Sarah Parkins: From Global Finance Leader to Health Optimization Coach

After more than a decade in institutional finance, I reached a turning point: I had built a demanding, high-stakes career, but my own health challenges—and witnessing similar struggles in others—made me question the cost of sustaining that pace. Experiencing burnout and unresolved symptoms pushed me to look beyond conventional approaches. I didn’t need more pressure—I needed a new perspective. That’s where IIN made all the difference. The Health Coach Training Program^™ gave me a structured foundation in integrative health, behavior change, and whole-person wellness, allowing me to connect my professional background with a more sustainable approach to performance.

Today, as the founder of Birch Cove, I work with high-achieving professionals and leaders to strengthen the physiological foundations of performance—helping them build resilience, restore energy, and lead with clarity and capacity, without sacrificing their health in the process.

Q&A: Origin & Career

YOU SPENT OVER A DECADE IN INSTITUTIONAL FINANCE BEFORE MOVING INTO HOLISTIC HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE ADVISORY. WHAT FIRST SPARKED YOUR INTEREST IN THIS WORK?
A: My own health journey. I spent years trying to get to the bottom of challenges that conventional medicine couldn't resolve—symptoms progressively worsening, answers elusive. Then family experiences and colleague experiences reinforced it: watching people’s health suddenly decline, feeling lost, frightened, and vulnerable. That pattern became impossible to ignore.

What I observed—in myself and others—was a tendency to prop ourselves up with medication, push harder, and treat exhaustion as personal weakness: “I’ll be fine… until I’m not.” And then the body stops you. Mine did, with severe vertigo in 2011. I couldn’t work for several months until I addressed the underlying emotional load. My nervous system was dysregulated, and my energy was being depleted by choices I didn’t yet understand were harmful. Once I began learning—and applying what I learned—I started to recover a genuine sense of health and balance.

I’ve also lived through Parkinson’s, dementia, and life-saving emergency surgical situations within my family. Each experience taught me something. I’ve navigated grief and loss, and the physical impact on the body is very real.

Through all of it, I developed a deep desire to support high-performing individuals—those who are achieving, building, and leading, but quietly struggling internally. Not as a replacement for doctors or therapists, which remains essential for many, but as a complementary layer of support.

I’ve worked with functional medicine doctors for years and found real value there, but also gaps: the cost of testing and appointments adds up, and there is often a need for someone to think alongside you—to explore what you want to change, adjust, and do next.

YOU’VE WORKED ACROSS FINANCE, TECHNOLOGY, INFRASTRUCTURE, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP. HOW DID THOSE EXPERIENCES SHAPE THE WAY YOU APPROACH COACHING AND ADVISORY WORK TODAY?
A: I couldn't do this work without having lived all those other chapters first. My background gives me the ability to genuinely connect with, understand, and empathize with people whose decisions carry real consequence and weight—and who feel that weight in their bodies, often without realizing it.

I have a computer science degree, and I spent many years in technology, which gave me an affinity for systems thinking, logic, and a scientific approach. But I've also come to appreciate that science is about learning, adapting, and respecting feedback loops. I'm rigorous without being rigid—science has many answers, but it also has many questions that remain unsolved and unknown. Quantum physics fascinates me. I worked alongside quants in financial services and found their perspective on the world genuinely captivating. The research coming out of CERN intrigues me. The behavior of atoms and energy offers remarkable insight into how our world, and our bodies, function.

My corporate, institutional, and investor-backed experience also means I can navigate those environments with genuine fluency: the pressures, the language, the load. I consult and advise businesses on bringing real, sustainable performance and alignment to their people—because I refuse to accept that performance and health are separate. They are not. I'm in the business of coaching elite business athletes, and being part of someone's personal performance team is an honor I don't take lightly.

Q&A: Performance & Coaching Principles

FOR COACHES WORKING WITH HIGH-PERFORMING PROFESSIONALS OR LEADERS, WHAT IS ONE PRINCIPLE THAT CAN MAKE THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE IN SUPPORTING SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE?
A: Empowering someone to reconnect with their own body and develop a personalized protocol that works for them. There are so many trends, fads, and competing voices in the health and wellness space—it's confusing, overwhelming, and often leads to inaction. High performers are wired to look for results, but the instinct is usually to search outside themselves for the solution. When you help someone reconnect inward, they discover a very powerful resource. They start to find the habits, adjustments, and approaches that actually work for their body–and because it's theirs, they stick with it. It doesn't have to work for anyone else.

WHAT HAS SURPRISED YOU MOST ABOUT THE INTERSECTION OF LEADERSHIP, HEALTH, AND LONG-TERM PERFORMANCE?
A: How much is within our control physiologically—and how little attention we've traditionally paid to it. I spent 25 years in business before anyone mentioned physiology in the context of performance. There were plenty of leadership programs: strategic thinking, team management, operational excellence, and execution. But where was the conversation about the state of your nervous system when you're making critical decisions? Where was the discussion about what supports a healthy brain during a peak season of intense work? How can you support your nervous system and immune system when you’re in back-to-back meetings and doing 15-16 hour days? When you are pushing hard for a promotion or you must concede a program to a colleague, your identity and values are impacted—what happens internally, and how does that show up in your behaviors? None of this existed in discussion and training. Understanding it would have made a huge performance difference.

Now I bring all of this into the room, and I'm still surprised by how much remains unknown to people. When they grasp it and begin making changes, the results are often dramatic–and they last. Conventionally, the conversation stops at the gym, cardio, HIIT, and nutrition. But what about the rhythms of your life? What if you're navigating a relationship breakdown, processing grief, or absorbing a significant loss? The movement and food choices that serve you in one season may add unnecessary stress and load to a system that's already stretched in another. That's why it always comes back to the individual—meeting people exactly where they are, not where you assume they should be.

Q&A: The IIN Connection

WHAT ORIGINALLY DREW YOU TO IIN AS PART OF YOUR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT?
A: It was important to find high-quality teaching and materials that would allow me to cover significant ground, delivered by an independent institution–one not shaped or constrained by donor or funding influence, which I've observed more than once. I wanted a rigorous, credentialled program, not a certification achieved in three weeks. I wanted access to top teachers and leading experts. I wanted it to be accredited, with a pathway to board certification, and I wanted international recognition so I could support clients across borders.

HOW HAS YOUR TRAINING IN HOLISTIC HEALTH INFLUENCED THE WAY YOU WORK WITH FOUNDERS, EXECUTIVES, AND LEADERSHIP TEAMS?
A: It's given me considerably more depth of understanding, opened new ways of approaching complex topics, and expanded my perspective in ways I continue to draw on. It also equipped me with robust frameworks for behavior change and evidence-based tools. It was a strong foundation to build on from.

Q&A: Perspective for Students & Alumni

FOR STUDENTS OR ALUMNI WHO WANT TO APPLY COACHING IN PROFESSIONAL OR LEADERSHIP ENVIRONMENTS, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU OFFER?
A: Choose a path that equips you with credentials appropriate for a professional environment. Leaders carry tremendous influence–over businesses, people, communities, industries, economies, and nations. We need those leaders to be living in healthy, optimized bodies. We need to support them in looking after their own performance systems with the same intentionality they bring to leading their organizations.

HOW DO YOU SEE HOLISTIC HEALTH COACHING EVOLVING IN THE FUTURE OF LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL WELLBEING?
A: I see it becoming integrated from the inside out. More organizations will hire health coaches as permanent members of their teams. Career coaches will expand into health optimization. Chief Wellbeing Officers will build functions where health coaching capability is embedded. The tipping point is coming–and it will arrive through the performance lens, because that's the language business speaks. Which company doesn't want elite business athletes in their organization?

The future CEO and the broader C-suite will lead with an embodied understanding of performance–their own and their people's. Teams will be led by those who have learned to operate at a high level without paying for it with their health. We each define success personally, and culture, society, and economics layer their own definitions on top of that. But the individuals and organizations that harness the power of their own biology, in the full context of performance, will be the ones who perform across years, not just quarters. That's a fundamentally different kind of ambition. And it's the one worth building toward.

Q&A: Personal Practices & Recovery

WHAT DAILY HABITS OR PRACTICES HELP YOU MAINTAIN YOUR OWN CLARITY AND ENERGY WHILE WORKING IN DEMANDING ENVIRONMENTS?
A: I have several practices and habits I reach for; I am flexible and listen to what my body needs. Some of them include breathing techniques that are woven throughout the day. Quality sleep. Sipping filtered, mineralized water consistently. Eating nutritionally rich, nourishing food at each meal, choosing foods that genuinely enliven and vitalize my body, with room for intuition too. Daily movement, calibrated to where my body is: Pilates, yoga, walking, swimming, stretching, resistance training, and cardio all feature depending on the day. A daily red-light session. Visualizations. Baths and showers–water is more powerful than people give it credit for. Time with friends and family. And white space on my calendar, which I protect deliberately–I no longer book back-to-back appointments. I keep breathing room after each session so I protect my body and can arrive fully present for every client.

I'm also aware that I can slip into long focused work stretches that activate my sympathetic nervous system. That self-knowledge matters. Awareness is its own practice. It is a delicate balancing act, and it gives me practice in self-compassion and boundaries.

WHEN LIFE OR WORK BECOMES PARTICULARLY INTENSE, HOW DO YOU RESET AND PROTECT YOUR LONG-TERM CAPACITY?
A: I've become very attuned to how my body signals sustained load–breathing patterns shift; circulation feels different, sleep erodes, eating habits drift, and motivation quietly dims. There's a distinct sense of dragging rather than moving. I've learned to spot it.

As soon as I can, I will introduce rest and genuine space. I'll clear the calendar and protect pockets of nothing. I go outdoors. I increase my red-light sessions. I'll order or buy nourishing food that's already been prepared–when I'm truly depleted. Removing the effort of cooking means I can still eat well without risking the slide into whatever's convenient. Later in the recovery arc, I'll book a massage and return to Pilates–reformer classes are something I love. I sleep more, and I'll nap without guilt.

I'll also begin to arrange time with people who have a genuinely nourishing, grounded presence–not to draw from their energy, but because being around people who are settled in themselves is quietly restorative.

Q&A: Fun Favorites

BEST DECISION YOU EVER MADE IN YOUR CAREER OR PERSONAL LIFE?
A: Letting go of my own expectations. I loved my corporate and institutional grounding; I love high-performance work and the thrill of building something. My path has been varied, and yet it builds beautifully on every prior stage. I couldn't do what I do now without everything that came before. When I've perceived something as a failure, I've almost always been given the insight, in time, that it wasn't a failure at all. It was preparation, redirection, or protection from something that wouldn't have served me. So: letting go of expectations, learning to trust my instincts, developing my intuition, and allowing my ambition to rest when it needs to and go into high gear when it's ready.

WHAT MUSIC OR ARTIST DO YOU TURN TO WHEN YOU NEED FOCUS OR MOTIVATION?
A: I'm not a big music listener, but I love supporting my brain with calm, soft classical music when I need to focus. I use Sonos and Spotify and quite enjoy letting the algorithm choose–there's something freeing about not curating everything.

A BOOK OR PODCAST YOU’D RECOMMEND TO THE IIN COMMUNITY?
A: Just one?! This question is inspiring me to put together a full reading and listening list for the Birch Cove community. But if I must choose: Metabolical by Dr. Robert Lustig. I couldn't put it down. It came to me during a period of very intense stress while caring for a seriously ill loved one, and it breathed life back into me–a powerful reminder that our health and our bodies are extraordinary assets that deserve our full attention. It was one of several books that gave me the nudge to consider health coaching as my next chapter.

IF YOU COULD BE ANY FRUIT OR VEGGIE, WHICH WOULD YOU BE—AND WHY?
A: An English pea. They come in a pod–a fabulous jacket! They're nestled in with all their family and friends before they're shelled. They just look happy. That green is extraordinary, they’re nourishing, the taste is wonderful, and they're remarkably versatile. I rather like all those qualities in life too.

WHAT’S A FUN FACT ABOUT YOURSELF THAT MIGHT SURPRISE PEOPLE?
A: I spent a year as an au pair in Germany when I was 17, caring for three wonderful children who are still very much part of my life–and whom I adore. I’m so deeply grateful for having the chance to live and work in Germany for many reasons. It continued my love for travel, international relations, and diplomacy at every level of life.