Welcome.
We’re so glad you’re hEre.
Attuned Advising is a coaching, storytelling and strategic advising consultancy rooted in empathy.
Why? Because every empathy—at a visceral level—taps into our humanity by reconnecting us to one another.
At Attuned Advising, we offer coaching, storytelling, and strategic advising support rooted in empathy.
Our focus is on helping individuals and organizations through relational coaching for organizational leaders and managers and storytelling for teams and leaders looking to find their voice, craft meaningful stories, and communicate who they are to the world.
Through our relational approach, our coaching and storytelling support lets your work unfold in ways that sparks genuine connection, thriving teams, and relational change.
Empathy isn’t just a value; it's the foundation of everything we do. Whether you're a founder, executive, thought leader, public figure, or team leader seeking coaching and advising grounded in care and connection, we're thrilled you’re here.
Our Relational APProach
Our superpower is our deeply empathic, relational approach to coaching, storytelling, and strategic advising. We root our work together in building a deep, trusted relationships through deep listening, curiosity and collaboration, building the foundation for strategic advising and thought partnership you can trust and lean on.
Through conversations, we get to know you deeply—who you are, what you care about, what shapes you, and your dreams for your impact on the world. We support your journey, whether through coaching or advising on strategies and narratives together as unique as your fingerprint, bespoke to your style, aligned with your convictions.
our story
Hi! I’m Sara, Founder of Attuned Advising. I started Attuned over half a decade ago because I wanted to support leaders who were doing meaningful, often messy, human work of building audacious organizations to make this world better—founders, executives, politicians, nonprofit leaders, and creative visionaries—people who cared deeply but were often stretched thin, wading through complicated leadership dynamics without an empathic mirror or guide to support them along the way.
In the beginning, I focused on relational leadership coaching rooted in equity—helping teams work better together, supporting folks as they navigated complex decisions, guiding founders toward more values-aligned leadership.
As the work evolved, I realized the same tools I used to guide leaders and founders in coaching—deep listening, presence, empathy—were the very ones needed to help surface and tell story of what they were building.
That’s when I stopped trying to separate coaching from storytelling, or strategy from heart. I let it all weave together—because that’s what real stories do. They hold the complexity. They make room for humanity. And they point us somewhere honest.
In collaboration with Algernon Felice Jr. and Emily Smith, we’ve built a team expert in deep listening and skillful storytelling to make your story come to life.
That’s what Attuned is about: telling your stories beautifully by anchoring the process in empathy and care.
Through deep attunement, we help people tell their stories beautifully.
Our Offerings
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We offer our flagship 1:1 coaching services to a select few mission and impact-driven clients.
We specialize in working with founders, executives, co-founders, and leadership teams.
We provide embodied, grounded, relational coaching to executives moving through these times.
We support with conflict resolution, decision-making, leadership strategies, org design, hard conversations, and strategic alignment.
Our mutltimodal approach pulls from nonviolent communication, restorative justice, embodied listening, somatic experiencing, attachment theory, and mindfulness practices.
Like all of our services, our coaching model is steeped in empathy, deep listening, and collective care.
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We offer personalized coaching and mentorship for individuals ready to find their voice, clarify their message, or bring a creative project to life.
Whether you’re writing a book, launching a body of work, or stepping into greater visibility, we support you to move forward with clarity and care.
We support writers, artists, and creative leaders to:
Uncover the deeper story they’re here to tell
Find a tone and voice that feel true
Shape a sustainable, embodied writing practice
Develop and structure longform projects like essays, books, and hybrid work
Clarify their message across platforms (Substack, web, social, etc.)
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We provide high-level guidance for organizations and visionaries seeking to align internal culture, values, strategy, and external messaging.
We support teams and leaders as thought partners with:
Strategic planning
Organizational design
Mission, vision, and core values articulation
Strategic communications & positioning
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We thought partner with mission-driven organizations to align their work with their storytelling, telling stories that inspire empathy and change.
We know storytelling is not just about communication—storytelling is in our bones. Stories crack open our worldviews, touch into our humanity, remind us of our shared connection. Stories remind us that we belong to each other. Stories are our primary pathway to connection. Stories are the antidote to our divisive times. Stories are what will bridge us to a world rooted in collective care.
We support your storytelling by thought-partnering on:
Vision and mission articulation
Messaging strategy development
Narrative alignment
Strategic narrative approaches to op-eds, speeches, thought-leadership pieces
Website copy strategy
Campaign messaging and content development
Annual reports and impact narratives
Our team
Meet Sara
Sara Sadek, Founder of Attuned Advising, is a mother and writer, coach and advisor, educator and community builder here to co-create a world radically rooted in empathy and care with you. Sara’s spent the last decade consulting and advising cross-industry founders and executives in parenting & education, tech, politics, and edtech. For years, she served as Senior Advisor to Fenway Strategies—the premier speechwriting company founded by Obama’s speechwriters—on all things social justice.Sara’s gift is her deeply human, relational, and care-centered approach to storytelling, coaching, advising and everything she touches. Prior to running her own consultancy, she helped scale nonprofits like Girls Who Code and Teach For All in their early days, co-founded a cooperative play-based forest school, and trained as a homebirth doula. Sara started her career as a Teach For America corps member, teaching 5th grade in West Harlem. Sara writes weekly essays at folkweaver.substack.com, and is published in HTH Unboxed, Mutha Magazine, and Motherly Magazine. She is first and foremost an insatiable learner, forever connecting dots across disciplines to weave together the world she wants to live in.As a BIPOC neuroqueer first-generation immigrant steeped in social justice, Sara actively practices working with folks through a neuroaffirming, antiracist, inclusive, care-centered lens.
MEET Algernon
Algernon Felice Jr is an award-winning director. He’s won a Midwest Emmy® for his writing, producing and directing, as well as multiple Wisconsin Broadcasters Association awards for his work in brand development and production. AJ has been featured on CNN and the Washington Post for his cultural storytelling, and received his Masters from Johns Hopkins University.Algernon began his career producing content in partnership with Fortune 500 clientele, including Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Brooks, Saucony and Asics, during which time he filmed and produced in London, Germany, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and covered parts of the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. In addition to his work as a producer, Algernon has conducted comprehensive qualitative research that explores systems of political, sociocultural and multicultural communication, and works directly with families in underserved communities to help inform legislation. He continues to consult as a writer, producer and communications strategist on numerous statewide political campaigns, and briefly served as a contributing writer for a nationwide arts and culture magazine.He is a Zen Buddhist practitioner, cinema-enthusiast, proud husband, and son.
Meet Emily
Emily Smith has a background in business, psychology, and technology. For ten years, she ran a consultancy helping businesses all over the world design products and strategies that listened to and met the needs of the human lives their organizations touched. After working with organizations like The Gap, Inc. and MIT, she took an even more complex and equally rewarding job as a mother. She has trained in Nonviolent Communication with Dr. Roxy Manning and Dr. Oren Jay Sofer and believes this work is critical to the deep listening skills she pours into each client relationship. Her goal is to hold compassionate space for your stories and journeys to unfold. Nice things people say
“Sara has a rare and beautiful gift for guiding people to unearth their power—to speak truth to power and craft the authentic narratives that fuel bold, transformative movements. In a world that demands courageous leadership rooted in empathy and sustained by community, Sara meets the moment. She helps people lead from their most compassionate, grounded selves. Personally, she’s not only made me a better politician, but a better mom and a better human being.”
— Francesca Hong
Wi State Assembly Member
representing Downtown Madison
“I’ve worked with Sara on several extended projects that involved many highly invested stakeholders with differing perspectives and under circumstances that were initially fraught. Sara has a rare combination of deep EQ and sensitivity to interpersonal dynamics and a deep knowledge of techniques for actively building trust and alignment to enable groups that started off as lower trust to build deep rapport and work together effectively to make major decisions and to collaborate on a shared vision.
I’ve not worked with anyone with such a deep skill set in navigating complex group dynamics, and it felt like a super power throughout these projects having Sara in my corner to brainstorm, strategize, reflect, and plan how to unstick processes and move a group forward productively.
Sara is an expert at reading the room, authentic facilitation skills, honoring people and relationships in a work context, and all of the communications and emotional dynamics of work. She took several situations that seemed almost impossible to resolve and found a path forward that healed the group dynamics, built trust, and kept projects moving forward productively.
Sara is an amazing leadership coach, a thoughtful and skilled sounding board and guide, and has an excellent eye for thoughtful leadership and communications during a crisis. Anyone wanting to build trust, navigate a crisis situation, or develop as an authentic leader would be so lucky to have her in their corner.”
— Laura SKelton
Ex-Engineering Manager, Airbnb
Board member, Electra
“Sara has shown up in literal rain or shine to mirror, validate, and empathize with our triumphs and challenges. I have learned so much through Sara's modeling and deep insightful reflection. Sara’s ability to weave her skills and hold space for us to show up in true vulnerability has transformed my life.”
— Sara Van Acker
Co-Founder SF Birth Center
“Sara has a remarkable gift for crafting compelling narratives that bring an organization’s mission to life. Her words don’t just inform—they elicit connection, and create a vivid picture that draws the audience in and fosters genuine engagement.”
— Lisa Nowel
Founder of Recess
Director of Marketing at Brightworks
“Sara is a natural, heart focused, intuitive leader and the one to beautifully teach us how being in community is done.”
— Jen Madanat
San Francisco Midwife
“I can’t say enough good things about Sara - she is a revolutionary, magical person who brings so much of deep, transcendent value to the world”
— Noe Venable
Community Leader
Attuned Advising unapologetically and unequivocally stands in solidarity with Black liberation, LGBTQIA+ rights, reproductive justice rights, Palestinian and indigenous justice, sovereignty & freedom, immigrant rights, disability justice, earth justice, and more broadly, with all historically oppressed beings in our collective quest for liberation.