Executive Psychologists Who Know Your World
Our advisors specialize in complex, high-performing professional populations. They pair deep psychological expertise with experience inside some of the nation's most demanding organizations. They understand the pressures, relationships, and dynamics that come with high-stakes work. We offer a shared methodology and a highly selective bench, so the rigor of the work doesn't depend on which of us is in the room.
One Standard, Across the Entire Network
A selective bench. We look for a rare combination of psychology training, enterprise experience, and the composure to sit across from a leader under significant pressure.
A shared method. Every engagement runs on a framework for surfacing patterns and translating insight into action: detect what's draining a leader, define the patterns driving it, and restore what has been depleted.
Built to compound. What we have learned across thousands of leaders has sharpened how every advisor works.
The People Behind Your Leaders
We've spent our careers inside the minds, and alongside the lives, of high-performers
Our advisors bring executive psychology, clinical research, and experience inside high-pressure environments. We've supported founders in crisis, managing directors at global firms, and rising executives and operators navigating major inflection points.
We match psychological insight with action. Whether a client needs in-the-moment tactical support or deeper developmental advisory, we adapt to the urgency, the personality, and the system.
We understand the psychological architecture of the executive mind and we've helped thousands of leaders make difficult decisions, navigate complex team dynamics, and lead through moments of extreme pressure and change.
Founder
Kristen Tolbert, Ed.D., LPC
Kristen built The ACP Group on the conviction that leaders deserve depth and partnership that understands their world. She blends psychological insight with business strategy, helping leaders read their situations clearly and make the calls only they can make.
She has spent twenty-five years working alongside leaders in global professional-services firms, Big Law, Big Tech, pro-sports, banking, healthcare—including five years in-house at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
For the last fifteen years, executive psychology has been the focus of her work. More than 12,000 documented sessions with senior leaders taught her what breaks them down and what restores them. That experience became the firm's method—detect what's draining a leader, define the patterns driving it, and restore what has been depleted before it becomes too expensive.
She integrates modern psychoanalytic principles with a clinician-operator's lens, holds a Doctorate in Organizational Leadership and a Master's in Counseling Psychology, and completed modern psychoanalytic training at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis.
Her ability to read people and situations lets her tailor solutions with precision, striking the balance between reflection and real change—which is why clients call her their "secret weapon." It's also why we built systems to scale the work, recruited people who share the mission, and keep evolving. We love what we do.
How We Work
Whole-person partnerships. Leadership doesn't make anyone less human. The same mind making high-stakes decisions is the one carrying real emotional and psychological load. We work with all of it.
Tailored, not templated. No worksheets, no checklists, no one-size-fits-all. We deliver insight built around each leader's role, internal architecture, and decision demands.
Rigorous, not pathologizing. Our clients are among the most capable people in the world; we treat them that way while bringing experience and partnership.
Evidence-based, sharpened by experience. Grounded in psychoanalysis, neuroscience, and clinical and performance psychology, and proven across decades of executive work.
We know the culture. The people we work with don't have to explain what an up-or-out culture does to a person, how pressure changes when decisions can move markets, missions, organizations, or public opinion, or what it means to operate with little room for error. Our psychologists have operated inside these worlds, so we can get right to work.
Leadership at This Level Demands More
Our work includes the most demanding environments in the country—leaders from top management consultancies and Big Four firms, federal institutions including the SEC and senior government staff, academia, professional sports, aerospace, and leading technology companies.
