Dr. Katie Keene-Montgomery
A MENTAL PERFORMANCE AND SKILL ACQUISITION COACH WITH A PHD AND PROFESSIONAL MOTORCYCLE RACING EXPERIENCE
"Translating how systems shape decision-making, performance, and power into coaching insights performers and leaders can actually use."
Dr. Katie Keene-Montgomery
About
My work is about gaining clarity.
As an organizational anthropologist and board certified coach, I work with professionals, scholars, and leaders who are trying to make sense of where they are and where they're going. My clients include high-profile performers and artists navigating the particular pressures of public-facing work. As a former professional motorcycle racer, I understand high-stakes performance from the inside — and that lived experience shapes every coaching conversation. The frameworks are evidence-based and the conversations are beautifully human.
I also explore purpose as a performance variable — the degree to which a person's sense of meaning, identity, and spiritual connection to their work either anchors or quietly undermines everything else they're trying to build.
My anthropological training shapes how I approach purposeful work — as a structural question. Where meaning lives in your life, why it holds, and how the work you do either aligns with or pulls against who you are.
A Commitment
I am committed to prioritizing access for underrepresented communities, including women, minorities, and first-generation professionals navigating institutions not built with them in mind. My practice welcomes clients from all backgrounds.
Hintsa Performance
Coaching at the level of world champions.
Hintsa Performance is a globally recognized methodology built on 30 years of elite sports science — developed by Dr. Aki Hintsa, a Finnish surgeon who began his work with Olympic athletes before finding his niche with Formula 1 drivers operating under extreme mental and physical pressure. Clients have included champions Kimi Räikkönen, Sebastian Vettel, and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.
19 Hintsa-supported Formula 1 drivers have won 19 World Drivers' Championships, and over 90% of F1 races in the past thirteen seasons have been won by a Hintsa-supported driver. The methodology has been recognized by the World Economic Forum, McKinsey Quarterly, the New York Times, Forbes, and the Financial Times.
The methodology centres on a core belief: sustainable high performance revolves around identity, purpose, and control — with equal attention to mental energy, sleep and recovery, nutrition, biomechanics, physical activity, and general health.
As a student of the Hintsa Performance Coach program, I bring this methodology into my practice — helping clients build performance that holds under real pressure, over time, and without burning out.
Areas of Practice
Coaching that sticks.
01
Performance Coaching
Rooted in performance psychology, this work addresses what actually drives sustained output — focus, identity, pressure response, and the mental architecture behind peak performance. Drawing on a background that includes professional motorsport, this coaching speaks the language of high-stakes physical performance from the inside.
02
Skill Acquisition Coaching
For those preparing for high-stakes testing, academic pursuits, or the development of a new technical or performance skill. Learning under pressure is a performance variable. Knowing something is starkly different from being able to execute it. Drawing on motor learning principles, direct experience in learning and development, performance psychology, and cognitive science, this work builds the mental and behavioral architecture for skills that hold under pressure.
03
High-Stakes Testing & Academic Coaching
For graduate students, doctoral candidates, and professionals preparing for high-stakes academic milestones and licensure exams — including the BAR, NCLEX, boards, comprehensives, and qualifying exams. Dissertation momentum, high-stakes testing, and the psychological weight of sustained intellectual labor all respond to coaching. The frameworks are evidence-based and grounded in the specific psychological and cognitive pressures that make high-stakes testing uniquely demanding.
04
Leadership Coaching
For emerging and mid-level leaders examining how they show up, how they relate to their teams, and where their leadership identity is still forming. Drawing on leader-member exchange theory and cultural intelligence research, this work helps leaders understand the relational and systemic dynamics that shape how they're perceived — and how they lead.
03
Career, Workplace Dynamics and Communication
For professionals in transition, those reassessing direction, or anyone working through the gap between where they are and what their work is supposed to mean. This coaching also addresses workplace dynamics and communication — the relational and cultural dimensions of professional life that shape how you're perceived, how you navigate conflict, and how you build influence inside organizations.
04
Girls & Women in Sport
For female athletes navigating the unique pressures of competing in spaces historically shaped around men. This coaching addresses identity, belonging, confidence, and the particular kind of resilience required to perform — and persist — in sport as a woman. Grounded in both lived experience and organizational anthropology research.
05
Youth Coaching
For young people navigating the particular pressures of sports, academics, and identity formation. This work builds confidence, focus, and self-awareness during the years when those things are hardest to find — and most important to establish. Grounded in the same evidence-based frameworks as adult coaching, adapted for where a young person actually is.
07
Sport & Identity
For athletes at every level navigating the complex relationship between who they are and what they do. Sport shapes identity in ways that go far deeper than performance — and when that relationship becomes strained, whether through injury, transition, or the weight of expectation, the work of untangling it requires more than a pep talk. This coaching draws on organizational anthropology, performance psychology, and a firsthand understanding of what it means to build a life around a sport.
08
Tilt & Mental Resilience
For athletes, competitors, and performers who know what it feels like to lose the thread mid-performance — when frustration compounds, focus fractures, and the mental game starts working against you. Tilt is a performance variable, and mental resilience is a trainable skill. This coaching builds the internal architecture to recognize when you're tilting, interrupt the pattern, and return to performance — faster, cleaner, and without the spiral.
Speaking & Keynotes
Keynotes that challenge assumptions.
Available for keynotes, panels, and talks at the intersection of organizational anthropology, systems thinking, power, and professional performance. Content that pushes past surface-level and earns the room's attention.
- Systems Thinking for Human Problems
- Power, Culture & Decision-Making
- Cultural Intelligence in Organizations
- Career Development & Identity at Work
- The Anthropology of Leadership
- Girls & Women in Male-Dominated Sports — Identity, Belonging, and What It Actually Takes
Contact
Let's talk about your work.
Inquiries for coaching, keynotes, panels, and collaborations welcome. I respond within 48 hours.
Thank you for reaching out. I'll be in touch within 48 hours.