Joanie Neurodiverse Leader Coach

Dr. Joanie B. Connell is an organizational consultant, author, speaker, and leadership coach who is passionate about helping people maximize their leadership and personal potential. A former engineer, Joanie works especially well with technical leaders to develop people strategies to better manage their teams and build stronger relationships across functions and organizations. She also works with neurodiverse individuals and teams. She shares her expertise on how to consult to technical leaders and what it takes to survive in the real world of work in two incredible books: (1) Consulting to Technical Leaders, Teams, and Organizations: Building Leadership in STEM Environments and (2) Flying without a Helicopter: Preparing Young People for Work and Life. Both books draw from her 20-plus years of experience in the workplace, parenting and engineering experience, and decades of research in academic literature and the media. A former engineer, Joanie specializes in helping technical leaders develop people strategies to better manage their teams and build stronger relationships across functions and organizations. She hosts a podcast on the subject called Reinventing Nerds. In addition, she consults on how technology affects people, such as how remote work and artificial intelligence impact teams. Joanie also loves helping women leaders navigate the labyrinth to the top, balancing assertiveness with warmth and being present both at work and at home, all the while taking care of themselves. She hosted a 2-year-long series on Women Lead Radio called REAL Life Lessons where she interviewed successful women leaders on these issues, and she gives keynote speeches to women leaders regularly. Joanie supports neurodivergent leaders and leaders of neurodiverse teams. She presents on strength-based approaches to neurodiverse leadership at various conferences, coaches neurodivergent leaders, and helps leaders leverage the benefits of neurodiversity in teams. Another of her passions is helping young people develop the life skills needed to thrive at work, like resilience, empowerment, authenticity, and flexibility–the ones they don’t teach you in school. She coaches and presents lessons from her book, “Flying without a Helicopter” to young adults as well as adolescents to help them build the inner strength they need in today’s anxiety-ridden world. Joanie has a wealth of consulting experience. She has consulted with Fortune 100 companies, as well as small and medium sized businesses, and also non-profits and the public sector. She has research and teaching experience too. She teaches/has taught business and psychology students at the Rady School of Management at the University of California San Diego, the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University, and in the Masters in Human Behavior program at National University. Joanie earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in Engineering from Harvard University. She is also a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.