Transformation has been a constant thread in Lori Feldman’s career and life. Over time she learned that leadership is not defined by authority, but by influence, collaboration, and the ability to help others rise. That philosophy is the foundation of her work today as an executive coach.

As the founder of Papillon Leadership Coaching, Lori partners with high-achieving professionals—particularly women—who are ready to step into their next chapter with greater confidence, clarity, and authenticity. The butterfly in her brand symbolizes her philosophy: transformation is not about becoming someone new, but about becoming more fully yourself.

Her coaching style is grounded in candor, compassion, and strategy. Clients often describe her as a trusted thought partner with a rare ability to balance direct insight with empathy. She is known for holding up the mirror in ways that help leaders recognize their own brilliance and untapped capacity often before they see it in themselves.

Drawing from both evidence-based practice and decades of real-world leadership experience, Lori integrates tools such as Hogan assessments, psychological safety frameworks, and branding methodologies to help clients understand their strengths, blind spots, and influence. Equally important, she creates space to explore the deeply personal dimensions of leadership and examine how doubts, competing demands, and fears of visibility that can hold leaders back. By blending structured strategy with reflective dialogue, she helps her clients to move from insight to action, building the confidence to claim their leadership voice and the clarity to use it effectively. Her coaching is not about quick fixes, but about sustainable growth to help leaders align who they are with how they lead, so they can level up without losing themselves in the process.

Her commitment to amplifying women’s leadership has been a consistent through-line across her career. She co-founded Breaking the Glass Ceiling, a leadership initiative that highlighted the journeys of more than 65 trailblazing women in business, healthcare, law, politics, and education. Later featured on PBS, the program reached more than 3.5 million households and helped spark conversations about gender, leadership, and resilience. Today, she continues this mission through coaching, speaking, and writing—helping women embrace visibility, communicate with conviction, and own their value with confidence.

Lori’s own leadership journey deeply informs her coaching. For more than three decades she served at Purdue University, where she built a distinguished career as a professor of marketing and academic leader. Rising through roles as department head, associate dean, and vice provost, she oversaw multi-million-dollar budgets, built high-performing teams, and led institutional transformations amid intense change that reshaped how leadership, teaching, and student success were supported.

Among her proudest achievements was the launch of the Purdue Executive MBA Program, which quickly earned recognition by Fortune magazine as a “best value” program. She also founded the Center for Faculty Excellence, a hub for professional development that created systems of support for hundreds of faculty members across disciplines. Long before remote education became commonplace, she championed online learning and guided colleagues through the cultural and pedagogical shifts it required. These initiatives were more than administrative milestones—they represented durable transformations in how teaching, learning, and leadership were advanced across the institution.

Beyond titles and programs, Lori measures her academic legacy in people. Decades after graduation, former students still reach out to share how lessons from her classroom—both about marketing and about life—continue to influence their careers and leadership. Colleagues regularly cite her mentorship as a turning point in their own professional development. These lasting relationships reflect the same through-line that now shapes her coaching: leadership at its best creates impact that endures.

While Lori’s professional life is defined by serious commitments—coaching leaders through pivotal transitions, advancing women’s leadership, contributing to the growth of the coaching profession—she is equally intentional about how she lives outside of work. She recently traded suburban life for a high-rise apartment, where her 32nd-floor balcony offers sweeping views of the Chicago skyline and a front-row seat to the city’s annual Air and Water Show. She has cultivated a passion for sourdough baking (and hasn’t purchased a loaf of bread in years), shares her home with her two cats Louie and Cece, and delights in her role as a grandmother, seeing the world anew through her granddaughter’s eyes.

Beyond her own practice, Lori also serves as a Leadership Coach and Talent Management Executive with Executive Core, a global consultancy supporting Fortune 500 corporations, universities, nonprofits, and government agencies. In 2025, she was elected to the Board of Directors for the International Coaching Federation (ICF) Chicago Chapter, where she contributes to advancing the coaching profession and supporting the local coaching community.

Before pivoting to coaching, Lori’s academic career spanned more than 30 years at Purdue University Northwest, where she retired as Professor Emerita of Marketing. In senior leadership roles she built high-performing teams, led strategic transformations, and advanced initiatives in student success, faculty development, and executive education. These experiences now give her a distinctive credibility as a coach: she understands the realities of organizational complexity because she has lived them.

Her career has also been marked by scholarship and service. She has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference presentations, several of which earned awards for excellence. She has been recognized in Who’s Who of American Women, Who’s Who of Top Educators, and as Advisor of the Year for the Women in Business student organization. She has also been inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma National Business Honor Society and honored as an Albert Haring Symposium Fellow.

Lori holds a PhD and MBA in Marketing from the University of Michigan, a BA in Political Science from the University of Michigan, and advanced certifications in leadership coaching, Hogan assessments, and psychological safety. She is an ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC) and a frequent keynote speaker on leadership, personal branding, and women’s advancement.