ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Dr. Lida Rafia founded Veer Insight around an argument she formed from the inside: organizations invest seriously in developing their leaders, then send those leaders back into systems that reward the opposite of what they just learned.
She spent sixteen years inside higher education before starting the firm, most recently as Dean of Student Success and Equity at Grossmont College. That is where the argument took shape; watching capable people return from genuinely good training into unchanged meeting structures, feedback that only traveled downward, and unwritten rules about who gets told what and when. The training was rarely the problem. The architecture around it was.
Veer Insight works on that architecture. Lida leads organizational and culture assessments that combine data with sustained listening, designs leadership programs built for practice rather than lecture, coaches executives navigating complex organizational challenges, and facilitates strategy and change at moments that require clarity and alignment.
Her work spans organizations across sectors and includes multi-year leadership development engagements, executive advising, organizational research, culture and climate assessments, and strategic change initiatives.
She holds a Ph.D. in Educational and Organizational Leadership from Oregon State University and an M.Ed. from Portland State. She writes for Forbes on leadership development and organizational culture, serves as a trustee of High Tech High, and sits on the board of San Diego Youth Services. She grew up in Tehran and works in English and Farsi.
Clients describe her as warm and direct in the same breath, which she considers the point. She will tell you what she thinks the data says, including when it is inconvenient, and she will not write a plan your organization has no realistic way to carry.
