I’ve done this the hard way.
That’s the point.
The things that make this worth it.
Watching someone break through and shift into a new paradigm where they not only see the pattern but understand how to forge a new one.
Solving the people problem under the business problem.
Building something that didn’t exist before.
Depending on who’s asking.
The one I never expected to own.
Two businesses, one mission: helping people have better relationships with themselves, their loved ones, and the rest of the world. Fits me better than I thought it would.
My most favorite title.
My daughter says this at least 100 times a day, especially during the summer. I sometimes roll my eyes around the 80th time. It is still my most favorite title.
WWKS.
My clients don’t usually call me “therapist Kieri,” but I do have quite a few who joke they ask themselves daily: what would Kieri say? I’ll take it.
The marketing translator.
I picked this up during my sales years and turned it into a mission: helping therapists and anyone else who didn’t expect marketing to be part of their career actually understand it, manage it themselves, and save some time, money, and sanity in the process.
Apparently.
Honestly? If you ask me, I’m not. But according to the hours logged and the rooms I’ve been in, apparently I am, and sometimes I forget how much I know. So if something I’ve learned the hard way can help you along yours, I’m happy to share it.
The one the people closest to me get to call theirs.
Something I’ve been called since I could walk. Started with my mom, adopted by my sister, leaks into friend groups sometimes too.
I have one of those careers that kind of makes sense when you look backwards. But not really.
I started as the eldest daughter to an eldest daughter, living in six states before first grade. Then I moved 19 hours away for undergrad to a college I had never even visited, simply because they wrote a handwritten note on my acceptance letter.
If I didn’t know how much relationships meant to me then, that should have been a clue.
I put myself through college working in sales and got a degree in psychology. My undergraduate thesis was on the effects of father-daughter relationships on romantic relationships in emerging adulthood. Are we totally surprised I ended up being a therapist who built a tech company measuring relational intelligence? Probably not.
After graduation I worked for the State of Missouri in Children’s Division. I realized quickly that I couldn’t spend my career putting out reactive fires, so I went back to sales until I could figure out the long-term plan. Three years later I went back to school, got my MS in Family Therapy from Friends University, and spent years in clinical work in front of some of the most complex relational dynamics imaginable.
Avoiding easy answers since approximately this moment.
The pattern was always there. She just needed the right vocabulary for it.
The attitude has always been there.
While building my clinical caseload out of grad school I opened my first LLC doing web design and business consulting for therapists. Because apparently one thing at a time was never going to be my style.
In January 2020 I opened Simple Empathy as a private practice. The next three years taught me more about business than any MBA would have.
Inside the therapy room a theme was emerging. Relational distress was at the heart of almost every client I saw.
People didn’t know why they kept tripping over themselves in relationship with others. Something had to be built at a scale I couldn’t reach from my therapy chair. That’s where Sova started.
In May 2025, Taylor Tomlinson accidentally launched my company at a live comedy show. So I taught myself to code, built a 60-question psychometric assessment with 16 archetypes, and shipped it to the world. Mostly on my own. Because apparently doing things the easy way is off brand for me.
Most problems are people problems wearing a different costume.
Iced coffee, open tabs, and about 47 unread emails.
You can probably find me slightly overcaffeinated, either talking with a client, coding something new, or answering the 65th “Hey Mom” of the day with a pet or two in the room.
The formal stuff.
- BA in Psychology, Westminster College, 2011
- MS in Family Therapy, Friends University, 2017
- 5x Best MFT in Kansas City
- Top 10 Startups to Watch KC 2026, Sova
- Entrepreneur of the Year Nominee, Keystone Innovation, 2025
- Woman of Excellence, P.O.W.E.R.
- Marquis Who’s Who
- Featured in VoyageKC and Kansas City Magazine
- Pipeline Entrepreneurs Fellow
- SoGal AGM Selectee 2025
- Kappa Alpha Theta
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Whether you need a therapist, a consultant, a coach, or someone who is all three at once — let’s figure out where you want to start.