The person
behind
the work.
PHOTO: VIKTOR STRASSE · 2025
I've spent 15 years working inside organisations, in digital transformation, at McKinsey, and alongside founders navigating the moments that define their companies. What I kept finding is that the limiting factor is almost never the strategy. It's the human system running it.
I'm a certified executive coach, trained in counselling psychology and neuroscience, and the founder of Augment Mind a premium leadership advisory based in Germany.
Founder ·
Augment Mind
Virginia
Palm
3
Domains: Strategy,
Psychology, Neuroscience
15+
Years in high-stakes
organisational environments
IN HER OWN WORDS
I didn't start out
working with the brain.
WHERE IT STARTED
I started out working with organisations. Startups, the venture world, then digital transformation consulting, and McKinsey - watching companies and leadership teams navigate the decisions that define them. Watching what happens when the pressure goes up and the clarity goes down.
What I kept noticing was a particular frustration. Smart people. Good information. Real ambition. And still - choices that didn't serve them, or knowing exactly what needed to change and being unable to change it. The strategy was usually fine. The execution kept breaking.
"The gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it is almost always a brain problem - not a strategy problem."
That observation is what changed everything for me. Because if it's a brain problem, then understanding the brain becomes the most important professional investment a leader can make. And most organisations are nowhere near taking it seriously enough.
THE PIVOT
So I went and
studied it.
I completed training in counselling psychology through the Academy of Modern Applied Psychology and coursework in Psychology through Yale. I pursued neuroscience coursework through the University of Chicago. I earned senior coaching certification. Not to become a therapist, but to build a real framework for the human system that underlies every organisational challenge I'd spent a decade working on.
Then I went back into organisations with that knowledge. And everything got sharper. The patterns I'd noticed for years had names. The interventions I'd seen fail had explanations. And the work I could now do with leaders was fundamentally different, because I understood what was actually happening, not just what was presenting.
That's the intersection I work at. The commercial rigour that comes from a decade inside complex organisations. The psychological depth that comes from real training. And the neuroscience that explains why human beings behave the way they do under pressure, and what to do about it.
NOW
I founded Augment Mind as a premium leadership advisory, to bring this work to leadership teams and organisations at real inflection points. Not as individual coaching sessions that disappear when the engagement ends, but as systemic work that changes how a leadership team thinks, decides, and executes together.
The firm works with CHROs, COOs, and senior leadership teams navigating transformation, scale, integration, and succession. We bring the analytical rigour of strategy and the psychological depth to address what strategy alone never reaches.
I also host It's me. Your Brain. - a podcast translating neuroscience research into language leaders can actually use. And I speak at leadership events and executive forums where the audience is ready to hear something more substantive than motivation.
I am Swedish, based in Germany. I work mainly in English. I am direct. I have a point of view. I work best with people who want both.
Augment Mind -
the firm
CAREER
15+ years.
Three distinct
worlds.
Digital transformation. McKinsey. Psychology and neuroscience training. Not a scattered career - a deliberate accumulation of the three lenses that make the work possible. Commercial rigour, pattern recognition across organisations, and the psychological depth to work with what's actually driving behaviour.
EARLY CAREER
International roles across finance, diplomacy & communications
Financial sales, embassy internships, PR and communications for institutional clients including the EU Commission. Programme management at the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin. Building international fluency, across languages, cultures, and institutions, that still shapes how Virginia works with global leadership teams today.
STOCKHOLM · BERLIN · SWITZERLAND · INTERNATIONAL · 4 LANGUAGES
2008 – 2015
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, VENTURES & STARTUP ECOSYSTEMS
Consultant, Venture Partner & Startup Mentor
Digital transformation consulting at hy (Axel Springer Consulting Group) - working with global corporations on innovation and digital strategy. Venture partner at THINKT Digital, a venture of NKT Cables. Investment analyst at Creandum VC in Stockholm. Mentor across European accelerators including LexRocket, European Young Innovators, and Disruptors.ai. Built deep pattern recognition for how organisations get built, how they break, and what founders really struggle with under pressure.
HY · AXEL SPRINGER · PRODUCT LEADERSHIP · ORG PERFORMANCE · EXECUTION AT SCALE
2016 – 2020
MCKINSEY & COMPANY
Product Manager → Associate Director of Product Management
Nearly four years at McKinsey, progressing from Product Manager to Associate Director. Worked inside some of the most complex organisational environments in the world - developing a rigorous understanding of how strategy gets (and fails to get) translated into execution, what kills decision quality at scale, and where the human system is the binding constraint. The McKinsey environment sharpened both the analytical and the interpersonal dimensions of everything that followed.
MCKINSEY & COMPANY · PRODUCT LEADERSHIP · ORG PERFORMANCE · EXECUTION AT SCALE
2021 – 2024
COACHING, PSYCHOLOGY & NEUROSCIENCE TRAINING
Deliberate pivot - building the human performance framework
Completed training in counselling psychology through the Academy of Modern Applied Psychology. Neuroscience coursework through the University of Chicago. Psychology coursework through Yale University. Senior Certified Professional Coach (SCPC) training through Coach Transformation Academy - training complete, exam pending. The commercial and organisational experience became significantly more powerful with a rigorous psychological and neuroscientific framework to work from.
COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY · AMAP · NEUROSCIENCE · UNI. CHICAGO · SCPC TRAINING · CTA
2024 – 2025
AUGMENT MIND · VIRGINIA-PALM.COM
Founder & CEO Augment Mind · Executive Coach · Speaker · Podcast Host
Founded Augment Mind in Germany as a premium leadership advisory - helping leadership teams build the human operating system: the cognitive, behavioural, and decision infrastructure required to translate strategy and technology into real performance. Hosts the podcast It's me. Your Brain. Speaks at leadership events and executive forums globally. Works selectively with senior leaders in 1:1 executive coaching engagements.
AUGMENT MIND · EXECUTIVE COACHING · LEADERSHIP ADVISORY · PODCAST · SPEAKING
2025 - NOW
WORKING TOGETHER
The work itself
lives at Augment Mind.
Executive coaching, leadership team programmes, and organisational advisory - that's all at augmentmind.de.
For speaking, the podcast, media enquiries, or anything else - Virginia's inbox is the right place.