Rachel Rider, To Be a Great Leader, Know Yourself First

Profiles in Leadership

Rachel Rider founded MettaWorks in 2015 after a distinguished career in HR, receiving executive coaching certification from Columbia University, and extensive training in meditation, Somatic Experiencing, and Polarity Therapy. Starting as HR Business Partner responsible for developing and coaching leaders and teams at Bloomberg, she went on to specialize in leadership coaching at AppNexus (since acquired by AT&T) and Digital Ocean, the third-largest hosting company in the world. She studied under renowned teacher and Zen Mountain Monastery founder John Daido Loori Roshi for 13 years before continuing under his successor, Shugen Arnold Roshi. Rider completed a three-year intensive certification in Somatic Experiencing in 2018, and a 2020 training in Polarity Therapy with the aim of bringing leaders tools to unlock effective, long-lasting change in concert with the body. Since 2020, she’s been working intensively with anti-racism coach Makeda Pennycooke. Rider lives in New York with her husband and two children.