Dan Pelton

From Combat Psychology to Executive Coaching: Dan Pelton’s Journey

Dr. Dan Pelton is a board-certified clinical psychologist who brings a rare blend of scientific insight, battlefield-tested resilience, and strategic advisory experience to one of today’s most urgent workplace problems: burnout.

For 13 years at Deloitte Consulting, Dan worked with senior leaders and global corporate clients across industries and regions, helping organizations tackle performance pressure, redesign work, and build cultures where resilience is supported rather than assumed. This corporate lens, paired with his clinical background, allows him to bridge the gap between science and strategy in a way few practitioners can.

His understanding of resilience didn’t come from theory. It was forged through necessity. In 2010, shortly after earning his psychology license, Dan deployed to Afghanistan as the sole clinical psychologist across 18 remote combat outposts. Thousands of soldiers depended on him. And while he helped others stay mission-ready under extreme stress, he neglected his own limits.

The result was burnout, emotional exhaustion, and a loss of empathy — the very fuel for his work. That experience reshaped his entire view of resilience. It’s not about being unbreakable. It’s about being supported. It’s not about toughing it out. It’s about knowing when to speak up, recalibrate, and reconnect.

Today, Dan works with organizations that are ready to confront burnout at its roots. He helps leaders and teams rethink how work is structured so that resilience isn’t left to personality, chance, or overfunctioning, but is built into culture and design.

Dan is the author of Rethinking Employee Resilience (2025) and is regularly featured in national media, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, ABC, and Fast Company, where he contributes to shaping the public conversation on employee well-being and organizational culture.

Because the question isn’t whether your people are strong enough.

It’s whether the system is smart enough.