Kathleen Bigsby, PhD

Behavioral Health Executive • Consultant • Clinician • Professor • Mentor

A professional woman with short, curly red hair smiling in a gray business suit.

For more than three decades, Kathleen Bigsby has worked at the intersection of behavioral healthcare, executive leadership, clinical practice, academia, and human development.

Her work brings together strategic leadership, systems thinking, clinical insight, and a deep commitment to helping people and organizations create meaningful, sustainable change.

Services & Offerings

Work With Kathleen

Leadership Grounded in Clinical Insight

Kathleen Bigsby, PhD brings more than 30 years of experience in behavioral health administration and clinical work, including more than 17 years in corporate and regional CEO leadership.

Throughout her career, she has worked across clinical care, executive leadership, organizational development, education, mentorship, and consulting. Her experience leading complex behavioral healthcare organizations gives her a systems-level understanding of how leadership, culture, communication, clinical quality, and organizational performance intersect.

Kathleen’s clinical and academic background adds another dimension to that work. Rather than approaching leadership or transformation as isolated performance issues, she examines the broader patterns influencing individuals, teams, and organizations—including relationships, systems, beliefs, behavior, values, and organizational culture.

This interdisciplinary perspective allows Kathleen to work with leaders and individuals not only on what needs to change, but on the underlying conditions that make sustainable change possible.

Experience & Qualifications

30+ Years

Behavioral Health Administration & Clinical Experience

More than three decades working across behavioral healthcare, clinical practice, leadership, and organizational systems.

17+ Years

Corporate & Regional CEO Leadership

Executive leadership experience guiding behavioral healthcare organizations, teams, programs, and strategic growth.

Adjunct Professor of Psychology

Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology

Academic experience contributing to the education and development of future behavioral health professionals and leaders.

Doctoral Education

PhD in Human Development

Syracuse University

Graduate Education

Family Systems & Clinical Social Work

Syracuse University

Professional Certifications

International Certification as an Alcohol & Drug Counselor

Certified Grief Recovery® Specialist

Where Executive Leadership, Behavioral Health & Human Development Converge

Kathleen’s work is shaped by the belief that sustainable change rarely occurs within a single dimension.

Leadership challenges may involve organizational systems.

Performance challenges may involve beliefs, relationships, or identity.

Team challenges may reflect culture, communication, and unresolved patterns within the organization.

Personal transitions may affect professional effectiveness, while professional demands can profoundly influence personal wellbeing.

Kathleen’s background allows her to work across these intersections rather than treating them as unrelated problems.

Her approach integrates executive experience, behavioral health expertise, clinical understanding, human development, and systems thinking to help individuals and organizations identify patterns, clarify priorities, strengthen accountability, and move toward meaningful action.

Work With Kathleen
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Purposeful Living

Purposeful living is the foundation of Kathleen’s philosophy.

She believes that meaningful success requires more than achievement alone. Sustainable growth occurs when individuals and organizations understand what matters most, develop the courage to examine what is no longer working, and align their choices with their values, responsibilities, and aspirations.

As a behavioral health executive, clinician, professor, and mentor, Kathleen has spent her career helping people move beyond automatic patterns and toward greater self-awareness, critical thinking, resilience, and intentional action.

The goal is not simply to perform better.

It is to live and lead with greater clarity, integrity, purpose, and impact.

My Purpose

My work is centered on helping people clarify what matters most and create meaningful pathways forward.

Throughout my career, I have witnessed the extraordinary capacity people have to adapt, grow, lead, and transform—even during periods of uncertainty, loss, or profound change.

I believe fear and uncertainty can become opportunities for greater awareness when they are approached with curiosity, courage, and support.

My role is not to define someone else’s path. It is to create the conditions for clarity: to help uncover patterns, challenge assumptions, strengthen accountability, and identify choices that more closely align with who you are and who you are becoming.

Whether I am working with an executive, an organization, a clinical team, or an individual navigating transition, my purpose remains the same:

to help transform insight into meaningful action.

My Journey

More than two decades ago, I became increasingly clear about one of the central themes of my work: helping others identify what matters most and co-create a path forward with greater clarity and intention.

Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to learn from clinical practice, executive leadership, academia, organizational systems, and deeply human experiences of change.

I have also been fortunate to encounter spiritual teachers and visionaries whose perspectives expanded my understanding of purpose, self-awareness, resilience, and transformation.

Those experiences reinforced something I have seen repeatedly throughout my professional life:

Meaningful change begins when we are willing to examine the stories, beliefs, and patterns shaping how we live and lead.

Purposeful living is not about pursuing a perfect life.

It is about developing the awareness and courage to live more intentionally—and continuing to become the person, leader, or organization we are capable of becoming.

“We must take fear, and by love, change it into hope.”

— Maya Angelou

How Kathleen Approaches Change

  • Close-up of a calibration wheel with numbered markings, the wheel appears to be on a measurement device, with a speckled gray object in the foreground.

    Understand the Whole System

    Challenges rarely exist in isolation. Kathleen considers the personal, organizational, relational, and systemic factors influencing a situation.

  • A wall of curved, overlapping tiles in various pastel colors including shades of blue, green, yellow, pink, and purple.

    Identify the Patterns

    Sustainable change begins by recognizing the assumptions, habits, structures, and behaviors that repeatedly shape outcomes.

  • Person holding a partially solved 3x3 Rubik's Cube with yellow, green, blue, and pink squares against a blurred background.

    Create Clarity

    Kathleen helps clients distinguish what is urgent from what is important and identify the deeper priorities driving meaningful decisions.

  • A small set of gold-colored balance scales with chains hanging from each side, placed on a pink wooden surface.

    Strengthen Accountability

    Insight becomes valuable when it leads to intentional action, measurable change, and sustained responsibility.

  • A close-up of a leafy green branch with small oval leaves, set against a plain white background.

    Build for Sustainability

    The objective is not short-term motivation. It is to create healthier systems, stronger leadership, greater resilience, and change that can endure.

Who Kathleen Works With

Executives & Leaders

For leaders navigating complex decisions, transition, growth, organizational responsibility, or greater professional expectations.

Leadership Teams & Organizations

For teams seeking stronger communication, culture, alignment, performance, and organizational resilience.

Behavioral Healthcare Organizations

For organizations navigating leadership, clinical systems, culture, growth, strategic development, and organizational change.

Professionals & High Achievers

For individuals seeking greater clarity, alignment, resilience, and purpose across personal and professional life.

Individuals in Transition

For people navigating meaningful periods of change and seeking a more intentional path forward.

Work With Kathleen

Kathleen is based in California and works with individuals, leaders, teams, and organizations across the United States and internationally.

She is available for select:

  • Executive and organizational consulting

  • Individual mentorship

  • Leadership development

  • Team and group facilitation

  • Workshops and intensives

  • Speaking engagements

  • On-site engagements

  • Select concierge services where professionally appropriate

Explore Services
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Your Future is Yours to Design.

Growth begins with greater clarity about where you are, what matters most, and what you are willing to change.

Kathleen helps individuals and organizations move from insight to intentional action—and from possibility to meaningful, sustainable progress.

Begin the Conversation