Eileen Chang

A little bit about Eileen

I believe you have a unique genius. It’s the power of your greatest gifts, your deepest values, and your highest purpose. I believe your genius is your key to the work you’re here to do. 

As a child of Asian immigrants, I am intimately familiar with the pressure to perform and how little room that can leave for listening to your own genius. 

Determined to make the most of the opportunities my parents sacrificed for, I spent years striving for success in all the “right” places: top schools, famous non-profits, prestigious companies. However, the harder I worked to become who I thought I needed to be, the more I was straying from my own genius and starving myself of what actually made me feel alive. By my mid-thirties, I was great at my job, respected and liked by my teammates, and had earned my place in a coveted professional field. But deep down I knew I had strayed from who I really was. I felt like I was meant for more, if only I had a clue what that was.

In a hail-mary leap of faith, I quit my job and finally learned to listen to that voiceless longing I had been ignoring. I rediscovered that being in spaces of deep sharing and growth had always brought me joy and meaning. I realized that my gift for language and music and my love of people weren’t just quirky footnotes on my resume, but rather core parts of my genius. Little by little, I started to follow my instincts instead of my “shoulds,” until eventually a new path started to emerge—one that feels deeply meaningful because it aligns my core values and my natural gifts. While my path continues to unfold in ways I can’t fully know or control, I now know I am making a difference in the world by being more of myself rather than less.

I have learned, through my own journey and through my coaching of other leaders who seek purpose and alignment in their work:

• Purpose is not something to go looking for, because it’s already inside you.
• Your path of impact is unlike anyone else’s.
• Having a career and life you love is a lifelong journey that starts with giving yourself permission to follow your genius.

My professional experience includes:

• Coaching leaders at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley
• Facilitating, teaching, and coaching Asian leaders to explore their own identity through how they lead, through McKinsey’s Asian Executive Leadership program
• Prior to coaching, I worked in technology product marketing, management consulting, non-profit microfinance, and education
• I got my undergrad degree in History from Harvard University, my MBA from Berkeley-Haas, and my coaching certification from New Ventures West.