Christine “Chrissy” Holm, MSc is a performance enhancement consultant to individuals, executive teams, and organizations. She enjoys helping her clients achieve their best, especially when the pressure to deliver is at its peak. Chrissy is a former NCAA national champion and world champion in rowing. She earned her undergraduate degree in psychology and communication studies from the University of Michigan and went on to complete a master’s degree in sport and exercise psychology at Brunel University London in the UK. Chrissy enjoys blending her practical experiences as an elite performer with rigorous study in the field of performance psychology to provide cutting-edge executive coaching, consulting, and mental health support to the clients she serves. Chrissy also has experience developing and facilitating leadership development programs, specializing in challenges related to building culture, motivation, managing pressure, and achieving high performance.

Matt Mikesell, PhD, CMPC, is a Licensed Psychologist who specializes in sport and performance psychology. He works collaboratively with athletes to enhance the psychological skills necessary to thrive within and beyond sport, including confidence, motivation, awareness, and resilience.

Matt Mikesell joins Premier Sport Psychology after a distinguished career as an athlete an academic, endeavors that have taken him across the country and had him working within a variety of performance domains. A two-sport, two-captain athlete in college, Matt graduated with distinction from the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with an emphasis in Coaching. He went on to earn his master’s degree in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of Denver, where he created intervention plans and treatment programming for athletes with eating disorders, and served as the president of the Center for Performance Excellence. While completing his doctorate in Psychology at the University of North Texas, Matt moonlighted as a sport psychology consultant for the UNT athletic department, and worked as a Doctoral-level counselor at a low-cost community mental health center, assisting clients contending with military trauma, sexual trauma, depressive symptoms, and identity development. Matt believes in understanding the unique story and unique values that each person brings into performance, and strives to help individuals feel they have someone in their corner. Creating a warm, caring, and authentic environment is critical to the work that he does.

A devoted fitness enthusiast, husband, father, and animal advocate, Matt divides his time outside Premier between Crossfit competitions, enjoying time with his family, and fostering stray, displaced, and abused animals—a tradition he and his wife began after volunteering for The Street Dog project in Dallas.

Kayla Clark is an Advisor and Project Manager with Premier Performance Advising. She has worked with a range of family and business clients, spanning from ownership groups, executives and leadership teams to family businesses and families of wealth. Over the years, she has helped our clients to align their visions, values and needs with the missions and goals of their work.

Kayla works directly with our clients; planning and facilitating meetings, retreats, businesses engagements and presentations. She takes a strengths-based approach to working with her clients, building on their existing talents, systems and documentation to help them create a stronger foundation and clearer path forward. Kayla takes the time to deeply understand each individual, and works with our clients to help them maximize their potential; helping them set and reach goals and execute their plans for personal and professional development.

Kayla’s passion is in working with family and next generation groups to help educate and prepare them for their next steps in life – inside and outside of business. She works to develop content for meetings and retreats that is relevant to each participant, helps to draft company documents for policies and procedures and create personal and professional development plans. Kayla draws on her personal experiences within the family business system, and works to facilitate a processes where individuals are involved and engaged. She is committed to building environments with open communication that foster candid conversations respectfully and earnestly. Kayla helps our clients maintain accountability to a structured process, in which the fundamental building blocks of productive meetings are utilized; clear guidelines and boundaries, mutual trust and respect, and self-awareness and management.

In addition to her direct client work, Kayla manages all of our client accounts; coordinating client engagements, managing schedules, meeting documentation, and general accounting. She also directs and leads our assessments programs; processing data, generating reports and facilitating feedback for communication, personality and business performance assessments (such as the TKI, TPA and customized 360s).

Kayla has an Associate’s degree in Applied Sciences and has great experience in running and leading teams from her previous work experience as a pastry chef for several well-known establishments in the Twin Cities and office manager for other small businesses. Kayla has a great passion for the work that we do at Premier Performance Advising, and has been instrumental in our ability to help our clients achieve their individual goals and aspirations. She enjoys working with each and every one of our clients and strives to help us make a difference in their lives and strives to deliver the best quality work in an efficient, effective and positive environment.

Janet Finlayson, PsyD, LP is a performance enhancement consultant who specializes in executive coaching, transition and change management, relationship building, and conflict resolution. She uses a strengths-based approach to improve workplace culture by assessing and improving the overall mental health and well-being of employees. By utilizing an individualized, reflective, relational process, she helps clients to increase self-awareness in order to improve workplace dynamics and culture. She has a unique ability to recognize organizational constraints, develop strategies for solving workplace conflicts, and improve communication across all levels of an organization. For each of her clients, she is committed to improving affective commitment, or the emotional attachment employees have to their place of employment, in order to increase action process and drive sustainable and lasting change within organizations.

Nate Penz, MA, LPCC, is a mental health professional specializing in sport and performance psychology. Nate uses a relational and collaborative approach while working with individuals of all ages. He strives to empower individuals and improve performance on and off the playing surface.

Nate is from Rochester, Minn., and earned his Bachelor’s degree in psychology from St. Olaf College. During college, Nate provided individual quarterback lessons, instructing athletes on fundamentals while also teaching skills related to overcoming adversity, enhancing leadership, building focus, fostering teamwork, and developing a growth mindset. After completing his undergraduate degree, Nate attended the University of St. Thomas and earned his master’s degree in Counseling Psychology. While in graduate school, Nate worked for a nonprofit organization where he planned, implemented, and managed recreational activities for individuals with developmental disabilities. After graduating, Nate worked as a generalist for an outpatient mental health clinic, where he treated a wide variety of mental health and performance concerns.

Nate’s theoretical orientation is integrative and rooted in person-centered theory. He utilizes various concepts and interventions from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivational Interviewing (MI), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), such as thought challenging and reframing, goal setting, and cultivating self-compassion.

Nate played football, basketball, baseball, and golf throughout high school. At St. Olaf College, he played quarterback and was a two-time team captain. In his free time, Nate enjoys spending time with his family and friends, learning new hobbies, and playing basketball, golf, and a variety of instruments such as the piano, drums, guitar, and ukulele.

Harlan Austin, PhD, is a licensed psychologist with national certifications in sport psychology and addiction psychology. With 20 years of experience working in the sport and clinical psychology field, Harlan has worked with individuals focused on high-performance, return-to performance, and leadership development. Harlan has served in many roles including performance consultant, clinician, program developer, and clinical director. He has lectured and presented at national conventions on the topics of sport and performance psychology, clinical sport psychology, athlete psychological assessment, athlete rehabilitation, and athlete return to sport. Through his career Harlan has had the opportunity to work with professional athletes (NBA, MLB, NFL, Boxing, LAX, Ski, Snowboard), healthcare professionals, US Special Forces groups, and high-level executives.

Harlan’s enthusiasm for sport psychology stems from merging his academic and athletic interests into one. Through finding the balance of passions, he believes that sport and performance psychology has a place in all areas of life. He has had the opportunity to deliver performance psychology perspectives in multiple contexts, including university and high school athletic departments, hospital settings, sports medicine clinics, active military groups, and for individual professional clients.

When Harlan is not working he enjoys spending time with his family, climbing mountains, hiking, kayaking, biking, and listening to music.

Stephanie brings extensive experience in building effective client partnerships and delivering exceptional results. With a track record in designing and managing talent development programs for Fortune 500 companies, she excels in seamless interactions and ensuring success at every engagement stage. Stephanie’s strategic approach involves a practical understanding of client needs, aligning services with their objectives, and consistently exceeding expectations through clear communication and tailored solutions.

Driven by a commitment to empower individuals and teams, Stephanie embraces a performance mindset, constantly challenging herself to bring practical and innovative ideas to clients. Her dedication to empowerment is demonstrated through guiding meaningful discussions and creating impactful enablement materials. With a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree from Metropolitan State University, and a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, Stephanie combines project management skills with client engagement expertise, ensuring effective project execution over her 15-plus years of experience.

CERTIFICATIONS
Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
PMI International & PMI-MN Chapter – Active Member

EDUCATION
BA in Community Education – Metropolitan State University, St. Paul
AAS in Finance and Credit Management – Alexandria Technical College