Sonia Elhaj

Sonia Elhaj is a certified coach with a master’s degree in international education and 20+ years of expertise in human development. Despite a thriving early career as an educator and academic, she never felt like she belonged anywhere as much as she did on stage. So she left the classroom to explore the connection and synergies between performance and personal development. This led her to camera and stage acting and coaching. In addition to working extensively within leading educational organizations in the United Arab Emirates, she has supported numerous local and global corporate clients including Cisco, Avaya, Wipro, Criteo, Majid Al Futtaim, Emirates Group, Americana Group, House of Fraser, and ADNOC. Sonia uses her performance and coaching tools to inspire participants to unlearn their default behaviors, free themselves from limiting beliefs, and build agility as they negotiate meaning, decisions, and relationships. 

Sonia has found that embodiment, storytelling, acting, and kinesthetics bypass the limitations of the mind and re-invigorate the creativity of childlike play and bodily wisdom in ways that are quicker, more memorable, and more transformative than other conventional tools. Outside of performance and facilitation spaces, Sonia unwinds by surrendering to the yoga mat, cycling outdoors, swimming in the sea, and singing off-key while driving to work. She is fluent in French, Spanish, and Italian, but loves expressing herself in English and Arabic the most.