About
We’re a tiny company with big ideas about how to change work—for good.
Since 2020, we’ve been helping people in design and tech understand who they are and how they lead—so they can speak up with confidence, build team resilience, and navigate challenges with ease.
Leadership team
Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Founder and CEO
Sara launched Active Voice in 2020 after spending a decade as a UX and content consultant, keynote speaker, and author. Her books include Content Everywhere, Design for Real Life (with Eric Meyer), and Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech. She earned the Associate Certified Coach designation from the International Coaching Federation and the Trauma-Informed Certified Coach designation from Coach Training World, and has also received additional training in team and systems coaching from CRR Global and in facilitation from Technology of Participation.
Sara has also been a speaker at hundreds of events, including SXSW, Drupalcon, Mind the Product, Confab, Lead Dev, Push UX, and Tempo. She’s based in Philadelphia and works with clients around the world.
Jen Dionisio
Director of coaching programs
Jen Dionisio is a certified transformation coach, content strategy consultant, and educator. Her experience spans the tech, higher ed, and nonprofit industries.
Her years of management experience include scaling up a content strategy practice from 5 people to 25 people, supporting the career growth of her reports and mentees, managing managers, and helping new managers establish a leadership style authentic to their values and core strengths. She's also a former professor at Drexel University and the University of the Arts.
As a coach and facilitator at Active Voice, Jen helps people launch new chapters of their lives with intention and purpose.
Collaborators
Emily Duncan
Producer and operations support
Emily produces the Per My Last Email podcast and all our video content, coordinates projects and events, and helps us keep things in order. Outside of Active Voice, Emily is also a celebrated contemporary flutist and producer whose work combines music, technology, theater, and art. She holds bachelor’s degrees in music and English from The University of Iowa, and a master of music degree from The Juilliard School. She is currently based in New York City.
Andrea Nwoke
Coach and facilitator
Andrea Nwoke is the founder of Full Voice Coaching & Consulting, which helps leaders increase their self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and leadership skills. A classical singer who has worked with C-suite executives, she’s a pro at helping people find their voice and bring true presence to any room.
We partner with Andrea to offer programs that help teams bring bold ideas and inclusive communication practices to work.
Roberta Dombrowski
Coach and facilitator
Roberta Dombrowski is a certified coach, experience strategist, and founder of Learn Mindfully, a company dedicated to leveling the playing field at work. As a coach, she focuses on helping clients reestablish their relationships to work, themselves, and those they work with.
Roberta collaborates with us on programs designed to empower leaders to live in alignment with their values, vision, and purpose at work.
Rachel de Jong
CliftonStrengths coach
Rachel de Jong is a Gallup-certified CliftonStrengths coach and a UX content designer currently at Instacart, where she was a founding member of the content design team.
Since 2018, she has coached hundreds of people in tech and design through their StrengthsFinder results.
Carlye Cunniff
Somatic coach
Carlye Cunniff is a somatic coach who uses her experience as a corporate design leader, professional dancer, and movement teacher to help other creatives combat burnout, chronic stress, and anxiety. She has worked as a professional Irish dancer (yes, like Riverdance), yoga and movement teacher, and head of design and research for Amazon's Global Talent Management Organization.
Books by Sara
Technically Wrong
See how tech industry bias and blind spots get baked into digital products—and harm us all. A Wired Top Tech Book and Fast Company Best Business & Leadership Book.
(W.W. Norton, 2017)
Design for Real Life
Learn to identify stress cases and design with compassion, so you can create interfaces that support more of your users, more of the time (coauthored with Eric Meyer).
(A Book Apart, 2016)
Content Everywhere
Design content that's flexible and structured for reuse—so it can go more places, more easily. Perfect for bringing systems thinking into your content strategy toolkit.
(Rosenfeld Media, 2012)
who we work with
