PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT + ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST
Empowering leaders to build cultures with empathy and psychological safety that lead to impact that lasts
I partner with purpose-driven organizations, non-profits, and public institutions to build cultures and leaders where people can do their best work.
Mission-driven who need a senior-level strategic partner.
Organizations that are navigating a pivotal moment- growth, a transition, or a culture that has not caught up to their mission, and they need an expert who brings both strategy and practical application. Someone who can diagnose what is really going on, guide the hard conversations, and build change that lasts. That is the work I do.
- Mission-driven organizations, nonprofits, foundations, social good organizations, and public institutions, moving through growth, a transition, or a cultural shift
- B Corps and purpose-led brands who want their values interwoven into their employee behaviors and community partnerships.
- Leaders who are navigating growth, change, and culture have outpaced their internal capacity.
- Teams ready to turn purpose into trust their people and communities can feel.
It starts with a diagnostic, and ends with change that holds.
No two organizations are the same, so I never start with a template. I start by understanding how the employees actually experience the organization, and build from there.
Diagnostic
- I start by listening.
- Interviews, quantitative surveys, and validated assessments.
- I map the actual root cause we are looking to solve.
Challenges
- Provide themes based on findings with thoughtfulness
- Together we name the real challenges, the ones underneath the surface symptoms.
- We solve root causes instead of putting out fires.
Solutions
- We co-create the work.
- Leadership development, culture change, or coaching, depending on what the organization needs.
- Building for belief systems and cultural norms that actually create effective change.
Outcomes
- Change that holds.
- Better communication, and leaders who show up differently.
- A culture the people can feel, one that shows up in retention, engagement, and the work itself.
- Build the team's capacity, so it is sustainable and set up for success.
The ways I partner with organizations
- Culture and leadership diagnostics (surveys, 360s, listening sessions, qualitative focus groups)
- Leadership development programs (Emerging Leaders, High Potentials, Middle Management)
- Executive and team coaching
- Workplace mapping and comptenency models
- Culture and people strategy
- Team Dynamics Workshops
- Assessments (EQ-i 2.0, DISC, MBti, Empathy Index)
"How you make someone feel is the infrastructure of everything you build."
— Dr. Payal Beri
Dr. Payal Beri
For nearly two decades, I've helped organizations, from national research labs to Fortune 50 companies to mission-driven nonprofits, build the cultures and relationships that make their missions unstoppable. I'm an organizational psychologist, former clinical therapist, and founder of RK Empathy.
The impact shows up in the numbers:
- —Leadership & values programs that have reached 50,000+ employees
- —Process redesigns that eliminated $3M+ in waste
- —95% year-over-year client retention with 85%+ satisfaction
- —Trusted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Tenable, NASA, Google, Betterment & i.c.stars
My deepest conviction is that impact isn't built in programs alone, it's built in relationships. That's why I created The Empathy Storyteller's Salon, convening changemakers across Chicago, DC, and New York into rooms where partnerships and impact are born, and why I host Reframing Perspectives, connecting the founders and leaders redefining business and social good. This is the Relationship Economy: community as infrastructure, connection as strategy, belonging as the engine of lasting change.
A third-culture kid raised across 18 cities, countries, and continents, I've learned that human connection transcends every divide, and that when organizations make people feel truly seen, trust becomes their most durable advantage.
Not just advising on it.
Reframing Perspectives
I sit down with changemakers shaping culture, business, and social impact, exploring how relationships transform the way we lead, work, and live.
Listen inThe Empathy Storyteller's Salon
Underground social experiences for changemakers who know relationships are the real infrastructure for change. Hosted in Chicago, DC, and NYC.
Be invitedIf you're building something that puts people first, let's build it well.
I will approach each DevelopWell client with personalized attention, understanding their root cause and then delivering solutions that create behavior change, not just surface level impact
Trust, built and measured.
Challenge
Across the HR division, executives to individual contributors, trust had eroded, both within the team and with the lab it served, making credibility and buy-in hard to build.
What was accomplished
Led leadership intensives, core-team and peer sessions, and a custom measurement model tracking psychological safety, empathy, and accountability across 150 employees in peer, leader, and organizational levels.
Impact
- Peers 40% more confident relying on one another and communicating cross-functionally
- 35% greater ease and transparency verticaly across leadership and individual contributors throughout the division
- Increased productivity of 44% within teams deliverables
Challenge
Cross-functional and global teams needed stronger trust, alignment, and communication — across cultures, languages, and ERG communities — to strengthen culture and client impact.
What was accomplished
Designed and led Leadership Development and ERG Engagement Workshops uniting global teams through real-business-challenge simulations, role-play, and applied practice.
Impact
- Strategies people apply immediately in real conflict
- Greater cross-cultural confidence and communication
- Deeper connection and vulnerability across teams
"Dr. Beri's ability to translate theoretical concepts into easily applicable, real-life strategies was incredibly beneficial."
— ERG Engagement Workshop Participant, TenableChallenge
A 50,000-person organization was evolving its culture and values, but had no shared language for what strong leadership looked like at each level — leaving development inconsistent and disconnected from the behaviors the business needed.
What was accomplished
Partnered with senior and divisional leaders and subject-matter experts to architect a company-wide leadership competency framework — defining the behaviors expected at every level (Leads Self, Leads Others, Leads Leaders) — and built the development infrastructure that carried those expectations across the enterprise.
Impact
- A leadership competency architecture spanning the full organization, anchored to its values and culture
- 200+ role-based development guides reaching 50,000+ employees
- A shared, durable language for leadership growth, built for the organization and integrated within an LMS system for all employees to access
"Dr. Beri's work strategically aligned with the learning culture we were designing and provided a seamless approach to engaging our 50k employees. She was an invaluable asset to the initiatives we delivered."
— VP of People at US FoodsChallenge
i.c.stars develops overlooked talent from under-resourced communities into technology and community leaders, and as the organization grew, its programs, people systems, and leadership team needed to mature into a single coherent foundation built on its values.
What was accomplished
Rebuilt the full program-delivery system from facilitator guides to participant workbooks, and translated i.c.stars' values into a competency and behavior framework with KPIs and a balanced-scorecard performance-review system. Coached the executive leadership team through its dynamics and designed new program offerings for the organization's client-facing deliveries.
Impact
- A values-based competency, KPI, and performance-review framework spanning every division, from Program to Learning to Fundraising
- A rebuilt program-delivery system, facilitator guides and participant workbooks, for consistent, high-quality experiences at scale across national organization
- A deeply aligned, psychologically safe executive team and a culture wired directly to its mission
"Payal has had a lasting impact on our organization. While she was an exceptional thought partner and subject-matter expert across initiatives that touched leadership, Payal's superpower lies in her ability to create an environment that inspires people to think bigger and bolder about the future by empowering them to embody the strengths they possess today. She did that for me as my thought partner, and it was transformational.''
— COO, Andy DundlestonChallenge
Brookhaven's lead scientists are brilliant individually, but the department needed them to operate as one high-performing, collaborative team, the kind that amplifies innovative output and becomes an industry role model. The technical expertise was already there. What needed developing was the communication, collaboration, and trust that turn individual brilliance into collective breakthroughs.
What was accomplished
Designed a science-backed team-development program built on psychological safety and utilizing the emotional intelligence assessment. It centered on four workshops tailored to scientific teams: Team Communication, Collaboration, Productivity, and Effectiveness, paired with quarterly team exercises, executive mentoring, and survey analysis to measure progress against the team's north star and division goals.
Impact
- Scientists equipped to translate complex ideas into clear, shared understanding, so discoveries move faster across the team
- A collaborative culture that bridges deep technical expertise with human connection, turning isolated expertise into collective achievement
- A repeatable quarterly rhythm, measured by survey, to keep the team aligned to its north star and division goals
"Dr.Beri quickly won the trust of the scientific team by leading with data that supports the importance of developing skills that build effective teams. The results proved the team increased their level of trust and communication skills, which developed the overall strength of the team's innovation and reputation."
— Vivian Stojanof, Lead Physicist
Challenge
As Community.co grew, its senior leaders were planning in silos. Quarterly initiatives were approved team by team, resources and scope were not aligned upfront, and status meetings had stopped driving decisions. The leadership team wanted to be more strategic and cohesive, and they needed a shared vision and a real cross-functional communication process to get there.
What was accomplished
I started with a diagnostic, surveying the senior management team on what was working and what was breaking down across teams. I used those findings to design and facilitate a leadership offsite, and delivered a communication and planning framework: a Leadership North Star, an annual planning timeline from executive leadership through senior management, clear expectations and accountability at each level, and a two-month cross-collaboration planning cadence.
Impact
- A shared Leadership North Star, purpose, three-year and one-year vision, that gave every team the same language and priorities
- A clear annual planning and communication process that replaced siloed quarterly planning
- A two-month planning cadence with built-in accountability, scoping before timelines, and shared transparency, so limited resources go to the right work
- A more aligned, psychologically safer leadership team, able to plan together and raise hard things openly
"Payal approaches her work with a level of thoughtfulness and compassion that's difficult to find. Picking her as a leadership coach to support our senior managers paid for itself and within weeks the takeaways are already being implemented in measurable ways. We will definitely work together again."
— [Ryan Paugh, COO]
Real Impact is made through Relationships
Partner with us at DevelopWell and let's grow the impact your organization has on its community.