Valerie Brown

Valerie Brown is an author, Buddhist-Quaker Dharma teacher, facilitator, and executive coach specializing in leadership development and mindfulness practices with a focus on diversity, social equity, and inclusion. A former lawyer and lobbyist, Valerie transformed her high-pressure, twenty-year career into serving leaders and nonprofits to create trustworthy, authentic, compassionate, and connected workspaces. She’s passionate about designing immersive experiences that connect people to the natural world with a sense of joy, gratitude, and social responsibility.

Her most recent book is Love is Liberation, Five Contemplations for Daily Ethical Living, is coauthored with Marisela B. Gomez, MD (Parallax Press, 2026). Her other books include Hope Leans Forward: Braving Your Way toward Simplicity, Awakening, and Peace (Broadleaf, 2022) received the Nautilus Gold Award for Eastern Spirituality for 2023, and Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation (Parallax Press, 2024) (with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela B. Gomez, MD).

In 2018, she was ordained as Buddhist Dharma teacher in the lineage of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village. She leads a pilgrimage to El Camino de Santiago, Spain to celebrate the power of sacred places. She is a certified Kundalini yoga teacher (500 hours), engaging leaders to embody somatic wisdom and creativity, and completed three-year training in Gestalt therapy, as well as training in earth awareness, climate justice, and climate grief.

An accredited leadership coach and former co-director of Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership, Leadership Coaching Program, with specialized certification in coaching from a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion, she is the Founder and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Lead Smart Coaching, LLC, supporting leaders to apply and integrate leadership and mindfulness for greater resilience, clarity, and grounded wisdom.

Valerie’s unique and extensive training blends social justice, mindfulness practices, leadership development, and spiritual growth. She holds a Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law, Master of Arts from Miami University (Ohio), and Bachelor of Arts from City University of New York.

Of Afro-Cuban descent, Valerie is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and lives and tends a lively perennial home garden in New Hope, PA, the traditional lands of the Lenni Lenape Nation.