ELIZABETH CIPOLLA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Co-Founder & Chief Empowerment Officer
Hi, I’m Elizabeth, Co-Founder & Chief Empowerment Officer of Verdera, trauma-informed coach, facilitator, speaker, and executive HR advisor.
As an Enneagram 8, ENTP on MBTI, ID on DiSC, and Maverick on Predictive Index, I’m wired to challenge the status quo, see patterns quickly, ask the question other people may be avoiding, and turn complexity into forward movement. Even Human Design (another lens I’ve found interesting in understanding my own hardwiring) describes me as a Splenic Manifestor, with natural instincts toward initiation, independent thinking, transformation, and trusting what I know before I can always explain why I know it.
In practical terms? I’m usually the person who can walk into a complicated situation, get underneath what’s actually going on, and help people figure out what to do about it more quickly than they thought possible.
That combination has shaped both how I lead and how I work with other people. I’m direct without being careless, deeply curious about human behavior, comfortable challenging people when it serves them, and not particularly interested in polished answers that avoid the real issue. My approach blends candor with compassion, behavioral insight with practical action, and enough safety for people to tell the truth; including the truth they may not have said out loud yet.
That perspective wasn’t developed through professional experience alone. I grew up in a tumultuous home as the youngest of seven, and the only one not adopted. Eventually, I made the difficult decision to walk away from much of my family to break long-standing cycles and reclaim my own story. I am also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a stroke at age 31, and the emotional trauma of navigating my child’s life-threatening illness.
I also know what it means to look highly capable on the outside while something very different is happening underneath. I have firsthand experience with addiction as a recovering workaholic and eating-disorder survivor. Those experiences gave me more than resilience. They fundamentally changed how I understand identity, behavior, survival patterns, nervous-system responses, boundaries, and what it actually takes for change to stick.
Professionally, I bring 25+ years of experience across human resources, executive and individual coaching, leadership development, organizational consulting, and team effectiveness. I’ve worked alongside executives navigating high-stakes people and business decisions; coached individuals at virtually every stage of career, leadership and life; helped teams work through dynamics that were getting in the way of results; taught at the undergraduate level; spoken at conferences; and trained attorneys, educators, healthcare professionals, nonprofit leaders, and other service providers in trauma-informed practice.
I’m equally comfortable in a coaching conversation about the pattern someone keeps repeating and in an executive conversation about leadership capability, strategy, organizational structure, talent, team dysfunction, accountability, or what needs to change inside a business. To me, those aren’t unrelated disciplines. Organizations are made of human beings, and strategy only works when the humans responsible for carrying it out can actually do so.
At Verdera, I help individuals and organizations get underneath the patterns, behaviors, dynamics, and decisions keeping them stuck, then do something useful with what we uncover. Sometimes that means helping one person change how they lead, communicate, or navigate what comes next.
Sometimes it means helping an executive team address what everyone knows but nobody has been willing to tackle. And sometimes it means stepping into an organization as a fractional or interim HR executive when the business needs senior-level people leadership without a permanent executive hire. Different circumstances. Same work at the core: see clearly, tell the truth, understand the human dynamics at play, and move forward intentionally.
Whether you’re navigating your own next chapter or responsible for leading other people through one, that’s the work I’m here to do.
aMANDA KOCHIRKA MPA, TIWP
Co-Founder & Chief Orchestration Officer
Hi, I’m Amanda, Co-Founder & Chief Orchestration Officer of Verdera, strategist, facilitator, and the operational backbone behind the work we do.
As an Enneagram 8, ISTJ on MBTI, CS on DiSC, Strategist on Predictive Index, and Manifesting Generator on Human Design, I’m wired to look for patterns, question assumptions, organize complexity, and figure out how all the pieces fit together. Human Design calls my type “The Multi-Hyphenate,” which tracks with a career that has never fit neatly into one lane.
I started my career in marketing, moved into consulting, and eventually broadened into business consulting and economic development. Along the way, my work has included project management, executive recruitment, strategic planning, culture assessments, business operations, resource connection, and designing and delivering educational programming on a wide range of topics. I also grew up working in my dad’s small business (still going strong after over 45 years), so I got an early education in family-business dynamics, blurred lines, strong opinions, and the reality that “business” decisions are rarely just about the business.
What can look like a “Jane of all trades” career has become my superpower. I understand organizations from multiple angles, how disciplines intersect, and where good ideas tend to fall apart between strategy and execution.
At Verdera, that translates into two primary roles. First, I run the operational side of the business, including finance, marketing, client experience, systems, processes, logistics, technology, and follow-through. Second, I co-facilitate team dynamics work, leadership development cohorts, and topic-specific workshops, where I listen for patterns, inconsistencies, and the gap between what people say they want and how the team or organization is actually functioning.
I’m deeply curious about what makes people tick, and I’m rarely interested in the surface-level explanation. I want to understand what’s underneath a behavior, decision, team dynamic, or business problem, because that’s where the really useful information is.
My own experiences with loss of close family members, a serious genetic mutation diagnosis, anxiety, depression, and work addiction also reshaped how I think about identity, achievement, and what people are carrying beneath a highly capable exterior.
At Verdera, I help make sure we are looking at the full picture: the people, the behavior, the structure, the systems, and the practical realities surrounding them.
Different problems call for different tools. My career has given me a lot of them. And yes, a client DID once nickname me “A-plan-da.” I will ALWAYS have contingency plans for the contingency plans.