We built Offshoot because we needed it.

We did what a lot of high performing professionals do. We followed the rules, climbed the ladder, hit the milestones, and tried to ignore the quiet voice that said something was off. Offshoot started as the answer to our own inflection points, long before it became a company name or a logo on a website.

Michele’s Story

I spent most of my corporate life doing what I was supposed to do. I hit my targets, took care of clients, led teams, and kept saying yes to more responsibility. On paper, it looked great. Inside, it was a different story. Being passed over for roles I knew I could do, the quiet politics, and the vicious cycle of proving myself again and again, all while feeling increasingly drained.

There came a point when I realized I couldn't keep pushing at the same pace without something needing to change. I had been waiting for someone else to give me permission to want something different. The day I stopped waiting and gave that permission to myself is the day the path toward Offshoot really began.

Kevin’s Story

My story looks different on the outside, but underneath it was just as familiar. I climbed a ladder I had not consciously chosen, moving into bigger titles, bigger scopes, and bigger mortgages. I knew how to get the promotion, build the team, and hit the numbers. I also knew what it felt like to go to sleep with the Sunday scaries, to mask how I really felt, and to wonder why a life that checked all the boxes still did not feel like mine.

For years, I treated that heaviness as the price of success. I told myself this is just what leadership feels like. It took time, reflection, and some honest conversations to see that something deeper was happening. I did not just need a new job. I needed a new way of thinking about growth, success, and what I was actually building my life around. That realization put me on the same path Michele was already walking.

Meet Michele Monte

With over 20 years in the corporate world, Michele has navigated the complexities of executive leadership - managing high-stakes client relationships, navigating corporate politics, and leading through economic shifts. She has experienced the highs, the challenges, and the pivotal learning moments that come with growing a career to the executive level. But through it all, her greatest passion has been coaching and developing PEOPLE.​

Michele believes that mindset shifts are the catalyst for growth. She blends deep corporate expertise with formal coaching credentials and PROSCI Change Practitioner certification, leveraging the ADKAR model on many of her coaching engagements.

Michele partners with professionals and businesses to foster personal growth, enable the pivot from transactional to strategic and help build a winning mindset to drive business results.

Meet Kevin Kowalick

Kevin brings over 20 years of experience in corporate strategy, operations, sales & marketing, technology, learning & development, and academia. He understands what it takes to lead, grow, and thrive in high-stakes, fast-moving environments giving him a holistic, real-world lens he brings to every interaction.

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As an ICF-certified leadership coach and university professor of organizational leadership, Kevin specializes in helping leaders navigate change, build confidence, grow in their careers, and drive meaningful results.

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Kevin's leadership development work is about unlocking potential. Whether someone is stepping into a bigger role, navigating political or technological complexity & change, learning new skills, or simply feeling stuck, his work centers on goals and growth. The result is a focused space to reflect, reset, and accelerate. Clients walk away not just with solutions, but with stronger skills, sharper awareness, and real momentum.​​

How our paths converged

We met at Comcast, long before Offshoot had a name. Kevin had the chance to build a new team from scratch, and Michele was his first hire. From the beginning, there was an immediate, mutual respect and kinship, the kind of partnership where you can finish each other’s sentences and see things the other person cannot. Our experiences, personalities, and strengths complemented each other in a true yin and yang. 

As we worked together, we kept seeing the same patterns in ourselves and the leaders around us. Smart, capable people at real inflection points. People doing everything “right” by corporate standards and still feeling stuck, burned out, or misaligned. We found ourselves asking a different kind of question: what would it look like to give these leaders the kind of support we wished we had years earlier. Offshoot is our answer to that question.

  • The name Offshoot came from a creative former colleague and friend, Kristen, who reminded us that the best company names are often one strong word. Offshoot felt exactly right. It represents new growth, a branch that takes a different direction, a seedling that is fragile at first but full of possibility with the right nurturing and support. That is what we want for every leader and every organization we work with. 

    The logo arrived in a more dramatic way. Michele woke up from a fever dream and sketched the design on a piece of paper on her nightstand. She sent a video explanation and photos of her drawing to Kevin, and he jumped on the computer to bring it to life. The design represents our separate professional paths converging. The vertical black line marks both the finish line of our corporate careers and the starting line of our shared entrepreneurial chapter. It is a daily reminder that the end of one chapter can be the beginning of a more aligned one. 

  • Our story is not here just for color. It is here because it mirrors the experiences of the people we now serve. If you are a professional or an organization at an inflection point, wondering why doing everything “right” still does not feel right, you are in the right place. We built Offshoot for people like us, and for people like you, who want growth that actually fits the person and the culture it is meant to serve.