Irene E. Bradford, PhD

Dr. Bradford is a licensed psychologist and coaches senior executives in Fortune 500 companies as well as start-ups. Her clients are based in the U.S. as well as Europe and Asia Pacific. She consults with senior executives on leadership issues, including strategies for developing talent in the company and creating an intentional culture. In her work, she guides executives to more fully understand the “I” behind their role and their goals, hewing to the adage, Know Thyself. She helps them to identify their strengths (and not over-rely on the power of their position) to create a pattern of success. When executives know who they are, they have a greater chance of understanding their employees and customers to create a positive and sustainable work environment where everyone wins.

An underlying theme in Dr. Bradford’s writing and coaching is a belief that a guide cannot take a client any deeper than they have gone themselves. She has worked with many clients, who at their core, feel alienated from themselves and others, and long to find a way to connect in meaningful ways, not in the proscribed ways that their role dictates. They seek to find their own voice and an authentic way of being in the world. Dr. Bradford coaches from who they are and how that expresses itself in their executive role. Once an executive is grounded in who they are, their inner power ripples out beyond corporate roles and responsibilities to positively impact all areas of their lives.

Being You reflects the author’s belief in the uniqueness of all individuals. People want to be seen and affirmed for who they are, and not only for what they achieve. She sees individuals like a diamond with many facets to be revealed and their inner light to reflect into the world. Dr. Bradford uses systems, psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychology theories in her practice. She worked as a clinical therapist prior to becoming a consultant and executive coach. She wrote an unpublished Master’s Thesis (A Jungian Approach to Eating Disorders), and dissertation (Women’s Attitudes Toward Money) as part of her clinical training as well.

Dr. Bradford developed her foundation from which to guide her clients toward knowing themselves through over thirty years of professional client work, as well as her personal mindfulness meditation, journaling, dream work, and therapy practices. She is a founding principal of the Bradford Leadership Group. Her business experience began with a career in estate planning with the Bank of Boston, Boston, Massachusetts where she worked with high-net-worth clients and business owners. Nine years later, she left to pursue a doctorate in psychology. After earning her Ph.D., she began a small clinical private practice in San Francisco and returned to the business word as a leadership consultant. She trained with an international consulting firm, RHR International, and became the Managing Director of the San Francisco office before leaving to start her own firm, Castelot Consulting Group in 2002, prior to co-founding the Bradford Leadership Group in 2004, where she continues to coach today.

Dr. Bradford received her B.A. from Wheaton College, Massachusetts in Economics with a Management minor; a M.A. from the University of New Hampshire in Counseling and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA.

She is a member of the American Psychological Association, and a member of the Founders Society at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts.

She lives outside of Charlottesville, Virginia with her husband and retired business partner, Bob Bradford.