About Mona Khalil
I’ve rebuilt my career three times.
Peace Corps. Big Tech. Consulting & Coaching. Each reinvention sharpened how I listen to myself and make decisions.
Now, I work with high-achieving women in tech, helping them recognize their patterns and rebuild trust in their own judgment through the Study Yourself® practice.
Peace Corps, Morocco, and Nonprofits | My 20s
After graduating from UC San Diego with a B.A. in International Studies, I joined the Peace Corps and spent two years doing youth and community development work in Morocco. Mostly isolated from other Americans, I turned to reflective writing as a way to think, process, and stay grounded. Pen to paper became how I made sense of what I was experiencing. After Peace Corps, I worked in and with nonprofits. At the time, I believed I had found my calling.
Corporate, Creative Work, and Executive MBA | My 30s
I later moved into tech and corporate consulting. Tesla. LinkedIn. Fortune 500 companies.
At Tesla, I founded the Intersectionality Employee Resource Group while working in Business Development. At LinkedIn, I led Talent Development programs and facilitated leadership workshops. I earned my Executive MBA while working full-time and took on senior program management and executive consulting roles.
On paper, I was succeeding.
And yet there was a growing gap between where I was and how I wanted to be living and leading. Throughout it all, I kept writing. The reflective practice I discovered in Morocco stayed with me through the corporate years. During this time, I published my first book of poetry, I Write Letters in My Thoughts, and performed my poetry across the Bay Area. Writing remained the place where I could hear myself think.
Betting on Myself | My 40s
After more than 20 years across Peace Corps, Big Tech, and Fortune 500 environments, I chose to build something of my own.
I trained as a certified professional coach, earning my ACC credential through the International Coaching Federation and training with the Hudson Institute of Coaching. I began building a coaching practice incorporating similar reflective writing that had supported me across every chapter of my life.
Dear Mango | Today
I founded Dear Mango as a monthly reflective writing practice for high achievers who want space to pause, study themselves, and reconnect with what matters.
The name comes from my poetry and my lineage. My father is Egyptian. My mother is Guyanese. Across cultures, mangoes symbolize love, resilience, and abundance. Like the mango, we carry stories shaped by where we come from, learning how to take root wherever life places us.
The Work
I help high-achieving women in tech recognize their patterns and trust themselves through the Study Yourself® practice.
This work doesn’t ask you to start from scratch. Even when change is significant, you’re choosing from experience, insight, and what you continue to learn about yourself.
Sometimes clarity leads to staying. Sometimes it leads to leaving. The work is learning to tell the difference and trusting yourself either way.
I understand what it’s like to question your path. To reassess your commitments and to make decisions that align with your priorities. This work creates space to slow down. To see clearly and choose deliberately rather than reactively. You do this without abandoning your ambition. And without erasing what you’ve already built.