About (Me)
“Of all the roads she travelled, the journey back to herself was the most magnificent”
Live true. Lead bold. Love the journey.
This is what I hope for you.
Hi, I’m Liesel - Welcome. I’m glad you’re here.
As a curious, multi-passionate explorer - I have never felt I fit one label. I carry an innate love for life that has walked many paths.
As a Seeker, a Strategist and a Space Holder.
This is the intersection of my essence.
With three threads that shaped my story - an adventurous spirit, an ambitious drive for meaningful impact and a return to authenticity.
Adventure gave me courage.
Ambition gave me purpose.
Authenticity gave me freedom.
This story ultimately connects back to truth. Weaving strategies and leadership for meaningful impact, both professionally and personally, with a sense of adventure and curiosity that added joy to the journey.
I believe we all deserve to live and lead lives we truly love. And why I empower others to live and lead, authentically, aligned and truly …alive!
My role is simple: to hold space, ask the right questions, and help you uncover your own truth. To translate big-picture wisdom into clarity you live and lead with every day.
✨ Read on to learn more about my colourful journey.
Backed by two decades of corporate leadership
and a journey shaped by adventure, ambition and personal transformations
I would be honoured to guide you back on your journey,
to reconnect to your truth
so you can live and lead with authenticity, alignment, and aliveness.
“The world is full of adventure. All you have to do is find it” - Jane Austen
Adventure gave me courage.
Ambition gave me purpose.
Authenticity gave me freedom.
My Story
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My Story 〰️
The Threads to my Truth
Adventure + Ambition + Authenticity
Hard work and performance carried me forward,
Yet the true self was already shining through.
My story began with a leap of adventure...
…at just five years old, when my family migrated from the South India to Melbourne, Australia. Wide-eyed, curious, and ready for an adventure.
That leap became the first of many.
Like many migrant families, I was raised on the belief that hard work, faith and education were the ticket to freedom. That shaped my ambition for achievement and performance, which carried me into select-entry schools, leading universities, and into a commerce degree to venture the world of business.
The drive often supporting me to thrive.
But even that journey saw sparks of my true self ignite - loving to connect through leading events supporting student professional associations to passionately performing in a university play. All with little to no experience, but the confidence of a toddler and a magnetic energy to match.
I now give back as a mentor, to these same university students, helping them embrace as they embark on their exciting career adventures.
Adventure taught me that success isn’t a destination.
It’s a mindset - one built on courage, curiosity and
trusting the path, even when it may look different from others.
Adventure kept calling.
Even as I stepped into the corporate world and continued onto further qualifications, each milestone would be marked with a celebration, or in my case, a new adventure, volunteering at a local school in Kenya to trekking the Masai Mara. Those experiences complemented my love for learning; also revealing life’s contrasts of hardship and poverty alongside resilience, gratitude, and awe.
They gave me perspective, balance, and a deep respect for life and the spectrum of what it offers.
With the freshness of exploration, I moved to London to work in global banking, living and learning across new continents. This continued as I completed an MBA, with a term spent in my soul city of Barcelona and later to marking new chapters with the Camino, walking 400km of the Camino, across Portugal and Spain.
These weren’t just stamps in a passport. They were catalysts for growth and resilience, each challenge awakening courage and joy within.
What stayed true? The energy and essence of curiosity, courage and connection.
These threads remained true, time and time again.
True impact isn’t just about what you achieve.
It’s about aligning ambition with purpose — creating results that matter, and doing it in a way that feels true to you.
Ambition shaped by meaningful impact.
That adventurous spirit, partnered with an ever curious mind, fuelled a successful two-decade corporate career that traversed many terrains.
I began as a Chartered Accountant - shaping numbers with narratives, to leading teams. Yet curiosity pulled me towards the stories and the why. I continued to explore, with an MBA and shift into strategy, where I developed growth plans, built business cases, board reports to enabling business transformations.
As my path evolved, so did my passion for purpose.
Opportunities stretched me further - bringing strategy with structure, taking me on my next adventure extended to marketing and operations. From rebranding strategies to rebuilding businesses - all with the customer at the heart.
What I excelled most was translating complexity into clarity - shaping numbers into stories and strategies into actions people could connect with.
That became my true strength: connection through meaning.
I thrived on variety, challenge and connecting — whether in a boardroom with strategy papers, presenting at roadshows or in the detail of commercial plans.
Yet even in the momentum, a quiet question lingered: what does success really mean?
Through it all, the common thread was meaningful impact.
Grounded in growth and connection to the truth.
The true success of strategy is getting to the heart of the story.
That’s where my passion and energy come alive.
It’s also where I first felt leadership begin within the self - with the ability to influence, inspire and light up the path for others.
When you live in authentic alignment with truth.
You not only create freedom for yourself.
You give permission for others to do the same.
Then came the lesson I couldn’t ignore.
On paper, it looked ambitious and successful.
Yet the very ambition that had fuelled me eventually cracked me open.
It started as a whisper, then grew into an internal roar.
Burnout. A signal I could no longer ignore.
At the time, it felt like a breakdown.
In truth, it became a breakthrough.
Read about my Burnout Journey here
Perhaps you’ve felt it too - the quiet sense that success looks good on the outside, but inside something feels missing.
The unravelling began the return to authenticity.
Back to the compass of self-leadership. It showed me that true success isn’t achievement alone, but alignment with who we really are.
The power of a pause brought reflection and reconnection.
I embarked on a new kind of adventure - this time a journey within.
I realised we often miss the most important strategy: one shaped from the self.
And that’s why I believe true leadership begins with self-leadership.
True success isn’t achievement alone, especially those defined by others.
Authentic success and leadership - the kind that is sustainable - is aligned back to self.
Authenticity and my values, became my inner compass.
Not for perfection or performance, but for freedom.
Freedom to live and lead as my truest self.
The journey in life and leadership, is not about the destination
but who we become along the way.
Why I Do This Work
_Why This Matters
Today, adventure, ambition, and authenticity are the threads I weave together. They shape how I live and how I support others: to reconnect with what lights them up, redefine success on their own terms, and live and lead authentically, aligned and alive.
The process of returning to yourself can feel like a daunting journey. It takes courage to face the fears and patterns that once kept you safe,
but no longer make you feel alive.
I understand this journey.
I’ve been there. I’ve lived it.
And I know you can too.
My invitation to you…
If you’re here, you’re ready.
All it takes is a commitment to your truth.
My role is to walk alongside you,
with curiosity, compassion and courage ,
Until your own light once again shines through.
Because we all deserve to live fully alive.
And when we do, the reward is not just success,
but a life that feels lit up and deeply our own.
I’d be honoured to support you on your journey.
I can’t wait to help you reignite your light ✨
True success is not found in a title or finish line. It’s found in the quiet knowing
that you live and lead, aligned to who you truly are.
My Guiding Principles _What I Believe
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Leading or influencing others, can only start from knowing yourself. Knowing who you are, your values, your story and your skills or gifts, enables you to lead with heart and authenticity, to make a true impact.
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if we don’t control our minds, our minds control us. Not all our thoughts are true. Creating awareness is the first step to change and alignment.
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Whether it is your work, purpose or relationships, your values bring clarity. Leading and living with your values, can only attract those aligned to you and your unique path.
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Whether it’s a personal goal, professional pivot, or simply realigning your life - taking an adventurous brings a lens of courage, play and curiosity to see any challenge as an opportunity to grow and learn.
The less travelled path… is often the most scenic.
Core Values _My Compass
Authenticity __ Truth over Performing
Adventure __ Curiosity, joy-fuelled Growth
Impact __ Work that Matters
Integrity __ Do the right thing
Fun Facts _Behind the Mentor & Coach
My Qualifications
Masters of Business Administration
Melbourne Business School (MBS)
Diploma of Chartered Accounting
Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAANZ)
Bachelor of Commerce
Major: Accounting & Finance
University of Melbourne (UoM)
NLP Certified Practitioner
WILD Success Coaching Academy
Leadership & Mindset Coach
Beautiful You Coaching Academy (BYCA)
Yoga and Meditation Teacher
Yoga and Meditation School of India
Speechcraft Course
Toastmasters Australia
The Lens of Liesel
Life Enthusiast + Life-long Learner
Authenticity
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Adventure
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Impact
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Authenticity 〰️ Adventure 〰️ Impact 〰️
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My first Camino (Portuguese), a solo 380kms walking expedition in celebrating a milestone birthday
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Post my 10-day #Vipassana Silent Retreat, aka a mind bootcamp
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Inspiration | Forbes Women in Business Summit | March 2024
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Running my first official 10kms at the Run Melb (Mel, VIC)
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‘Leaping’ out of a plane at 15K feet above Bayside Melbourne (Mel, VIC)
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Celebrating becoming a Chartered Accountant with a trip to Kenya to volunteer at a school and orpahange
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Adding-venture to a trip in Mauritius with walking with lions (never been so excited and terrifed at the same time!)
Professional Bio
About Liesel D’Souza
Liesel D’Souza is a strategic consultant, leadership coach and authenticity inspired writer. Liesel brings together 20 years of experience to help leaders and professionals align strategy with self—bridging performance, purpose, and possibility.
Based in Melbourne, Australia with a global perspective, Liesel’s career spans finance, strategy, marketing, and transformation—working across industries from mining to technology, banking to retail and consumer goods - as well as working in London, UK and studying in Barcelona, Spain.
A Chartered Accountant and MBA, she has held senior roles in leading organisations, guiding commercial growth and brand reinvention with equal parts logic and leadership.
Liesel’s own journey—across continents, cultures, careers, and inner transformation—has shaped her human-centred, values-led approach to leadership and business. Her work is grounded in clarity, connection and authenticity, empowering others to grow not just professionally, but personally.
She partners with leaders and organisations to drive performance through purpose—and with individuals to lead life and work from a place of truth, alignment, and inspired ambition.