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About Sabine Smith

CEO & Founder, WordSmith Leadership | CPCC, PCC, PMP

With 20+ years as a Fortune 500 leader navigating complex organizational environments from the inside, Sabine partners with organizations to strengthen the effectiveness of high-potential leaders and teams when the stakes, visibility, and expectations are high.

Inside Fortune 500 companies like Oracle and Adobe, Sabine led strategic initiatives and partnered with executives across five continents during periods of significant change and growth. Her track record includes launching Oracle’s first global project management standards for a $3.7B professional services business, accelerating the integration of two newly acquired businesses at Adobe, and partnering with the C-suite on strategic talent initiatives for an organization of 17,000 employees.

That insider perspective gives her a distinct advantage in understanding how work actually gets done inside large organizations, including the unspoken expectations, power dynamics, and relationship patterns that shape decisions and results.

What colleagues consistently noticed was Sabine’s ability to connect with people across different backgrounds, roles, cultures, and levels of power, then work across those differences to move important work forward. That capability was tested most visibly at Oracle, where launching the company’s first global project management standards required earning trust across regions, functions, and competing priorities.

The ability to read the room, navigate difference, and move people toward shared outcomes is not a soft skill. In complex organizations, it is a strategic advantage.

Those same capabilities are at the heart of what Sabine brings to WordSmith Leadership. Having navigated Fortune 500 leadership as one of very few Black women in those rooms sharpened them further. Operating at the intersection of high visibility, high stakes, and underrepresentation develops a particular read on what drives leadership impact, what gets in the way, and what it takes to build trust and influence when the margin for misstep is smaller.

It is that vantage point, combined with her operational track record and advanced coaching expertise, that positions Sabine to address both the universal challenges of senior leadership and the unique dynamics faced by leaders navigating environments where they are underrepresented at the top.

Today, Sabine serves as a strategic partner who both champions and challenges leaders and teams to elevate their effectiveness. Drawing on Fortune 500 leadership experience and advanced training in executive coaching, neuroscience, and trauma-informed practice, she helps leaders surface what is actually getting in the way, navigate complex organizational dynamics, and create greater value for their organizations.

Coaching Credentials

  • International Coaching Federation: Professional Certified Coach, PCC
  • Co-Active Training Institute: Certified Professional Co-Active Coach, CPCC
  • Quantum Endeavors®: Executive Certified Coach
  • Leadership Circle Profile: Certified Debrief Coach​
  • BEabove: Certified Neuroscience & Relational Trauma Coach, NCRT
  • Additional Assessments: Leadership Practices Inventory; StandOut Strengths, Everything DiSC, Positive Intelligence

Business Credentials

  • Goldman Sachs & NYU Stern School of Business: One Million Black Women Black in Business Education
  • McKinsey: Black Executive Leadership Program
  • Project Management Institute: Project Management Professional, PMP
  • Prosci: Change Management Practitioner
  • Scrum Alliance: Certified ScrumMaster, CSM