She's been where you are.
Then she figured out a better way.
And then, in her 50s, she made a deliberate pivot — not away from leadership, but deeper into it. She went back to school at Georgetown University, earned her coach training, and built a practice grounded in the science of how leaders actually perform under pressure. Not theory. Not inspiration. The neuroscience, the somatic practice, and the hard-won experience of someone who lived it first.
That combination — 25 years inside the problem, and rigorous training in how to address it — is what her clients hire.
Successfully exhausted — and what came next
Margo didn't arrive at her framework from the outside. She lived the "successfully exhausted" pattern herself — achieving by every external measure while running on fumes inside. The pivot at 50 wasn't a retreat from ambition. It was a decision to understand what was actually happening in her brain, her body, and her nervous system under pressure — and to build something better.
That curiosity sent her to Georgetown, to the NeuroLeadership Institute, to Harvard Medical School, to 300+ hours of yoga teacher training in anatomy and philosophy, and into the work of adult development theorists including Susanne Cook-Greuter and the Vertical Development Academy. She didn't study these disciplines separately. She integrated them — because that's how leaders actually work. Not as brains disconnected from bodies, but as whole systems under pressure.
The result is the Brain/Body/Breath framework that runs through her coaching, her keynotes, and her book — and that has helped senior executives, US military generals, federal senior leaders, and university executives perform at their best without depleting everything around them.
The preparation behind the work
Margo holds some of the most rigorous credentials available in the coaching profession, combined with academic training specifically in the neuroscience of leadership.
Margo has also served as a guest lecturer at Arizona State University's Graduate Program for Environmental Leadership and Communication.
A few things worth knowing
Margo believes you hire a person, not a credential set. Here's some of what makes her who she is.
All 50 states — on a Harley
Margo and her husband Mark have ridden a Harley Davidson motorcycle through all 50 states and parts of Canada. She'll tell you that long-distance riding teaches you the same thing good coaching does — you have to stay present, read what's in front of you, and trust the machine.
One new thing, every birthday
Since her early 30s, Margo has marked each birthday by doing something she's never done before, typically something that frightens her just a little. The list includes parasailing, skydiving, camping under the stars, swimming with dolphins, riding a Harley-Davidson from Arizona to Alaska, and getting a tattoo. She's still adding to it. And yes, that is her trying out the flying trapeze!
Home is where the heart is
Margo and Mark divide their time between Scottsdale, Arizona, where he takes particular pleasure in living among the saguaro cacti, and the East Coast, including North Carolina, the DC area, and New York, where their grandchildren live.
A lifelong student
Margo's pursuit of knowledge isn't a credential strategy; it's who she is. Her interest in the brain began when she was 10 years old and found an Encyclopedia Britannica book on the brain. She has spent decades studying psychology, neuropsychology, anatomy, philosophy, the nervous system, adult development, and leadership coaching. Not because she had to. Because she wanted to understand how people work — and how to help them work better.
Ready to work together?
Whether you're looking for executive coaching, team coaching, or a keynote speaker, the first conversation is simply a conversation. Let's chat.