Member since May 2026
Stephanie Mikulasek is founder and CEO of The ServantEDGE, a leadership development and experiential immersion company. A former U.S. Diplomat with experience across 60+ countries, she is a Georgetown-certified executive coach, ICF member,
certified mindfulness teacher, and holds an MPA and MA alongside her PhD candidacy at George Mason University, where she researches how immersive experiences develop transformational leaders. She is an award-winning author and a contributor to the international bestseller Femme Led, and is completing a book on multigenerational leadership. She speaks about navigating multiple generations in the workplace (and home); women in leadership; coaching with purpose and presence; building high performance teams; and the humorous Manager's Survival Guide. She also has spoken about USAID, foreign aid, and how to make a global difference.
(1) Inspiring and helping women to find their voice and raise it - in speaking, writing, entrepreneurship - however she imagines.
(2) Traveling - sharing lessons/wisdom learned wrapped in comical or heartwarming stories learned from adventures. I write a Substack newsletter and each Tuesday share a travel essay.
(3) All things wine! Wine regions, varietals, wine trips, designing wine trips, Ladies Wine Trips, and so on! (Especially New World wines)
(4) Parenting my two university-aged daughters and what resilience actually looks like.
I use variations of the following story in a variety of speeches, tailored to the point of the event:
In Hwange National Park in northwestern Zimbabwe, the light comes in sideways at dawn— golden and thin, catching the dust that rises off the earth with every step. The air smells of dry grass and something ancient. I'm walking with Richard — my guide, a man who had led these trails for decades, who knew this bush the way you know the back of your own hand.
We've walked several safaris together before, Richard and I. There's a trust that builds between two people who've moved quietly through wild places — a kind of communication that doesn't need many words. A glance. A hand signal. The way he tilts his head to the right means: look, but slowly.
Behind us, a group of about six people — a mix of generations, a mix of backgrounds joining me on one of my immersion experiences I host. Some were graduate students, others were mid-career professionals, another was a senior leader who had waited her whole life to see Africa. All of them experiencing the African bush for the first time. Wide-eyed. A little nervous. Trying to look braver than they felt.
We'd been walking for well over an hour. Long enough that the novelty had settled into something quieter — bodies more present, eyes more open, the particular alertness that comes when you've been outside and moving long enough to actually arrive.
That's when Richard stopped.
He knelt slowly, eyes scanning the sandy soil at his feet.
Lion prints.
"Recent," I said. Half answering, half waiting for confirmation.
He nodded, brow creased, and slowly stood. His eyes moved into the treeline ahead — a relatively dense group of mopane trees.
"Yes, mama," he said — using the Zimbabwean term of respect. "Recent."
I've been called mama in Zimbabwe since my twenties. I've never stopped loving it.
I signaled to the group: Stay close. No talking. Watch your step.
The normal chattering of birds had gone quiet.
You know that moment? When everything around you goes still and your body knows something your brain hasn't caught up to yet?
We moved into the trees.
And then — the sound hit me before I saw her.
A low, heart-reverberating growl. The kind that doesn't just reach your ears. It moves through your chest.
We froze.
Forty meters ahead: an enormous lioness. Golden fur. Agitated. Pacing.
To her right — a second lioness.
Richard's voice, barely a breath: "We're between the mother and her cubs."
"Don't run."
Behind me, six people — representing four generations, six backgrounds and histories and habits — all hit by the same growl at the same moment.
And when those lions appeared—protective, territorial, very much not interested in our presence—I had about fifteen seconds to get six people to safety.
One person wanted to run. Outrun the lions, which is a terrible plan when you're dealing with an animal that can hit forty miles per hour.
Another person leaped behind a tree about the width of my forearm.
Two people froze, not moving.
One person pulled out their phone to record this on Instagram. I am not kidding.
And another person collapsed to the ground screaming.
Same crisis. Same lions. Six completely different responses.
And I had to get all six of them moving. Together. Now.
"Stay together, stay together. Move slowly, follow my lead. We've got this."
I looked over at Richard fiddling with his gun. The lions were furious, running toward us, closing the gap.
“Stay together, stay together, we’ll be okay.” I looked over at my guide.
“Richard, shoot the gun, shoot the gun!”
“Richard, shoot the gun!”
Two leaps – ten yards. I could see the eyes of these massive animals, focused on all of us.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Warning shots rang out above the lions' heads — not hurting them, just warning them away.
Boom! Boom!
We huddled and waddled together. “Stay together, stay together, we’ve got this.”
We slowly pushed through the mopane trees and seemed to tumble into the clearing.
We were out of the forest -- and suddenly it was quiet.
An insect buzzed.
I heard the birds beginning to chatter again.
None of us spoke.
And we began to walk.
How did you get to where you are now?
I found my voice in the ninth grade. I was painfully shy, and a drama teacher saw something I could not see in myself and taught me how to stand in front of a room. I have been doing it ever since, and I have never forgotten that someone had to hand me that first door.
For more than two decades I served as a U.S. diplomat with USAID and the Department of State, working across Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. Beneath its many forms, the work was always the same: helping people build a better life, and helping very different people understand one another. In 2004, in Puebla, Mexico, I wrote the words that still guide everything I do: build bridges of understanding and compassion while tearing down walls of prejudice and fear.
I did not arrive here in a straight line. I have lived through chapters of deep personal difficulty, in my closest relationships and as a mother, that brought me to the ground and then revealed a strength and resilience I did not know I had. I watched my mother be given two years to live with brain cancer and live twenty. She taught me what it means to outlast a prognosis. And along the way I watched too many women be pushed aside, and worked for women in power who chose to diminish rather than lift, which remains one of the saddest things I have seen, because it never had to be that way.
The ServantEDGE is my third venture, and the one my whole life was preparing me for.
As a founder, what was the a-ha moment?
It came when I saw the thread. Every role I had held, diplomat, coach, speaker, the woman who came through her own hardest years, was the same work: helping someone who had been talked over or counted out find her footing and her voice. And the people I most wanted to reach were women at a pivot point, accomplished by every outside measure, quietly carrying a business, a book, or a voice they had never let out. That was when my 2004 mission finished its own sentence. You cannot build bridges with people who have been silenced. The way I help the world get along better is by emboldening women to stop playing small and claim what is next. That is the company. That is the work. And I am proof it is never too late to begin.
I use variations of the following story in a variety of speeches, tailored to the point of the event:
In Hwange National Park in northwestern Zimbabwe, the light comes in sideways at dawn— golden and thin, catching the dust that rises off the earth with every step. The air smells of dry grass and something ancient. I'm walking with Richard — my guide, a man who had led these trails for decades, who knew this bush the way you know the back of your own hand.
We've walked several safaris together before, Richard and I. There's a trust that builds between two people who've moved quietly through wild places — a kind of communication that doesn't need many words. A glance. A hand signal. The way he tilts his head to the right means: look, but slowly.
Behind us, a group of about six people — a mix of generations, a mix of backgrounds joining me on one of my immersion experiences I host. Some were graduate students, others were mid-career professionals, another was a senior leader who had waited her whole life to see Africa. All of them experiencing the African bush for the first time. Wide-eyed. A little nervous. Trying to look braver than they felt.
We'd been walking for well over an hour. Long enough that the novelty had settled into something quieter — bodies more present, eyes more open, the particular alertness that comes when you've been outside and moving long enough to actually arrive.
That's when Richard stopped.
He knelt slowly, eyes scanning the sandy soil at his feet.
Lion prints.
"Recent," I said. Half answering, half waiting for confirmation.
He nodded, brow creased, and slowly stood. His eyes moved into the treeline ahead — a relatively dense group of mopane trees.
"Yes, mama," he said — using the Zimbabwean term of respect. "Recent."
I've been called mama in Zimbabwe since my twenties. I've never stopped loving it.
I signaled to the group: Stay close. No talking. Watch your step.
The normal chattering of birds had gone quiet.
You know that moment? When everything around you goes still and your body knows something your brain hasn't caught up to yet?
We moved into the trees.
And then — the sound hit me before I saw her.
A low, heart-reverberating growl. The kind that doesn't just reach your ears. It moves through your chest.
We froze.
Forty meters ahead: an enormous lioness. Golden fur. Agitated. Pacing.
To her right — a second lioness.
Richard's voice, barely a breath: "We're between the mother and her cubs."
"Don't run."
Behind me, six people — representing four generations, six backgrounds and histories and habits — all hit by the same growl at the same moment.
And when those lions appeared—protective, territorial, very much not interested in our presence—I had about fifteen seconds to get six people to safety.
One person wanted to run. Outrun the lions, which is a terrible plan when you're dealing with an animal that can hit forty miles per hour.
Another person leaped behind a tree about the width of my forearm.
Two people froze, not moving.
One person pulled out their phone to record this on Instagram. I am not kidding.
And another person collapsed to the ground screaming.
Same crisis. Same lions. Six completely different responses.
And I had to get all six of them moving. Together. Now.
"Stay together, stay together. Move slowly, follow my lead. We've got this."
I looked over at Richard fiddling with his gun. The lions were furious, running toward us, closing the gap.
“Stay together, stay together, we’ll be okay.” I looked over at my guide.
“Richard, shoot the gun, shoot the gun!”
“Richard, shoot the gun!”
Two leaps – ten yards. I could see the eyes of these massive animals, focused on all of us.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Warning shots rang out above the lions' heads — not hurting them, just warning them away.
Boom! Boom!
We huddled and waddled together. “Stay together, stay together, we’ve got this.”
We slowly pushed through the mopane trees and seemed to tumble into the clearing.
We were out of the forest -- and suddenly it was quiet.
An insect buzzed.
I heard the birds beginning to chatter again.
None of us spoke.
And we began to walk.
How did you get to where you are now?
I found my voice in the ninth grade. I was painfully shy, and a drama teacher saw something I could not see in myself and taught me how to stand in front of a room. I have been doing it ever since, and I have never forgotten that someone had to hand me that first door.
For more than two decades I served as a U.S. diplomat with USAID and the Department of State, working across Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. Beneath its many forms, the work was always the same: helping people build a better life, and helping very different people understand one another. In 2004, in Puebla, Mexico, I wrote the words that still guide everything I do: build bridges of understanding and compassion while tearing down walls of prejudice and fear.
I did not arrive here in a straight line. I have lived through chapters of deep personal difficulty, in my closest relationships and as a mother, that brought me to the ground and then revealed a strength and resilience I did not know I had. I watched my mother be given two years to live with brain cancer and live twenty. She taught me what it means to outlast a prognosis. And along the way I watched too many women be pushed aside, and worked for women in power who chose to diminish rather than lift, which remains one of the saddest things I have seen, because it never had to be that way.
The ServantEDGE is my third venture, and the one my whole life was preparing me for.
As a founder, what was the a-ha moment?
It came when I saw the thread. Every role I had held, diplomat, coach, speaker, the woman who came through her own hardest years, was the same work: helping someone who had been talked over or counted out find her footing and her voice. And the people I most wanted to reach were women at a pivot point, accomplished by every outside measure, quietly carrying a business, a book, or a voice they had never let out. That was when my 2004 mission finished its own sentence. You cannot build bridges with people who have been silenced. The way I help the world get along better is by emboldening women to stop playing small and claim what is next. That is the company. That is the work. And I am proof it is never too late to begin.
