Neerja Bhatia
Neerja Bhatia is a leadership emergence coach, TEDx speaker, and founder of Living Intelligence, based in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. With more than two decades of experience working with global founders and C-suite executives, she is known for guiding leaders through deep personal and professional transformation. As a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, Neerja’s work centers on helping leaders move beyond performance-driven models of success and reconnect with a more authentic, human-centered way of leading.
Throughout her career, Neerja has partnered with organizations such as Red Hat, McKinsey, Meta, Philips, and GE, facilitating leadership development, executive coaching, and team transformation. Her approach blends emotional intelligence, values-based frameworks, and experiential learning, encouraging leaders to break free from limiting patterns and rediscover alignment between their inner world and outward impact. Rather than focusing solely on metrics and optimization, she challenges leaders to cultivate presence, moral clarity, and relational depth—qualities she believes define the future of leadership in an age of rapid technological change.
Beyond her coaching practice, Neerja is an accomplished author and thought leader, sharing insights on resilience, consciousness, and human potential through her books, articles, and speaking engagements. Her philosophy is rooted in the idea of “Living Intelligence”—the innate wisdom that emerges when individuals move beyond rigid roles and reconnect with their true selves. Whether through one-on-one coaching, team facilitation, or creative work, she is driven by a singular purpose: to help leaders experience meaningful, lasting transformation and lead from a place of authenticity, presence, and aliveness.
• MBTI Certification
• Richard Barrett's Values-Based Leadership
• DISC
• TILT365
• IBEC Coaching Certification
• ICF ACC Certification
• ACTC Team Coaching Certification (in progress)
• Certified Facilitator of Transformation
• Certifications in Healing Modalities
• Sacred Geometry
• Vedic Astrology
• Red Hat Career Coaching Program
• Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) Certification
• Certified Transpersonal Coach
• Crucial Accountability
• Crucial Conversations
• Facilitating Transformation Through Values: Self
• Laser Coaching MASTERCLASS
• Master Agility Practitioner
• True Tilt Personality Profile
• Positive Influence Predictor
• Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst
• Certified Professional EQ Analyst
• Certified Professional Coach
• CTT Certified Consultant
• MBTI Certified Practitioner
• University of Alberta
• Akamai University- Master's
• Banff Center for Management
• TEDx Speaker (November 2025)
• Published Author (3 books)
• Forbes Contributor
• Former Member of Society for Human Resources
• Former Member of ASTD (Association for Talent Development)
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to helping leaders cultivate deep self-awareness and alignment between their heart, mind, and soul. For me, true success is reflected in the transformational shifts my clients experience—the “twinkle in their eye” and the life-altering impact they often describe.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think the biggest challenge I experience is because of who I am and what I bring, I'm able to connect the dots and take quantum leaps. When AI was starting to become mainstream, I could see how it's creating an identity crisis if people aren't mindful. AI is taking away everything that we have been trained to do - the administrative part, the analytical work we've relied on - and we have relied less on our creative brain. If we're not mindful and let it drive the analytical side and take on our creative source, we are going to experience identity crisis. I've been talking about it, and sometimes when you are ahead of the curve, people don't follow you at first, and then they follow you. That's probably been the biggest challenge. Within that challenge, it is also a driving force for me, because if you tell me no, it cannot be done, I get more driven to prove it otherwise. So I spend a lot of my energy trying to convince others on why the self-awareness piece, going deeper, is so critical. There is also a conscious bias about what a leadership development thought leader looks like, and clearly I'm not the image. So there are times, unless clients have a history with me, that to break free from that mold is a challenge.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me in my work and personal life are alignment of heart, mind, and soul, deep self-awareness, presence, creativity, and service to others.