Lizzie Azzolino is a Partner and Head of Talent & Ecosystem at Evolution, where her work spans across interconnected roles: partnering with leaders and organizations navigating consequential transitions, leading Evolution's executive talent search practice to find and place the leaders organizations need to unlock the next stage of their growth, and building the community of coaches, practitioners, and partners who keep Evolution at the edge of what is possible.
She works with leaders and teams in 0→1 moments — stepping into first-of-their-kind roles, shifting careers entirely, evolving organizations and functions, and returning to the truth of who they actually are when the work of the past no longer holds. In each of these moments, she helps leaders develop and deepen the relationships required for what comes next and initiate the work that is uniquely theirs to do.
Lizzie brings experience across brand and innovation strategy, executive coaching, group facilitation, and organizational leadership. Earlier in her career, she led strategy for now iconic companies including Nike, PayPal, Dyson, Allbirds, Volkswagen, and SPANX, helping them navigate pivotal moments of growth, repositioning, and new category creation. Over time, she came to see that the most consequential questions shaping the future could not be solved through strategy alone, but lived at the level of identity, leadership, and how people relate to one another. Today, Lizzie works with senior executives at organizations such as AWS, LinkedIn, Seed, Airbnb, CHANEL, Goodwill, Function Health, and a growing number of coaches and first-time founders of category-defining startups.
Lizzie is an ICF Master Certified Coach, a graduate and faculty member at New Ventures West and Aletheia’s School of Integral Unfoldment, a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Coaching, and a recipient of the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Service. She is a Co-Founder and Board Director of the global nonprofit Women in Innovation and hosts the Now at Work podcast. Her approach integrates training in Internal Family Systems, the Enneagram, organizational dynamics, narrative design, and lived experience navigating challenging transitions and change in her own life, bringing a strategic, relational, and deeply human presence to every engagement.
“Lizzie has a rare ability to see the full architecture of who you are before you can fully name it yourself. Rigorous and deeply intuitive, what once seemed like disconnected parts of my path came into coherence with surprising momentum. The clarity about how I see myself and what I uniquely contribute as a leader would not have been possible without her.”
“Working with Lizzie led to a powerful realization that I can honor myself and my family while still driving the systems changes I know I am here to pursue in the world. Wholeness is possible in leadership when we hold space for all of who we are.”
“There are times in one’s life where it’s hard to know who to reach out to for clarity. The landscape of therapists, coaches, recruiters, and healers is a siloed one. When I realized my whole self was missing something, Lizzie came into the picture. By working through multiple dimensions of my “becoming,” one thing led to the next thing and the next. The unlocking of my future began! I am a planner and go-getter, but this was different. I had to listen to my intuition, and that was where Lizzie’s experience and guidance was next level remarkable. I also now realize that where I landed was what Lizzie knew all along was on its way to my reality.”
“When I decided to hire a COO — my first real right hand in 16 years of running this company — I knew I needed someone who would understand not just the role but me. From the beginning, Lizzie could cut through the noise. Her language is loving and beautiful, so you don’t even feel like you’re making a dramatic change, but you really are. The work wasn’t me telling her what I wanted. It was a deep reflection — who am I, where is this company now, where do we want it to go, and what does this person actually do alongside me? There was a genuine inquiry into who I want to be, and what that means for the company as an extension of me. He’s been here two months now. I’m so glad I did it with Lizzie, and wouldn’t do it any other way now.”