Hello there! I’m Pilar Dostal, a sought-after Integral Coach®, leadership facilitator, and speaker; the creator of the Aligned Leaders Lab™, a leadership lab for executive teams; a former strategy consulting Partner at EY and EY-Parthenon; and a champion for leading from the inside out.

I help executives and the teams they lead do the work that strategy alone can't do. We build the self-awareness, trust, and courage that let good strategy fully take hold. I bring the rigor of more than two decades inside complex organizations and the depth of multiple developmental methodologies, including Integral Coaching®, the Enneagram system of personality, Conscious Leadership, Whole Brain Thinking®, Leadership Circle Profile®, and more.

How I Got Here

I’ve always known I have a passion for people and the systems they live in. I noticed at a very young age my ability to discern when someone or a group of people is surviving or thriving, and I was drawn to helping them grow. I studied interpersonal and nonverbal communication receiving my BA from the University of Colorado at Boulder and followed that with my MBA in corporate strategy and organizational behavior from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. That got me started.

For twenty-five years as a strategy consultant, I sat in the room with executive teams, supporting them as they shaped strategy and worked hard transforming their organizations. The longer I did that work, the clearer one pattern became. The real indicator of success on a leadership team was not the strategy. It was the people leading it, their capacity for self-awareness, their willingness to examine their own assumptions, and their courage to lead authentically. That noticing changed the direction of my life.

I trained at New Ventures West, the internationally-renowned school for Integral Coaching, built on the belief that you can’t coach someone else well unless you do your own work of self-inquiry and self-knowing. I am certified by NVW through their rigorous Professional Coaching Certification (PCC) methodology.

What I Believe

I believe the development of the leader is the biggest lever for change in any organization, more than strategy or structure — a bold claim after working on strategies and operating models for 25 years!

That belief led me to Integral Coaching, a coaching methodology that honors the whole person. It does not ask a leader to simply try harder or think differently. It asks how someone actually sees themselves, others, and the systems they operate in, and it works with the whole of it, the body, the emotions, the intellect, the relationships, and the environment.

I use my extensive experience inside complex leadership systems to that work, and I understand the pressure a leader is under. I also bring a deep respect for what it takes to slow down inside that pressure and do the vulnerable work of becoming.

I bring the rigor of strategy consulting together with the depth of developmental coaching, in service of something I believe in without hesitation — that the world gets better when leaders deeply and genuinely know themselves and lead with courage and authenticity. Trust grows from that kind of leadership, and when trust grows, people come alive in their work, collaborate more honestly, and build things worth building. The result? Humanity flourishes.

Closer to Home

I live in Colorado, where the mountains give me space to breathe, reflect and reset. I have sung in bands and rock choirs for most of my life, and I know the same authenticity, presence, and human connection that make music work are what make leadership work too. My family is my truest sense of purpose, and the reason all of this matters.

I am not a finished story, and neither are you. We are not meant to be finished. Becoming never really is.