Atsuko’s Bio

Atsuko Horiguchi is a multicultural and multidisciplinary leadership coach and facilitator with more than 25 years of experience working inside complex, fast-moving, global organizations. Her career began in finance, first with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets and, following graduate studies, in development finance with the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. Beyond the corporate world, she has built a practice in strategy, leadership development, and personal transformation.

Along the way, Atsuko has chosen to define success on her own terms. Her path has been anything but linear. She takes what she calls a portfolio approach to life: honoring and balancing the different dimensions of who we are and allowing them to inform and enrich one another. Her own portfolio includes work, family and friends, intellectual pursuits, classical piano, art, yoga, time in the great outdoors, and more. This way of living has given her both the breadth and depth she brings to her work.

She draws on her experience as a leader and strategic thinker, her training in coaching and facilitation, and decades of exploring what moves people to grow and create meaningful change. She is a Newfield Certified Coach®, an International Coaching Federation (ICF)-certified coach, a certified Everything DiSC® Practitioner, a certified ScrumMaster®, and a certified Scandinavian Leadership (LOTS®) facilitator.

Her work is grounded in mental agility — the capacity to question assumptions, reframe what’s possible, find the essential amid complexity, and learn through challenge. She also believes growth is more than cerebral; how we think, feel, move through the world, and relate to others are deeply connected. Her approach draws on the whole person: mind, body, emotion, relationships, and meaning.

Atsuko’s perspective has been shaped not only by her leadership experience, but by her own ongoing journey of growth and discovery. She is a Hoffman Process graduate and leads the DC, Maryland, and Virginia Hoffman graduate group. She is a board member of World Connect and previously served as the inaugural chair of the Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Town of Somerset in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Atsuko holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University.

Originally from Kobe, Japan, Atsuko has lived in Brazil, the United States, and Norway, and has traveled extensively around the world. Besides Japanese and English, she can get by in French, Mandarin, Norwegian, and Spanish.

Atsuko is a classically trained pianist with a devotion to Bach. She loves NYT crossword puzzles, books, cooking for friends, knitting, and being outdoors. A Washingtonian for more than 30 years and a mother of two grown children, she lives with her Norwegian husband and their exuberant miniature long-haired dachshund, Pablo Marcel.