Member since October 2025
Natalie Shieh is the Founder of New Anthem Solutions, a strategy and leadership practice helping civic leaders move their boldest ideas into aligned action. After two decades shaping major urban and economic development initiatives — and leading inside the civic systems that define our cities — she brings to this work not just expertise, but lived experience. She now guides leaders and organizations through moments of complexity, growth, and reinvention, helping them lead with greater clarity, confidence, and impact. She is especially passionate about supporting women leaders who want to build impact on their own terms.
Natalie lights up at the intersection of neuroscience and leadership — specifically, what happens when a leader finally understands that stress, overthinking, and self-doubt aren’t character flaws. They’re patterns. And patterns can change.
She’s built her practice around this conviction: the leaders shaping cities, communities, and civic institutions carry an outsized cognitive and emotional load — and most of them have never been given a framework for it. When that changes, everything else does too.
I grew up on the tiger mom playbook: achieve. Regular school wasn’t enough — weekend school, summer school, extracurriculars. Do it all, do it well, or else you’ll end up destitute. (Chinese parents can be dramatic.)
I carried that into my career in urban planning and development. When you care deeply about the mission — and communities are counting on you — the “do it all or else” voice only gets louder. Add being a woman of color in a male-dominated industry who tends to read younger than her years, and it was gasoline on a fire. I wasn’t just overworking for the mission. I was trying to prove them wrong. The higher I climbed, the harder I pushed — and the more I tried to conform to a leadership archetype that wasn’t me.
Wearing that mask has a price. Over time, I paid it.
That experience is what led me to build New Anthem Solutions. Because for people driven by mission-forward work, that invisible tax is too expensive. It costs the leader. And ultimately, it costs the work they care about most.
The individual and the system are connected. When you protect your capacity, the mission moves forward.
Natalie began her career designing cities and ended up redesigning how people lead.
After two decades navigating the high-pressure worlds of infrastructure, policy, and real estate, she saw the same pattern everywhere: brilliant, mission-driven people burning out — especially women — in the name of doing good work. Not because they lacked talent or commitment, but because no one had ever given them the frameworks to lead sustainably.
That realization led her to create New Anthem Solutions. Today she works at the intersection of neuroscience, strategy, and leadership development — helping civic leaders, city-builders, and urban sector professionals build the clarity and capacity to lead well, for the long game.
I grew up on the tiger mom playbook: achieve. Regular school wasn’t enough — weekend school, summer school, extracurriculars. Do it all, do it well, or else you’ll end up destitute. (Chinese parents can be dramatic.)
I carried that into my career in urban planning and development. When you care deeply about the mission — and communities are counting on you — the “do it all or else” voice only gets louder. Add being a woman of color in a male-dominated industry who tends to read younger than her years, and it was gasoline on a fire. I wasn’t just overworking for the mission. I was trying to prove them wrong. The higher I climbed, the harder I pushed — and the more I tried to conform to a leadership archetype that wasn’t me.
Wearing that mask has a price. Over time, I paid it.
That experience is what led me to build New Anthem Solutions. Because for people driven by mission-forward work, that invisible tax is too expensive. It costs the leader. And ultimately, it costs the work they care about most.
The individual and the system are connected. When you protect your capacity, the mission moves forward.
Natalie began her career designing cities and ended up redesigning how people lead.
After two decades navigating the high-pressure worlds of infrastructure, policy, and real estate, she saw the same pattern everywhere: brilliant, mission-driven people burning out — especially women — in the name of doing good work. Not because they lacked talent or commitment, but because no one had ever given them the frameworks to lead sustainably.
That realization led her to create New Anthem Solutions. Today she works at the intersection of neuroscience, strategy, and leadership development — helping civic leaders, city-builders, and urban sector professionals build the clarity and capacity to lead well, for the long game.
