About Mona Khalil
I’ve rebuilt my career three times.
Peace Corps. Big Tech. Consulting and coaching.
Each reinvention refined how I listen to myself, evaluate tradeoffs, and make decisions that endure and evolve over time. I make decisions that honor what I am experiencing and identify opportunities to keep growing.
Today, I work with high-achieving women in tech, helping them recognize patterns, recalibrate their judgment, and rebuild trust in their own decision-making through the Study Yourself® practice.
Peace Corps, Morocco, and Nonprofits | My 20s
After earning a B.A. in International Studies from UC San Diego, I joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Morocco working on youth and community development. Largely isolated from other Americans, I turned to reflective writing as a way to process experience, maintain clarity, and stay grounded.
Reflective writing as a practice became foundational.
After the Peace Corps, I worked in and alongside nonprofit organizations. At the time, I believed I had found my career path.
Corporate, Creative Work, and Executive MBA | My 30s
I later moved into tech and corporate consulting, working with companies including Tesla and LinkedIn, and partnering with Fortune 500 organizations.
At Tesla, I founded the Intersectionality Employee Resource Group while working in Global Business Operations. At LinkedIn, I created and led cross-functional Talent Acquisition programs, bringing together partners across the organization to design and deliver leadership and talent development initiatives. During this period, I earned my Executive MBA while working full-time and took on senior program management and executive consulting roles.
On paper, I was succeeding.
Yet there was a growing gap between how I was working and how I wanted to live and lead. Throughout it all, I kept writing. The reflective practice I developed in Morocco stayed with me through corporate life. 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, nonprofits, 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 completing training with the Hudson Institute of Coaching. I began building a coaching practice grounded in the same reflective discipline that had supported me across every chapter of my life.
Dear Mango | Today
I founded Dear Mango as a 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 partner with high-achieving women in tech to recognize their patterns and strengthen self-trust through the Study Yourself® practice.
This work doesn’t ask you to start from scratch. Even when change is significant, you are 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, reassess commitments, and make decisions that align with your priorities. This work creates space to slow down, see clearly, and choose deliberately rather than from conditioning, comfort, or lack of exposure. You can do this work without abandoning ambition or erasing what you’ve already built.