Sari Lash: A Trained Counselor…in the Corporate World!

When Sari was looking at schools for her counseling degree, she was searching for a rare combination—a clinical licensure program with theological integration! She shares, “I care tremendously about spiritual development and pastoral leadership. That part mattered…and I wanted a licensure track program.” She was excited to discover how Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) incorporated theology classes in their Mental Health Counseling program and soon enrolled!

At the time, Sari was working as a worship leader at a multi-ethnic church, which opened the door for her to receive a scholarship for multicultural integration. “I definitely felt the spiritual impact of the award mediated through the practical benefit to my life,” she says. “It would have been very hard to do TEDS if I had not gotten a scholarship because I was living by myself as an independent, young single woman. It was a game-changer to get the scholarship so I could graduate with as little debt as possible.”

Sari’s time as a student at TEDS was very fulfilling, and she enjoyed getting to know her professors, who were masters at making the material they taught very practical. “Dr. Keiff Gorgry made me fall in love with counseling,” she says. In addition, she adds, the classes “were not high in the sky. The tools were so concrete, and that was a really beautiful, harmonious environment to experience and learn from in a classroom setting.”

She also learned a lot about integrating counseling and theology. Dr. Greggo “helped me to consider the world of counseling as so compatible with the spiritual development of a person. Spiritual development and the work that could be done in the counseling room are not at odds. Counseling can serve the end goal of discipleship in beautiful ways,” she explains.

Sari enjoyed all of the peer-to-peer interactions she got to have as a student. “New levels of vulnerability were being opened up…,” she says. She shared that there was once an instance in which a student accidentally said something that was offensive to someone of another cultural background, and the person confronted the situation with conviction, assertiveness, and grace. Sari says, “The student was able to engage, apologize, and repair the relationship in real-time. TEDS was a space where those kinds of conversations were normalized and actively supported at every level of leadership.”

After graduating from TEDS with her counseling degree, Sari worked at a private practice counseling center for two years. She saw those two years as the first step in a unique career trajectory, saying, “One thing that I’d always known was that I felt a very strong pull and conviction to integrate the holistic human understanding that comes from a counseling background into real-world settings,” such as the corporate sector.

Today, she does exactly that as the Director of Brand and Culture at a startup. “I spend a tremendous time shaping a young company. I am able to use what I know about human nature, about what drives people toward change, and how to listen well for the ‘thing beneath the thing.’” She credits her education at TEDS for much of her success: “I have used so many of those skills that I got at TEDS. Obviously, there was a natural affinity, but they were so sharpened and honed at TEDS.”

Sari is very passionate about her work! “I have a lot of latitude to create programming for the education and development of the staff that transcends common professional development courses. A lot of young managers, those newer to the workforce, and Gen Z come in with a lot of anxiety or other mental health comorbidities. I teach workshops on procrastination, how to be more assertive to get feedback, how to resolve conflict from a psychosomatic standpoint, and how to recognize and de-escalate conflict.”

Her success in this field has opened up many new opportunities for her and only deepened her conviction that the counseling world has so much to give the corporate world. “I also had different speaking engagements that came up through my corporate work where I was able to speak to large groups of people. I pull almost verbatim things that I learned from the counseling world, but I am treated like a wonder kid! It’s really interesting and special to share that with a group of people…who wouldn’t otherwise come into a counseling center or think through how to serve their employees better through the lens of mental health. I feel like I snuck in and get to give this education to people who feel scared of psychological language or resistant to it!”

To the donors at TEDS, Sari expresses her deep gratitude. “Thank you!” she says. “The opportunities, the new ways of thinking, the broadened scope, and the passion created in a higher education setting are beyond compare. In a world devaluing long-form thought, the ability to discuss issues all the way to the bottom is a skill that’s being lost….TEDS is such a beautiful place to engage that, and for someone like me who wouldn’t have been able to afford that by myself, you know those donors made a huge difference. I could not overstate the power of higher education, or specifically the theological integrative and cultural integrative seminary like TEDS…I would want as many people as possible to have that opportunity!”