About Us
OUR PURPOSE
Vision & Mission
KS Insight helps leaders navigate complexity with more clarity and steadiness. In many systems, the challenge isn’t intelligence. It’s that the forces underneath the work—loss, loyalty, pressure, and competing interpretations—are often invisible or unspoken.
We design engagements that help leaders look closely at what is driving their system, understand their own role in it, and take steps that create real movement. The goal is traction, not perfection.
We believe this work matters because the decisions leaders make influence the lives of people inside their system and the trajectory of our societies more broadly. Every leader we develop, every system we help transform, and every coalition we help build creates ripple effects that extend far beyond the immediate engagement.
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
WHAT DRIVES US
How We Work
We bring intellectual rigor
We use systemic approaches to see beyond the surface, differentiating symptoms from root causes. Our work draws from research that observes what works in practice—from Heifetz to Crucial Conversations—not from promoting a single brand or philosophy.
We work cleanly with clients
We provide value, are responsive, adapt designs to bring people along, prepare well, and keep evolving our design in real time. We treat client relationships with seriousness: we don’t undermine colleagues, and we take care with how we work.
We work on the human side of change
We are interested in how beliefs and values are shaped—the role of social conditioning, loyalties, experiences, and unconscious influences. Real change happens when we understand what drives behavior beneath the surface.
We keep learning
We iterate, learn, and design to fit what’s emerging. That means not dialing it in—keeping up with new theories while honoring foundational ones, refreshing delivery, and staying improvisational.
We work as a team
We enjoy what we do and support each other through it. We care personally, celebrate each other's successes, and speak honestly about strengths and areas for growth. Work should be meaningful and fun.
We expect excellence & loyalty
We expect excellence in facilitation and creative design. We make each other look good, don’t poach clients or speak badly about colleagues, and show up prepared to design and brainstorm live.
LEADERSHIP LENS
How We Think About Leadership
Every engagement we design must be coherent and work at different levels. We create holding environments where leaders can take risks, expand self-awareness, and build the culture and relationships needed for real change.
Our Design Principles
Create alignment on the nature and root causes of challenges
Build practical skills that can be applied immediately
Expand self-awareness through structured reflection
Foster relationships that sustain change
Make the work engaging—even fun
The Team
Who You’ll Work With
Our Research Foundation
Adaptive leadership frameworks from real practice
Systems thinking and complexity science
Psychological safety and team dynamics research
Cross-cultural leadership studies
Behavioral change and immunity to change work
Much of leadership failure comes from misdiagnosis—treating adaptive problems as technical ones or acting quickly when the system requires reflection. We help leaders slow down, see the system clearly, and understand what is actually shaping events.
We focus on helping leaders see what is happening beneath the surface, name what others avoid, stay steady long enough for insight to emerge, and make decisions that can be adjusted as conditions change. Leadership is learned through practice; people rise to the level of their training.
OUR FOUNDER
Dr. Kirsti Samuels' Journey
"I didn't set out to work in war zones. I was actually on track to be a geneticist."
Dr. Kirsti Samuels' path to founding KS Insight began on a flat rooftop in Sudan, sitting across from a former rebel commander, discussing how to teach civic education in a place where the wrong conversation could reignite conflict. It was one of many unexpected moments that shaped her unique approach to leadership development.
Starting as a corporate lawyer in Sydney, Kirsti quickly grew restless for work that felt urgent and meaningful—where decisions truly mattered. This search led her to some of the world's most complex environments: Sudan during the run-up to South Sudan's independence, Somalia during constitutional negotiations, Iraq during troop withdrawal and elections.
"Years of leading in challenging conditions, and watching other leaders succeed, struggle, and sometimes fail under extreme pressure gave me this rare laboratory for understanding what actually works," she reflects. "The core capacities leaders need—reading the system, making clear-eyed decisions, building trust across divides, adapting in real time—are similar whether you're leading a cancer research team in Boston or governing a country on the brink."
"If I worked with the leaders themselves, helped them see clearly, make smart calls under pressure, and bring people with them, then every single one of them could go out and create change in their own arena. That's the real multiplier."
This realization led to founding KS Insight in 2017. Since then, Kirsti has worked everywhere from presidential offices in the Comoros Islands to executive offices in New York high-rises, from cutting-edge scientific labs in Boston to public utilities offices in California—helping leaders build capacity to lead effectively no matter how turbulent it gets.
Her approach was shaped by mentors like Swiss peace mediator Julian Hottinger, who taught her that steady, strategic commitment matters more than grand gestures. "He once continued facilitating peace negotiations after being stung by a scorpion, having people carry him into the room because he'd committed to seeing the process through. That kind of dedication shaped how I think about leadership under pressure."
During COVID-19, while leading a global leadership nonprofit alongside KS Insight, Kirsti demonstrated this same commitment. As their primary income source vanished overnight, she refused to let the organization go dormant. Instead, she brought together three leadership companies to create entirely new online experiences—all pro bono—that not only saved the organization but helped it thrive. Members reported: "I don't know if I would have survived without this. You held the leaders so we could hold our people."
What sustains her through challenges? "I really love what I do. And I make a deliberate effort to fill my life with small moments of joy. When you spend a lot of time holding others and absorbing their challenges, joyful moments are what keep you steady."
The people at KS Insight didn’t arrive here by following the same path. They came together because, in very different settings, each one learned what it feels like to lead when the situation is moving faster than the plan.
If you sit in a room with us, you can sense it. One person has the bearing of someone who spent decades in the military—quiet, alert, and patient. Years in nuclear operations and teaching leadership at a service academy left them with a way of listening that makes people slow down and choose their words more carefully. When a group starts to fracture or the tension rises, they don’t push. They wait for the moment when naming the real issue will land.
Another has spent most of their career building leadership programs in a large Canadian university. They carry a long history of working with equity, inclusion, and community at the center of everything they do. They ask questions that bring out what people weren’t planning to say, and they do it without making anyone feel exposed. You can tell they have sat with ministries, corporations, and students and found language that works in all those places.
There is also someone who came up through academia across continents—writing programs, new curricula, institutional change. They notice details most people miss: who is withdrawing, where a conversation is looping, what someone is protecting without realizing it. They bring an unusual combination of scholarly clarity and real warmth, and they use both to help a room settle into the work.
There is someone else who keeps the whole operation running cleanly. They started in pharmacy science and community work, built civic organizations from the ground up, and understand systems in a way that is both pragmatic and deeply humane. When they are running operations, things align. People breathe easier. The work gets done cleanly.
And there is someone whose experience was shaped in public leadership—steering a legislative body through long periods of uncertainty, conflict, and competing demands. They have spent years helping groups that don’t agree find a way to stay in the conversation without losing coherence. They bring a grounded, unforced steadiness into the room, the kind that comes from having held responsibility when the consequences were immediate and visible. They help people calm down enough to think, and think clearly enough to act.
There is no single template here. What ties this group together is not background, but attention. Each person in their own way knows how to stay with a moment long enough for something true to emerge. They make it possible for clients to think, to speak honestly, to see their system more clearly, and to find a way forward that isn’t performative.
Different paths. Shared purpose. A team that takes the work seriously without taking itself too seriously—and knows how to show up when it counts.