Sevanne Kassarjian

Sevanne Kassarjian leads POAL’s global team of designers and facilitator-coaches in co-creating solutions with our clients. As Chief Development Officer she is the lead champion, strategist, and driver of work to ensure the ongoing qualitative advancement, innovation, and development of Performance of a Lifetime methods, talent, and the culture and practices to support that advancement. She oversees our full client portfolio and ensures that we deliver with excellence and have fun along the way. 

Bringing the tools of improvisation and 20 years on the professional stage to bear, Sevanne is the lead architect of our “cast development” programs, recruiting, training, and providing ongoing coaching to our ever expanding global team.

As a performer, consultant, and coach, Sevanne has a passion for lifelong learning and the ways in which the stage frees people to discover new ways of understanding and navigating their world. She developed programs for organizations with her mother, the late anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson (daughter of Margaret Mead), that married cultural anthropology with performance and improvisation techniques, including influential communication, leading in uncertainty, and creating learning organizations.

Sevanne’s TV credits include appearances on numerous daytime soaps, “Diagnosis Murder,” and several flavors of “Law and Order.” She appeared onstage in leading roles at Manhattan Theatre Club, Yale Rep, and regional theaters around the country. She holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego, where she taught speech and acting. On other stages, Sevanne designed and/or facilitated several entrepreneur training programs helping over 2000 entrepreneurs perform a wide range of leadership roles, and she has been an in-house coach for numerous organizations and Fortune 500 companies. She is proud of her Armenian background, her marriage of 25 years, her two children who, like her, excel at performance direction, and the fact that she has broken every one of her limbs at least once.