Online Press Kit - Najah Drakes
Short Bio
Najah Drakes is a mental health counselor, work-life balance strategist and personal development coach. As a burnout and trauma survivor with more than 20 years of C-suite leadership and entrepreneurial experience, she brings a unique blend of clinical expertise, strategic insight, and lived experience to helping people move beyond survival toward greater peace, purpose, and fulfillment.
As a counselor, Najah specializes in trauma, anxiety, depression, burnout, perfectionism, relationship challenges, and life transitions, with a special interest in midlife and later-life mental health, perimenopause and menopause, and ADHD-related executive functioning challenges. Her integrative, whole-person approach helps clients understand the patterns keeping them stuck and create meaningful, lasting change.
As a coach, she continues helping ambitious professionals reclaim their time, prioritize their well-being, develop sustainable systems, and pursue the lives they desire beyond their professional accomplishments.
Najah's work has been featured in Guideposts, Christianity Today, Entrusted Women, and other inspirational publications. She is also a YouVersion (The Bible App) Partner and author of the devotional It's Time: 7 Time Management Strategies to Take Back Your Calendar, Reduce Overwhelm, and Flourish on Purpose, which has been completed by over 10,000 readers.
A graduate of Spelman College, Johns Hopkins University, and Mercer University, Najah holds a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She and her husband are the proud parents of five sons.
Long Bio
Najah Drakes | Mental Health Counselor, Coach, Author & Speaker
Najah Drakes is a mental health counselor, work-life balance and personal development coach, author, speaker, serial entrepreneur, former CFO, mom of five, and burnout survivor. With more than 20 years of corporate leadership experience and a background in treating complex mental health conditions, Najah brings a unique combination of clinical expertise, strategic insight, and lived experience to helping people move beyond survival toward greater peace, purpose, and fulfillment.
As a mental health counselor, Najah works with adults navigating trauma, anxiety, depression, burnout, perfectionism, relationship challenges, and significant life transitions. She has a special interest in midlife and later-life mental health, including the emotional and psychological challenges associated with perimenopause and menopause, caregiving, changing roles, identity shifts, and questions about purpose. Her clinical experience includes working with individuals experiencing some of the most complex mental health presentations in residential, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient settings, including clients who have previously received treatment but have not experienced the progress they hoped for.
Najah practices from an integrative, trauma-informed, whole-person approach that recognizes the connection between the mind, body, faith, story, relationships, and purpose. She is EMDR-informed and trained in multiple evidence-based approaches, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO-DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). She also incorporates somatic awareness, mindfulness, neuroscience-informed strategies, expressive arts, and sandtray therapy, recognizing that meaningful healing does not always happen through talking alone.
Before transitioning into mental health counseling, Najah spent more than two decades in corporate leadership, helping multimillion-dollar organizations improve performance, solve complex challenges, and achieve ambitious goals. During her final decade in corporate leadership, she served in multiple executive and operational roles within a multilocation occupational medicine practice, including Chief Financial Officer, Interim Human Resources Director, and Director of Physical Therapy.
Drawing from her own experience navigating burnout, professional reinvention, caregiving, motherhood, and significant life transitions, Najah understands the challenges of balancing success with personal well-being. Through Spark Coaching and Consulting, she continues to coach individuals seeking greater work-life balance, improved executive functioning, sustainable systems, and a more purposeful life beyond their professional accomplishments.
A dynamic and engaging speaker, Najah combines clinical insight, neuroscience, humor, storytelling, and practical strategies to make complex topics relatable and actionable. She facilitates workshops for corporations, women's groups, community and civic organizations, churches, and government entities on mental health, the science of change, trauma, relationships, self-care, reinvention, and navigating life's transitions. Her presentations challenge audiences to examine the patterns that may be keeping them stuck and discover practical ways to create meaningful, sustainable change.
Najah is the creator of the Purposeful Prioritizer Planner, designed to help busy women reclaim their time, manage competing priorities, and make more room for peace and purpose. She is also the author of Divine Java: A Personal Affirmations Journal Designed to Extract Your Bold Flavor from God's Divine Cup and a YouVersion (The Bible App) content partner. Her devotional, It's Time: 7 Time Management Strategies to Take Back Your Calendar, Reduce Overwhelm, and Flourish on Purpose, which has been completed by over 10,000 readers. Her inspirational writing has also been featured in Guideposts, Christianity Today, Entrusted Women, and other publications.
Najah holds a bachelor's degree from Spelman College, a Master of Arts with Distinction from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Mercer University.
Outside of her professional work, Najah enjoys dancing, reading, writing, traveling, and spending time with her husband and their five sons.
At the heart of her work is a simple belief: The patterns that helped you survive may not be the patterns you need to thrive. Through counseling, coaching, writing, and speaking, Najah is passionate about helping people understand their stories, navigate change, and create lives filled with greater healing, connection, purpose, and possibility.
Speaker Photos
Speaker ONE Sheet
Najah is the ideal speaker for women’s retreats, conference keynotes, and breakout sessions.
Endorsements
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