departure from the conference room that consistently unlocks creative thinking, honest conversation, and stronger collaboration among teams. It's an approach grounded in research and validated by her own experience as an NCAA Division I gymnast and Ironman finisher, where she learned firsthand that clarity and performance are built by steady progress towards meaningful goals.
Kathryn spent three decades in the K-12 Ed Tech industry at HMH, progressing from Account Executive to Senior Vice President of Sales, where she led a team of 350 and was responsible for $1B in revenue. Over her career, she guided high-performing teams through a digital transformation, from print-based solutions to a SaaS model, and navigated multiple corporate restructurings, consistently adapting go-to-market strategy to a rapidly shifting industry. Her commitment to developing others extends beyond the corporate world: she serves on the board of directors for Girls in Gear, a nonprofit helping young girls build life skills through cycling.