Who We Are - Happiness Squad

Happiness is at the core of everything, from:

SUCCESS

HEALTH

resilience

SATISFACTION

CREATIVITY

Investing in happiness can have a profound impact on our lives, especially in today’s world where stress, anxiety, burnout & loneliness are all too common. Enable habits that unlock your full potential.

Our tailored programs have shown that building practices to hardwire for happiness can have significant benefits

Companies Supported

Tailored Offerings

Despite being the most prosperous generation ever, we're not necessarily the most satisfied or happiest.

Hardwired for fear and operating from a mindset of scarcity and disconnection, we're making progress but at a significant cost to the planet and each other. Even though we know so much today about what can help us individually and collectively flourish, we fail to put them into practice.

A data driven approach towards maximizing the potential of individuals and organizations

We live what we teach.

Every person in the organization is committed to building "happier" habits. As coaches, we teach what we live, which allows our years of experience in organizational development and change management to be deeply authentic and also feel listened to and understood.

Work With Us

We focus on helping individuals and organizations bridge the divide between knowing & doing, and between doing & being.

Our interventions are holistic addressing the individual, job, team and organization to maximize the impact.

Meet the revolutionaries

Our multi-disciplinary team comprises consultants, coaches, culture change experts and world class facilitators, all united by our passion for Human Flourishing. All have degrees from leading academic institutes and a proven track record at driving sustainable and scalable transformations.

Ashish Kothari

Founder & CEO

Ashish Kothari is an executive coach, author, consultant and founder of Happiness Squad, a company focused on helping individuals and organizations make flourishing their competitive edge and operate at their fullest potential. Ashish is the author of the best selling book “Hardwired for Happiness” in which he outlines an easy-to-follow recipe that can help anyone increase joy, health, love and meaning in their lives.

Prior to starting Happiness Squad, Ashish Kothari was a Partner at the global management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company and spent over two decades helping thousands of leaders and their organizations achieve breakthrough performance through increasing their effectiveness, building more human centric cultures, and transforming capabilities at scale.

Ashish has a Masters in Business administration (MBA) from Chicago Booth and a Bachelors’s and Masters degree in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India. He is married and lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife, Lizzie, his son, Ashwin and their pug, Hufflepuff.

Aditya Venkatesh

Principal, Client Delivery

Aditya Venkatesh

Principal, Client Delivery

Aditya brings over 25 years of global consulting, industry, and leadership experience across industries and cultures in helping organizations and leaders design and implement transformations at scale. A.D. has served clients in the Americas, Europe and APAC regions and is a trusted advisor to executives, who leads with a people-first approach, enabling teams to excel and find purpose in their work. At Happiness Squad, A.D. oversees client delivery of our programs ensuring that individuals, teams and organizations are able to integrate the science of flourishing into their ways of working. A.D. lives in Scottsdale, AZ and holds an MBA in Marketing and an MA in Economics.

Amy Young

Organizational Flourishing Expert

Amy Young

Organizational Flourishing Expert

Dr. Amy Young is an organizational psychologist with a distinguished career in teaching, research and consulting. As a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and core faculty member at the Center for Positive Organizations, she ignites the minds of future business leaders with the power of positive communication, high quality relationships, and flourishing workplace cultures. Amy’s expertise lies in the intersection of leadership communication, relational energy, and the cultivation of positive organizational cultures. She is a passionate advocate for employee well-being and a sought-after keynote speaker and advisor for leaders seeking to translate research on organizational flourishing into practical applications. Amy received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan and a BA in human development & social relations from Earlham College. After marrying her college sweetheart and raising two sons, Amy and her husband Joel enjoy running, biking, traveling, and celebrating life’s joys with friends and family.

Elizabeth Kothari

Head of External Relations & Community Host

Elizabeth Kothari

Head of External Relations & Community Host

Lizzie is the head of External relations for Happiness squad and responsible for amplifying our impact and managing our relationships with external partners and other flourishing experts. Lizzie oversees the operations and content for our Happiness Squad community including sending daily happiness nudges, organizing monthly local and online events. Prior to joining Happiness Squad, Lizzie worked at McKinsey & Company as a Recruiter for ~16 years in London, Chicago and Denver. Lizzie was born in England and calls Boulder, CO home for last 10 years, where she lives with her husband, Ashish and an amazing son, Ashwin who turned 14 this year.

Britta Bibel

Culture Change Expert

Britta Bibel

Culture Change Expert

Britta is a deep culture change expert on a mission to make flourishing transformations possible and accepted as a productive and sustained way of being radically human. Britta facilitates large-scale organizational transformations as well as helping individual leaders grow and transition to their next levels. With over 25 years of experience as a transformational leader, she has held key positions as Global Head of Culture Transformation, Sustainability, Compliance & Ethics, and Business Excellence in multinational companies like GE and Oerlikon as well as management consulting. She holds a PhD in Organizational Change, an MSc in Sustainability and Responsibility, and a Diploma in Organizational Psychology.

Matt McLoughlin

High Performance Coach

Matt McLoughlin

High Performance Coach

Matt has over 25 years of experience building high-performance teams and leaders. With specialties in fostering emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and communication skills, Matt helps CEOs, founders, managers, and leaders increase their impact on people, planet, and profit. Matt has experience in a wide range of industries including non-profits, high-tech, pharmaceuticals, consumer packaged goods, healthcare, education, manufacturing, government, and finance. From new managers to tenured CEOs, Matt partners with leaders of all levels to achieve their full potential.

Brian Dubow

Happiness Expert

Brian Dubow

Happiness Expert

Brian Dubow is a Certified Happiness Trainer who studied the science of happiness under Harvard Professor Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. He is the host of the Hit of Happiness podcast and blog, which share stories and insights that inspire individuals to live their healthiest and happiest lives. Brian resides in Los Angeles, California, where he takes advantage of the weather by training for and competing in marathons and triathlons. Brian received his master’s in business administration (MBA) from UCLA Anderson in Entrepreneurship and Leadership Development. In his coaching practice, Brian specializes in optimizing life design and self-worth by helping his clients think bigger and breakthrough their limiting beliefs, all while building habits grounded in the science of happiness.

Meg Stevens

Talent Development & Mental Health Expert

Meg Stevens

Talent Development & Mental Health Expert

Meg Stevens has spent nearly 20 years in business consulting on topics of leadership development, people engagement, and talent management. During the past five years, she led talent processes, selection, and culture development for one of the largest and most complicated merger and spin events in the Fortune 500. Meg brings her deep education, front-line executive experiences, humor, and unrelenting human condition study to her work with The Happiness Squad. As an expert in leadership and mental health, she helps organizations become places of growth and performance through trauma-aware approaches and cutting-edge interventions. Meg has an MS in Leadership and an MA in Clinical Mental Health and works as a coach and counselor when she is not helping organizations and teams increase their effectiveness, resilience, safety, and performance.

Vinay Kumar

Leadership Development Expert

Vinay Kumar

Leadership Development Expert

Vinay Kumar has a strong track record of helping senior leaders take their effectiveness to the next level. As a former business leader himself who has worked in the public and private sectors, Vinay has worked with over 1,000 leaders, either through individual coaching or through group learning programs across a range of industry sectors. Vinay is the co-author, with Chalmers Brothers, of the book “Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence: How Extraordinary Leaders Build Relationships, Shape Culture and Drive Breakthrough Result” and serves as Adjunct Faculty in George Washington University’s Leadership Coaching program, and core faculty at The Leadership Circle. Vinay holds a degree in Chemical Engineering and Leadership Coaching Certification from Georgetown University. He grew up in a multicultural family and speaks English, Hindi and Urdu. He lives in Great Falls, VA with his wife. In their spare time, they travel internationally, trek in the Himalayas, and lead medical missions overseas.

Ian Kahng

High-Performance Consultant

Ian Kahng

High-Performance Consultant

Ian brings a wealth of diverse experience to his role as a high-performance consultant. He began his career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he worked in multiple functions, including transformation operations and the LEAP practice, McKinsey’s startup accelerator. His work spanned various sectors, including energy, software, financial services, sustainability, and nonprofit organizations. Ian also has a background in private equity, where he managed portfolio company financials, operations, and the hiring and training of leadership teams. In addition, Ian started and operated his own startup in the sustainable energy space. Ian is a trained executive coach from the Georgetown Institute of Transformational Leadership and is also a published author, having written a book on positive psychology titled "Firmness of Mind," which donates 100% of its profits to charity.

Isabel Scher

High Performance Team Coach

Isabel Scher

High Performance Team Coach

I am a big-hearted, integrity-driven leader thrilled to be part of the Happiness Squad team. My purpose is to humanize work, by helping leaders craft meaningful, successful workplaces where teams can thrive together. Drawing on my experience as an organizational consultant with McKinsey & Company and as an entrepreneur, I bring a unique blend of emotional intelligence, systems expertise, and intuitive insight to team transformations and individual leadership coaching. I hold an ICF Coaching Certification, a Masters in Global Affairs from Schwarzman Scholars, and a B.A. in Political Science from Rice University. Based in Boulder, Colorado, I love hiking, skiing, dancing, and actively engaging in the local entrepreneurship community.

Megan Darnell

Rewire Coach

Megan Darnell

Rewire Coach

Hi I’m Megan (Valencia Darnell). After suffering from severe burn out in the world of tech startups, I knew something had to change. I switched my focus to living a life rooted in what truly matters versus constantly striving for external validation. That shift changed so much in my life, and opened the door to joining HAPPINESS SQUAD where I get to blend my love of creating with my purpose of helping myself and others stay vulnerable and balanced. In addition to the work I do here, I teach at CU Boulder and enjoy spending time with my husband and our fur baby, Cali.

Testimonials

The revolution’s already started

The Happiness Squad provided a supportive structure for our commitment to develop a culture of belonging and to prioritize authentic engagement among our faculty and staff. Ashish was a skillful and gentle guide, creating a welcoming environment of invitation for everyone in our group.

Hardwired for Happiness offers a blueprint for living a rich and intentional life. The nine-step practice that Ashish has laid out allows you to live from within and let go of fear, anxiety, anger, and resentment. For me, it established a strong framework for happiness, making better decisions, and, more importantly, allowing me to self-reflect and be more self-aware. It’s a must-read for a mindful leader!

The Happiness Foundation Masterclass offers practices that will help you incrementally master scientifically proven methods necessary to design your own personalized strategy for success. The course will lead you towards achieving sustained peace, renewed hope and true happiness regardless of your situation or circumstances. The practical skills you learn will help you create habits to help you return to a place of calm, contentment, gratitude and even joy!

Beautifully combining storytelling and research, Ashish Kothari provides a map that can help you find the path to your best self. A powerful and accessible guide.

This course was so impactful for me. Although I've experimented with many of these practices before, I've struggled to make anything stick. The Happiness Foundation Masterclass was different. The bite sized practices actually made changing my behavior approachable and achievable without feeling overwhelming. Gratitude and self-compassion have been game changers for me!

In our fast-changing, volatile and unpredictable world, we need leaders who embody a mindset of abundance and lead with compassion and purpose. Ashish’s book Hardwired for Happiness presents a highly accessible and practical set of frameworks that we can all use to become joyful, kinder, compassionate, and purposeful.

With Hardwired for Happiness Ashish Kothari has given us a foundational and sweeping description of the embodied path to awakening and joy. This beautiful book is a companion on the journey that can guide one through the cultivation of mature emotional and spiritual intelligence and the development of a truly generous and open heart. The fruits of this inner work are captured throughout the book in chapters on compassion, kindness, and the path of living with intention. In a truly timely way Ashish will help meet those of us turning afresh to the profound questions of meaning, purpose, community, and service. I urge you not to miss this gem.

Through his life, Ashish achieved many summits of excellence. He has done it again. Ashish distilled the essence of hundreds of books and talks from great masters in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and ancient wisdom, and from the book of his own life, to gift us an elegant guide to support us in taking a journey inward to live our best life. It is filled with simple yet powerful practices, supported by a wealth of references, research nuggets, and heartfelt stories. A book to keep by our bedside and return to frequently, using it as a life compass.

Authentic, compassionate, practical. In this timely book, Ashish shares his own journey with vulnerability and offers a highly accessible approach that everyone can use to become better versions of ourselves and achieve our full potential.

Rich and compelling from page one! For about the typical self-hep tutorial – this is a life-changing read. Ashish literally unlocks the secrets to living a fuller and freer life. Grounded in solid research, it offers a practical and easy-to-follow roadmap to help anyone become the best version of themselves.

At Trivium, we partnered on a holistic well-being journey involving re-activation of our purpose, flourishing exercises and emotional intelligence. With deep expertise, Ashish and his team delivered an interactive and tailored program, and had a tremendous impact on engagement and culture, particularly psychological safety. I was particularly impressed with how the Happiness Squad maximized their reach in our global organization through a hybrid approach. Thank you!

We are talking together about things we would have never addressed before we engaged your team. Engaging with the Happiness Squad provided the business with best practices and frameworks that can be leveraged for future M&A activity.

We have truly enjoyed working with Ashish and the Happiness Squad. When creating our leadership program, Ashish took the time to get to know our organization, understand our shared values, and embrace our principles. As a result, the program has been very impactful for our employees. He has an incredible knack for connecting with and engaging individuals in his trainings. It’s best described as great and unconventional leadership program which not only enhances measurable outcomes but also equips an individual with inside-outside tools to train the brain such that effective leadership becomes an instinctive habit.

I really enjoyed taking part of this Rewired for Happiness program. I loved the concise, evidence-based micro practices and appreciated that they were easy to implement in my every day life. The 9 pillars were thought-provoking, and the journal prompts were well designed to guide me in processing, reflecting and searching for answers in my own life. Ashish was so knowledgeable and insightful and Alicia was a wonderful facilitator. I happily and highly recommend this program to all.

The program has been great! It has really helped me to set up different practices that make you feel happier in your daily life. I encourage everyone that want to live a happier life to do it!

This program has helped provide me with the tools I need to look within and make positive changes in both my personal and professional life. I am much more optimistic about my future after completing this program. I am excited about starting a new chapter in my life with the help of the practices outlined in this program. I highly recommend it to any professional and/or yogi who is looking to make a positive change in their lives.

I enjoyed the cohort and the support that I received and highly recommend it to anybody going through that transition in life. I continue to learn and grow with this and leverage the tools to manage my career and life as I move forward. I highly recommend it!

Testimonials

The revolution’s already started

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THE MISSION

Launching a happiness revolution touching a billion+ lives over the next 20 years and helping them live with more joy, health, love & meaning.

Happiness is at the core of everything, from:

Meet the revolutionaries

Ashish Kothari

Testimonials

The revolution’s already started

Testimonials

The revolution’s already started

Let’s begin the conversation

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MAKE HAPPINESS YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE

MAKE HAPPINESS YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE

WE ARE THRILLED TO HAVE YOU WITH US.

WE ARE THRILLED TO HAVE YOU WITH US.

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Get ready to experience the 9 Hardwired for Happiness practices to unlock your full potential.