The lion era of leadership is so over.
Welcome to the pack, babe.
The way we've been taught to lead - dominating, grinding, and whatever Elon Musk means by "extremely hardcore"- doesn't work.
The data show it. Your burnout is screaming it. And your last 3 managers who literally sucked at leading prove it.
There's a different way to lead. And we're building it together.
Organizational psychologist. Business school professor. Author of Painted Wolves. A decade-plus of research on how women lead, why the old model keeps failing them, and what it actually takes to build something better.
Your brilliant bestie with a PhD who actually knows her sh*t. Championing the changemakers, the pack builders, and the women who've been told the room wasn't designed for them and showed up anyway.
I'm Dr. Kelsey Medeiros.
But you can call me Kels.
I’ve partnered with organizations including:
A safari guide once told me something that haunts my dreams (in a good way).
"Businesspeople always talk about how leaders should be like lions. It's a terrible analogy. Lions are selfish. Leaders should be more like painted wolves. They hunt in packs. They share the kill with everyone. We should be building leaders like that — not like lions."
-Joe, safari guide
I have not been the same since.
Turns out he was completely, scientifically, right. Painted wolves succeed at their hunt 80% of the time. Lions? 30%. But, we've spent a century telling leaders and executives to lead like some of the worst hunters in the bush.
In the words of the Backstreet Boys, tell me why?!
So I wrote the book. Built the framework. And now we're building the pack.
I've spent a decade researching why women keep hitting the same walls inside organizations, and why the old leadership model is so stubborn even when we know it's failing.
Then I wrote Painted Wolves. Because here's the thing — everything we've learned about leadership has been studied through the lens of men. So I asked a different question: what happens if we ignore them for a sec and only look to women?
Turns out, quite a lot.
So now there's a book. A framework. And a pack where you belong.
Here's the short version of what I actually do.
You already know what another year without real change looks like.
Watching someone less qualified get the opportunity you built yourself for. Googling "how to ask for a raise" for the fourteenth time and closing the tab without doing anything.
Being the most reliable person in the building — the hospital, the firm, the classroom, the boardroom — and getting more responsibility as the reward. Sending a screenshot to the one friend who gets it and three who don't.
You've been figuring it out alone for years. And it's costing you — the promotion you haven't asked for, the raise that keeps not happening, the impact you came here to make that keeps getting buried under everyone else's priorities.
You've been doing this without your pack. That's the part that changes.
Every wolf finds their way in differently.
I'm a painted wolf in a world still obsessed with lions. I'm here to make an impact — and I'm done doing it alone.
Tell me about The Den & The Painted Wolf Academy
My people are ready for a different model. I want to bring Kelsey in and actually change something.
Tell me how to bring Kelsey to a stage or my team
