"Who is she? Alexandra Popkova: The art of leading across cultures without losing yourself"
| Executive Women Magazine

I was featured in Executive Women Magazine’s “Who Is She?” series in a profile exploring my international career and work at the intersection of executive coaching, cross-cultural leadership, Talent Management, Leadership Development, and Organizational Development.

Executive Women is a global leadership and empowerment platform dedicated to supporting women in leadership, business, and professional growth through insights, resources, and opportunities.

In the feature, “Alexandra Popkova: The Art of Leading Across Cultures Without Losing Yourself,”  Dania Awad looks at how 15 years of international experience across HR, Talent, and Organizational Development, more than 1,700 hours of coaching, and my own experience of living and working across cultures have shaped the way I approach leadership and transformation.

The profile traces my journey from Vladivostok, Russia, to living and working across India, Bahrain, Nicaragua, and Colombia, while collaborating with leaders and organizations across more than 35 countries. Those experiences became an important foundation for my work in cross-cultural leadership and executive coaching, particularly with executives, expatriates, globally mobile professionals, and international teams.

Having worked across cultures, I have seen firsthand that effective leadership is not about abandoning who you are to fit a new environment. It is about understanding the context, expanding the range of ways you can lead, and becoming more intentional about what you adapt and what remains fundamental to you.

Across 15 years of international work in HR, Talent Management, Leadership Development, and Organizational Development, much of my career has involved entering organizations experiencing growth or transformation and building what did not yet exist: leadership development programs, competency and career frameworks, succession and talent processes, learning strategies, performance systems, and broader organizational structures.

That experience eventually brought coaching closer to the center of my work. As a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation, Master Intelligent Leadership® Executive Coach, and Certified Embodiment Coach, I combine coaching expertise with extensive corporate experience in leadership, talent, and organizational transformation.

Today, I see executive coaching and Organizational Development as complementary disciplines: one helps us understand and shape the organizational system, while the other creates space to work with the leaders who have to make decisions, influence people, navigate complexity, and lead change within that system.

The feature also explores themes central to my work today, including cross-cultural leadership, women in leadership, executive and career transitions, expat and global mobility transitions, identity, authenticity, and organizational transformation.

One idea connects many of these seemingly different transitions: growth does not necessarily require becoming someone completely different.

I often describe this through the metaphor of a puzzle. Some pieces of who we are remain exactly where they are. Others need to move, and new pieces appear as our environment, responsibilities, and ambitions change. The picture evolves, but it is still ours.

Read the Full Feature → https://executive-women.global/alexandra-popkova-the-art-of-leading-across-cultures-without-losing-yourself/