ABOUT MARY
Mary Rood
Narrative coach - Hudson Valley, NY
Mary coaches leaders who are navigating change from the inside out - the kind of change that doesn’t show up on a roadmap, but that you feel clearly when you’re in the middle of it.
HER STORY
Mary spent more than 25 years in corporate business and technology leadership. She knows what it’s like to be competent, experienced and still stuck - to have done everything right by the metrics that mattered and still sense, quietly, that something essential was missing or ready to shift.
That tension - between outward success and inward restlessness - is familiar territory for many of the leaders she works with. It’s also what led her to coaching. Not as a career pivot in the conventional sense, but as a natural extension of something she had always done: help people see themselves more clearly, and from that clarity, move.
She trained through a narrative coaching framework, which means the work isn’t about fixing problems or building plans. It’s about understanding the stories that drive your choices - the ones you’ve inherited, the ones you’ve written yourself, and the ones that are ready to be revised. That lens shapes everything: how sessions are structured, what gets explored, and what gets left alone.
She is based in the Hudson Valley and works with leaders across industries, one-to-one, mostly with people who have already tried the more conventional coaching approaches and found them too rigid, to prescribed, or too focused on accountability rather than growth.
“I’m not here to tell you what to do next. I’m here to help you see what you’re already moving toward - and what might be in the way.”
-Mary Rood
HOW SHE WORKS
She follows your lead
Sessions don’t have a predetermined agenda. What you bring - even if it’s just a feeling - is where the work begins. Mary’s role is to create the conditions for you to think more clearly, not to direct where that thinking goes.
She works with narrative
The stories you tell about yourself - about what’s possible, what’s expected, what you deserve - shape every decision you make. Making those stories visible is often where the most useful work happens, and where the most sustainable change begins.
She respects readiness
Not every moment is the right moment for every kind of change. Part of the work is identifying what you’re genuinely ready for - not what you think you should want, or what sounds right in theory. Sustainable change follows readiness, not pressure.
EXPERIENCE AND CREDENTIALS
Narrative coaching enhanced practitioner
Trained in the narrative coaching framework and practices developed by Dr. David Drake.
25+ years corporate and military leadership
Beginnings with a commission in the US Army transitioned to business and technology leadership across complex organizations.
Individual and team work
Deep experience with leaders and their teams navigating personal and professional transitions.
Connect on Linkedin
WHAT LEADERS TYPICALLY BRING
A sense that something needs to change - but not yet knowing what
Feeling stuck in a role, a pattern or a story about themselves
Navigating a significant transition - planned or unexpected
Outward success paired with inward restlessness
Tried conventional coaching - found it too structured or too shallow
Ready to think differently, not just work harder
OUTSIDE THE WORK
Mary lives in the Hudson Valley with her family and what she describes as a reasonable number of pets. She walks the rail trails when she needs to think and plays the violin when she doesn’t. She finds that both things - movement through landscape and attention to something that requires presence - have more to do with her coaching than they might appear to.
Want to see if this is the right fit?
The focus session is a 45-minute conversation - real work, no pitch. Bring whatever’s pulling at you. That’s enough to start.