About
Allison Yost, PhD
Researcher, organizational psychologist, executive, and coach. I\u2019ve spent nearly two decades studying how people work, lead, and change, and much of that time leading inside organizations myself. I now coach and advise leaders in consequential moments.
Why I Do This Work
What helps people thrive? What creates well-being? What makes a life feel meaningful, not just successful?
Those questions are why I became a researcher and a psychologist. I wanted better answers than the ones we usually get from tips, trends, and whatever happens to be popular at the moment. Work became a natural place to study them, because work takes up so much of adult life and shapes identity, energy, relationships, and our sense of contribution. That is what led me to a doctorate in industrial-organizational psychology: the study of people at work, and the conditions that help them perform, grow, and thrive.
I learned something about method long before I had the language for it. Stuck between graduate programs after college, I went home, and my mom spread a series of index cards across the table, one for each possible path, and we mapped what each would open, close, and cost over time. Nobody told me what to choose. Once I could see the whole landscape, the decision I had been treating as a binary stopped being one. That is still most of what good thinking partnership does.
The same question keeps widening. It started as curiosity about people, became research, then leadership, and now runs through writing and making as well. Staying inside a company and building something of my own are not competing answers to it. They are two places to ask it.
The most consequential decisions are rarely solved by choosing between Option A and Option B. They open up when you can see a larger landscape and reconnect with what matters.
What I’ve Learned
After years of studying human behavior at work, and living the questions myself, a few things have become clear.
Leaders rarely need to be told what to do. They need space, honest reflection, and the right questions to hear what they already know. The judgment is usually there. It gets buried under pressure, obligation, and the pace of the role.
The highest-performing leaders and teams are rarely just better at execution. They are more grounded, more self-aware, more aligned with what they actually value, and better able to make clear choices under pressure.
Seeing the right path and walking it are two different things. The choice that fits often looks unconventional on paper. That takes courage, and courage is easier to find with someone beside you who can help you stand up for what you are seeing.
Professional Background
Research and Training
I have a doctorate in industrial-organizational psychology, a master’s in applied statistics and psychometrics, and nearly two decades of experience studying human behavior, motivation, leadership, and well-being.
My work has centered on what helps people, leaders, and teams thrive. I’ve studied performance, motivation, leadership, and well-being, and the deeper I’ve gone, the more connected those questions have become. The highest-performing leaders and teams are rarely just better at execution. They are often more grounded, more self-aware, more values-aligned, and better able to make clear choices under pressure.
Leadership Experience
I’ve also lived these questions from the inside, in leadership roles where the pressure of high-stakes decisions and the hidden cost of carrying more than people around you can see were part of daily life.
That experience shapes how I do this work. I’m not interested in abstract advice or generic encouragement. I care about the deeper work underneath leadership and transition: clarity, courage, values, identity, and the practical choices that turn insight into a life that feels more true.
BetterUp
I am SVP of Product Strategy at BetterUp, working at the intersection of behavioral science, technology, coaching, and human development. The work is about the conditions that help people grow, and what it takes to create them at scale.
It has reinforced something I believe. People are not empty vessels waiting to be filled with advice. The judgment they need is almost always already there. The right questions, held in the right space, help them hear it and act on it with more courage.
Writing and making
Essays are where I work ideas out in public. Coppermine Studio is where they turn into reflection tools, small gatherings, and other useful things. Neither one has to justify itself as a business for the thinking to be worth doing.
Across the research, the leadership roles, the writing, and the making, I keep returning to one question: what helps people thrive in the modern world? Work is one of the most powerful contexts for human growth, and it was never meant to be the only container for a thriving life.
The making happens at Coppermine Studio, my independent creative studio. It’s where I turn ideas about psychology, identity, and a meaningful life into essays, reflection tools, and other useful things. I also work with a small number of coaching clients through the studio.
Beyond Work
Allison lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband Kevin, their three children, and two dogs. Outside of work and family life, she enjoys reading, writing, sketching, painting, and building creative projects with her kids, some of which live at CoppermineKids.com.
I’m glad to hear from people thinking about the same questions I am.
Get in touch