About
Meet Chris
Pellucid Leadership Coaching is a small, woman-owned coaching and consulting company based in the Washington, DC metro area. Founder Chris Schiavone (she/her) is a PCC-level ICF certified executive leadership coach and has extensive experience coaching senior leaders, teams and individuals to achieve their goals. Throughout her career, Chris has successfully led large-scale organizational cultural change initiatives focused on improving leadership and employee engagement, and she regularly partners with organizations on cultural transformation efforts in the areas of team dynamics, change management, strategic communication and innovative problem-solving.
As a coach, Chris brings a sense of humor, candor, and authenticity to her work with leaders and teams. She focuses on the whole person, allowing individuals space to holistically reflect on their personal and professional lives. Her clients often cite her ability to quickly build trust and create a partnership rooted in empathy and honesty.
Chris particularly enjoys working with clients in the midst of personal and professional transitions, as well as women leaders. She strives to empower others as they explore new possibilities and take action to achieve results. Chris has served as a coach for organizations including Partnership for Public Service, The Women’s Impact Alliance and Chief.
Chris earned her M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Hofstra University, a B.A. in Psychology from Salisbury University, and is a graduate of the Georgetown Leadership Coaching program. She is certified in MHS’s Emotional Intelligence 360 assessment, the DiSC assessment, the Center for Creative Leadership 360 assessment suite, and the Partnership for Public Service Public Service Leadership Model 360 assessment.
Beyond her professional career, Chris is married and has three young children. She is a native of the Jersey shore, loves live music and is happiest when she’s at the beach with friends and family. She comes from a family of public servants and has found her own way of helping others through non-profit work, volunteering, and now coaching leaders to be the best versions of themselves.
Pellucid [puh-loo-sid] adjective;
derived from Latin meaning "to shine through"; translucently clear
What's in a Name?
Chris grew up at the Jersey shore and has always found that being by the water is restorative, giving her an opportunity to reflect and reconnect to herself. It is where she is most at peace and finds clarity amidst life’s day-to-day demands.
When brainstorming a company name, Chris kept coming back to water-themed ideas. She knew she wanted it to convey the feelings she experiences by the water—clarity, calm, reflection—but nothing felt quite right. As she tested various options with her closest family and friends, her mom asked if she had ever heard of the word pellucid. Despite hours of SAT prep in her high school days, “pellucid” was one that had escaped her vocabulary.
It turns out that pellucid was the adjective she had been searching for—the word that accurately describes how she wants her clients to feel after partnering together. Pellucid means “to shine through,” clarity, and translucently clear. Chris believes that each person has an innate purpose and unique strengths. But sometimes after years of going through the motions of work and life, we can lose sight of our “why” and our understanding of where we shine the brightest.
Chris created Pellucid Leadership Coaching to develop purpose-driven leaders and equip them with the tools to bring out the best in themselves and their teams. She empowers leaders to be vulnerable and experiential as they find confidence in their authentic leadership style. Most importantly, she helps individuals find comfort in the discomfort of being outside of their comfort zone to create a more fulfilling, integrated life.
My Why
One of the reasons Chris is so passionate about helping others find clarity of purpose is due to her own journey as a working professional and as a mom. After having her second daughter, she began to do a lot of reflecting on her values, how they were (and sometimes weren’t) aligned to her work, and what she wanted to model for her children. She also realized how critical it was to have support and sponsorship as a woman in the workplace—and the impact it had when those were absent. She had her third baby during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this solidified her desire to think beyond the surface and dig deep to reimagine how work and life could come together in a more fulfilling way.
As a leader receiving coaching herself, she was once told to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable, because that’s where the change happens.” And while the journey of learning how to best integrate her professional and personal life continues as a working mom of three, Chris knows that there is power in the willingness to do the inner work—despite its discomfort. When we can connect to the core of who we are and why we do what we do, we can begin to evolve into the next best version of ourselves.
Book your complimentary discovery call to learn more