Dr. Sarai Koo

Executive MBA Candidate

Transforming lives on and off stage

Dr. Sarai Koo, Ph.D. · Speaker · Author · Leadership Strategist

See What Others Miss.

When the same challenges keep returning, the real issue may be deeper than what appears on the surface. Dr. Sarai Koo helps leaders, teams, and organizations recognize patterns, understand misalignment, and move toward greater clarity and more effective action.

Leadership Clarity
Team Alignment
Human Systems
Organizational Performance

Invite Dr. Koo to Speak → Explore Ways to Work Together

Dr. Sarai Koo, leadership strategist and keynote speaker

Since 2002 Leadership and organizational experience
300+ Speaking, teaching, and training engagements
Human Systems An integrated perspective on people, leadership, and organizations

WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE?

There's More Than One Way to Begin.

Whether you're planning an event, supporting your organization, navigating a personal transition, or exploring a collaboration, there's a place to start. Choose what feels closest to your needs.

SPEAKING & EVENTS

Bring a Fresh Perspective to Your Audience.

Planning a conference, leadership retreat, or special event? Let's explore a keynote, workshop, or facilitated experience that connects with your audience.

Inquire About Speaking Explore Speaking

Leadership and organizational development

ORGANIZATIONS & LEADERSHIP

Understand What's Happening Beneath the Surface.

When leadership, culture, communication, or performance challenges keep returning, the next step may begin with a deeper understanding of the system.

Discuss Your Organization Explore Winning Pathway

PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL

Find Clarity for What Comes Next.

Facing a transition, difficult decision, recurring pattern, or a season of change? Explore support for greater clarity, alignment, and direction.

Start a Personal Inquiry Explore Coaching Specialty

Research, publications, and professional collaboration

RESEARCH & COLLABORATION

Explore a Meaningful Collaboration.

Have a research idea, media inquiry, academic opportunity, or potential partnership? We'd welcome the chance to learn more about your proposal.

Propose a Collaboration Discover Dr. Koo's Work

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Tell Me a Little About What's on Your Mind.

Thank you for considering a conversation with Dr. Sarai Koo. Whether you have a specific request or are still exploring possibilities, we'd love to understand what brings you here.

Share a few details about your goals, your event, your organization, or the situation you're navigating. The information you provide will help us review your inquiry and consider an appropriate next step.

Start where you are. A thoughtful conversation can begin before you have all the answers.

No need to choose the perfect service. Tell us what you need in your own words.

One inquiry form for every pathway. Speaking, consulting, coaching, research, and collaboration can all begin here.

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Where Dr. Koo has spoken, taught and advised

Invited expert, ODNI Insider Threat Task Force forum (2019). Presented to 200+ senior leaders from 40+ federal executive agencies.

The problem beneath the problem

The problem you see is rarely the whole problem.

A team agrees in the meeting and drifts by Friday. A strong leader burns out. A merger looks fine on paper and stalls in the hallways. These look like separate issues. Often they share a cause in how people think, relate and work together.

Dr. Koo starts by asking what else is connected, so the effort goes to the cause instead of the symptom.

“We need better communication.”Possible causeUnclear roles and expectations no one has said out loud.
“Our people aren’t engaged.”Possible causeA culture that quietly rewards the wrong things.
“We need a new leader.”Possible causeA leadership system that would wear down anyone in the seat.
“The merger should be working by now.”Possible causeTwo cultures that never agreed on how decisions get made.

Work with Dr. Koo

Two ways to bring Dr. Koo in.

Whether you need a room of people to see differently or one leader to find a way forward, the goal is the same: see what is really going on, then act on what matters.

Speaking

Keynotes, workshops and retreats

For conference organizers, associations, leadership retreats and all-staff events.

A talk shaped around your audience, theme and goals
Real examples drawn from federal, enterprise, education and nonprofit work
Practical next steps people can use the following week
Option to pair a keynote with a working session for leaders

Your audience leaves seeing the pattern behind their problems, not just feeling inspired.

Invite Dr. Koo to speak See her signature talks

Executive advisory

Confidential advisory for leaders

For CEOs, executive directors and senior leaders carrying more than the role was built for.

A clear read of what is really driving the problem
A confidential thinking partner with experience across sectors
Decisions grounded in how your people and systems actually work
Practical next steps that hold after the conversation ends

You stop reacting to the same problems and start leading with clarity.

Explore executive advisory

Leading a whole organization through recurring culture, team or integration problems? Winning Pathway®, Dr. Koo’s consulting firm, works with entire organizations.

How she works

A clear way to see what is connected.

Three parts work together: a lens for seeing the whole picture, a framework for understanding people, and a method for moving forward.

The lens

Human Systems

People, relationships and organizations shape each other. Dr. Koo looks at all three together instead of treating each problem on its own.

Explore the Human Systems lens

The framework

Project SPICES™

Six connected areas of human functioning that shape how people grow, relate, lead and handle pressure. Developed and applied since 2007.

Visit Project SPICES™

The method

Re+Calibration™

A practical path from what is out of alignment to what to do next, so the change holds after the session ends.

See how Re+Calibration™ works

Speaking

Signature talks

Each talk is shaped around your audience and goals, and leaves people with practical next steps they can use the following week.

Keynotes
Workshops
Leadership intensives
Retreats
Facilitation
Executive advisory

Speaking to a church, ministry or faith-based university? Each talk can be delivered with faith language named directly. Ask about faith-based programs

Invite Dr. Koo to speak

See What Others Miss: The Problem Beneath the Problem

Why the same people problems keep returning, and how leaders can spot the pattern behind them before spending more time and money on the symptom.

Best for: leadership conferences and executive teams

From Organizational Misalignment to Re+Calibration™

The everyday leadership behaviors that wear down trust, culture and performance, drawn from her forthcoming book, with clear steps to change them.

Best for: senior leaders, boards, and HR and culture leaders

The Home-to-Leadership Connection

How the patterns people learn in close relationships show up in how they lead, decide and handle conflict at work.

Best for: women’s leadership programs, employee groups and wellbeing events

The Leader Who Changes the Room

Identity, steadiness and influence under pressure, for the leaders others look to when things get hard.

Best for: leadership development programs and new executives

Season Your Work and Life with SPICES™

An energizing, practical tour of the six areas that shape how people grow and perform. Delivered as a keynote at the 2024 Los Angeles County DPSS Social Worker Conference.

Best for: all-staff events, public agencies and education

Selected engagements

2024Los Angeles County DPSS Social Worker ConferenceKeynote speaker
2024California Association for Bilingual EducationPresenter, Asian Language Family Institute
2019ODNI Insider Threat Task Force forumFeatured speaker on culture change
2019ALPFA West Regional Student Symposium, Arizona State UniversityGuest speaker
2015Pacific Oaks College Human Development Speaker SeriesKeynote speaker

Results leaders can measure.

Insight matters when it changes how an organization runs. These are selected results from client engagements using Project SPICES™.

6xROI in productivity gains
2xReduction in voluntary attrition
3xFaster integration after a merger
50%+Annual cost savings

Calculated from client engagement data. Individual results vary.

From her federal leadership role

Lean Six Sigma projects, 2015 to 2021.

95%of processes improved in a large leadership development program
53.6%reduction in identified dysfunction in the same program
92.5%efficiency gain in an onboarding benefits process

Results

Change you can measure, wherever people are.

From a single student to an entire organization, the pattern is the same: find what is really holding people back, then change it. Each result shows where it happened.

Organizations

Selected client results using Project SPICES™.

6xROI in productivity gainsClient engagements

2xReduction in voluntary attritionClient engagements

3xFaster integration after a mergerClient engagements

50%+Annual cost savingsClient engagements

Leaders

Rooms full of senior leaders, across sectors.

200+Senior leaders from 40+ federal agenciesInvited expert, ODNI Insider Threat Task Force forum, 2019

300+Keynotes, lectures and workshopsConferences, agencies and universities

Fortune 100 and CompaniesLeadership programs facilitatedFor companies and federal agencies

Public sector

Lean Six Sigma projects in her federal role, 2015 to 2021.

92.5%Fewer benefit inquiries each monthOnboarding benefits process, 137 staff hours saved in total

95%Of processes improvedA large federal leadership development program

53.6%Reduction in identified dysfunctionThe same leadership program

Communities

City partnerships and programs that reached thousands.

5%13.2%

College attainment, more than doubledMAPS 4 College with the City of Baldwin Park

80%Job placement across seven citiesProject SPICES employment program, U.S. Department of Labor grants

17,000+People served across five countiesMAPS 4 College

Youth

Mindset and life mapping for students.

1.83.5

One student’s GPA, after he rebuilt his desire to learnMAPS 4 College coaching

$20,000+In scholarships to a four-year universityThe same student

Organization results are calculated from client engagement data. All results come from specific programs and roles. They show what changed, not guarantees.

About

Meet Dr. Sarai Koo

Dr. Koo has spent her career helping people and organizations work better together, in classrooms, city halls, federal agencies and boardrooms.

She has led teams since 2002. She founded Project SPICES LLC in 2007 and built MAPS 4 College, a nonprofit that served thousands of young people across five Southern California counties. Her work has also included federal leadership development and workforce roles, an enterprise culture role at the nation’s fifth-largest credit union, university teaching at Chapman University, and leadership programs for Fortune 100 companies and federal agencies.

Today she is Founder and CEO of Winning Pathway® and the creator of Project SPICES™ and Re+Calibration™. Her research on education access has been presented at the American Educational Research Association.

EducationPh.D. in Education, Chapman University (2013). M.A. and B.A. in Human Development, Pacific Oaks College and UC San Diego. Executive Education, UCLA.
CoachingExecutive coaching certificate, Georgetown University (ICF PCC-level training)
RecognitionTop 100 Chief Diversity Officers, National Diversity Council (2024). DEI Influencer Award, National Diversity and Leadership Conference (2024). Top 25 Next Generation Korean American Community Leaders, The Korea Times (2011).
ServiceNominated for the National Intelligence Community Award (2020). Advisory board, Women in Leadership Executive Education, Cal Poly Pomona (2023 to 2025).

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Books, research and media

The work behind the ideas.

Dr. Koo writes for leaders, researchers and everyday readers. Her books, peer-reviewed research and media appearances all return to one question: how people and systems change.

Cover of the Organizational Misalignment workbook

Coming soon. Re+Calibration™ Series, Book One

Organizational Misalignment

155 leadership behaviors that quietly damage trust, culture and performance, and what leaders can do about them.

Written for executives, managers and HR leaders who sense something is off but can’t yet name it. A companion workbook turns each chapter into practical steps for your team.