What Pavani’s Clients Say

Ms. Ann-Kristin Koch, MBA MA | Former Chief Communications Officer

Working with Pavani is what it looks like when coaching actually works. From day one, I felt at ease with her. She is kind, and someone whose values and integrity you sense immediately. She’s an MD by background, and it shows in how she conducts a conversation: she grasps a situation quickly and precisely, and engages at a level that's only possible when someone brings both professional depth and genuine life experience to the room. What surprised me most was the efficiency: short sessions, disproportionate impact on my development goal to become more patient. She listens deeply, asks the right questions, challenges you, and knows when to reinforce instead. I find myself in everyday moments now asking: what would Pavani say? If you are a leader willing to do the work seriously, Pavani will meet you there. The proof for me was not in the conversation. It is in my behavior and how it now lands with my stakeholders. They noticed the change in my patience and acknowledged it. And what mattered most was realizing this was no longer just about leadership. It was about becoming the person I actually want to be: a professional not just at work, but at home, for those who matter most to me.

  • Dr. Gale Burstein, MD MPH | Commissioner of Health | Erie County, Buffalo, NY

    When I started working with Pavani, I was a local health department commissioner in a county of almost 1 million people with a staff of approximately 400 and overwhelmed by my work. Most weeknights I worked late and I always worked at least one weekend day. Pavani understood my work situation and stressors because she has lived experiences similar to mine. The focus of our work centers on improving my efficiency as a leader. As a result of my stakeholders’ feedback, we decided that I needed to start delegating work and focusing more on my conversations. We created action plans to address both goals that made sense and were easy for me to implement. I kept track of my actions, so I knew that I was following my plans. A female physician in a leadership role who needs some help with taking control of her work to achieve a sane work environment would truly benefit from Pavani’s coaching expertise.

  • Dr. Moe Myint Oo

    By consistently tracking my emotional responses to daily leadership challenges and sharing them with her, I created a data-rich narrative of my professional life. Pavani helped me decode patterns, identify triggers, and understand the gap between my intentions and my reactions. This practice moved leadership development from a theoretical concept to a daily, practical discipline, fundamentally changing how I approach my team and my responsibilities.

  • Dr. Christine Stewart, PhD MPH | Director at Institute for Global Nutrition and Corinne L. Rustici Endowed Chair in Applied Human Nutrition | University of California at Davis 

    I began working with Pavani as a leadership coach during a period of significant change in my professional field. I was navigating uncertainty in the global health and research landscape, rethinking my leadership priorities, and trying to build a more sustainable and intentional approach to my work. Her guidance has been invaluable. Pavani is thoughtful, responsive, reliable, and highly adaptable to the needs and goals of her clients. As a result of our work together, I have a much stronger set of priorities and practical systems for protecting time for strategic thinking and high-impact work. I have truly enjoyed working with Pavani and I enthusiastically recommend her to anyone seeking a thoughtful, skilled, and highly effective leadership coach.

  • Dr. Gauthami Penakalapati, PhD

    I worked with Dr. Ram over six months during a difficult stretch in the global development sector, and the experience reshaped how I think about my work and myself. Pavani designed a coaching approach that paired career strategy with resilience-building. In our weekly sessions, I developed practices for navigating uncertainty, listening to myself more carefully, and making decisions aligned with what actually mattered to me. Pavani is perceptive and responsive; she noticed when I was stuck and created the conditions to move through it, including a particularly meaningful session where we worked through my resistance to tracking and accountability. Her background in academia, government, and global development is a real differentiator. She understands the complexity of these environments, and she offered insights that only someone with decades of experience could provide. For anyone in this field navigating a transition, a plateau, or simply the weight of sustained high-stakes work, Pavani brings both the expertise and the presence to illuminate the different paths before you.

  • Dr. Denise Lillvis, PhD MA | Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Environmental Health | University at Buffalo

    At one of my first meetings with Pavani, I shared my “to do” list. Taking a step back, this list was clearly the work of a mad scientist. There was the list itself, which spanned the length of a legal pad. There were “priorities”: items circled, starred, highlighted in different colors, numbered, or some combination of these. Some items were crossed out, while others had arrows running toward and from, showing interdependence. From this list, we began discussing what I was currently working on and my goals. It became clear that my work and goals had become tied to checking things off the list, rather than the ultimate goals of an assistant professor: to become an established scientist and to obtain tenure. The work paid off. Since starting with Pavani, I have made a complete 180 and drastically increased my productivity. Rather than submitting one NIH grant over six months, I submitted three. I would recommend Pavani’s coaching to any academic that feels like their potential is not matching up to their scholarly outputs or outcomes. I am grateful for the time and effort that Pavani has invested in me.