Meet Kelly L. Campbell | Trauma-Informed Leadership Coach and Author of HEAL to LEAD

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kelly L. Campbell and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelly L., where are you from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I grew up in New York.

With a tumultuous upbringing, I had to grow up very quickly. As a means of self-protection, I became a keen observer of what was said and went unsaid in our household. I started a digital marketing agency at the age of 22 and sold it 14 years later. Fast forward, I realize now that my early entrepreneurial pursuits were a trauma response—in that, I was recreating an environment in which I mattered and was valued and needed by employees and clients. After selling the firm, I consulted for the likes of Facebook (Meta), NASA, nonprofits, and other marketing and ad agencies. All of that led me to coach organizational leaders through a trauma-informed lens.

What should our readers know about your business?
My debut book, “HEAL to LEAD: Revolutionizing Leadership through Trauma Healing” (Wiley) is due out April 16, 2024, and I’m excited to share this wake-up call at a pivotal moment in all our lives.

My day-to-day practice is as a Trauma-Informed Leadership Coach to emerging and established leaders who know they are meant for more. We work together to correlate their past trauma and their present leadership style, transforming how they lead, live, and love.

Getting to where I am now was not easy, and if you told me 10 years ago that I’d be doing any of this, I would have belly-laughed. Now, I understand that I became the resource that I needed when I was younger. The only way to “overcome” the trauma I experienced in childhood and adolescence was to integrate it. My engagement with healing started with 15 years of therapy and then moved into holistic health treatments, somatic emotional release practices, and more recently, plant medicine.

What I’ve learned over 44 years is that we all have innate gifts, and most of us spend half our lives (or more) on a quest for safety and belonging, trying to fit into constructs of normativity. When we (finally) wake up and start remembering who we are and what we’re here to contribute, freedom is our reward. I want that for everyone.

My vision is to empower half of humanity to heal its childhood trauma so that we can reimagine and rebuild the world we want to live in.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My shoutout is to my grandmother, Ann Shirley Burns, to whom HEAL to LEAD is dedicated. My grandma loved to see Canada geese fly in a V-formation because they rotate leaders based on which one is the most rested. She taught me about innate leadership, loving all living beings, trusting one’s self, and disrupting the status quo. She made each of her grandchildren feel like they were her favorite, and she encouraged all of my pursuits—from art to athletics and everything in between. She made me feel seen and safe, so this shoutout is for her,

Website: https://klcampbell.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/kelly.l.campbell

Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/kellylcampbell

Substack: https://kellylcampbell.substack.com/

Image Credits
Kellie Walsh