Member since
2000
What she does
Turner runs Turner McNabb Consulting, a one-woman business consulting and coaching firm in Alexandria, Virginia, she launched in 2004. Working with nonprofits, corporations and government agencies, Turner offers executive and career coaching, conflict resolution assistance and related services. She teaches executives how to use mindfulness meditation as a break from the "churn" of corporate life, for example. She helps managers fix troubled teams or manage employees spread across the country. She also helps dissatisfied employees transition to more fulfilling careers.
An island epiphany
Turner started out in the business world herself, earning an MBA from the University of Chicago and working in corporate finance at American Airlines. While she loved the job's travel perks, the company's tendency to make decisions based on financial, rather than human, considerations was frustrating. Then she met a psychologist the company had hired as a consultant. "I felt like my whole life I'd been speaking Greek and finally met another Greek," she remembers. Soon after, she went on sabbatical: After spending a month on Tortola and traveling in Central America and Asia, she returned determined to become a psychologist. She caught up on undergraduate psychology courses and went on to get a PhD in clinical psychology from Duke in 1998.
Bringing psychology to business
Turner's dual training in psychology and business equips her to uncover the motivations behind what her clients are doing — or not doing. Take her conflict resolution work. "This is marital therapy translated to the business world," she says. "Like in a marriage, people work very closely together, there's a lot at stake and each loses a lot if it doesn't work out." Architecture firms can be especially problematic, since those at the top are owners who can't be fired and bad behavior gets excused with the label "creative." But no matter how difficult others may find their colleagues, those colleagues are nowhere near as difficult as the inpatients Turner worked with during her psychology training. "Clinical training gives you a really good base," she says. "Not much floors me."
What's in a name
Although it's not her legal name, everyone calls Turner "Kiban," an old Welsh name with a long history in her family.
— Rebecca A. Clay
