BAS Chemical Engineering and Management, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MA Sport Psychology Positive Psychology Specialization, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Organizational Leadership Specialization NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Gamification, THE WHARTON SCHOOL
Dafna Aaronson is a distinguished leader at the intersection of human performance, sport psychology, and AI-driven analytics. With a career spanning professional sports teams and global corporations, she has pioneered innovative approaches to talent acquisition, mental performance, culture transformation, and data-driven decision-making. Her expertise lies in maximizing individual and team potential, helping both elite athletes and business leaders thrive under pressure.
As the Founder of Be Sports Minded, she has worked with teams and athletes across the U.S., from the Los Angeles Kings (NHL) to the New York Mets (MLB), applying sport psychology principles to sharpen competitive grit, elevate motivation, and strengthen team cohesion. Recent work includes enhancing her proprietary NLP-driven personality analytics platform to incorporate AI agents, expanding its ethical application in talent identification, workforce productivity, and excellence-driven team development. She continues to provide sport psychology services to professional athletes and teams while also advising private equity-backed firms and global corporations on leveraging data-informed strategies to optimize performance and culture. Beyond sports, she has led HR Analytics and BI teams, transforming data analytics from a reactive, "fill-the-order" model to a proactive, insights-driven strategy. Through stakeholder collaboration, behavioral science, and advanced analytics, she has redefined employee listening, talent optimization, and KPI-driven decision-making to create measurable business impact.
Dafna’s background in Chemical Engineering, Positive Psychology, and Management (University of Pennsylvania, Wharton), combined with a Master’s in Sport Psychology, provides a unique lens on performance optimization. She is currently pursuing a PhD in AI and Machine Learning, further expanding her ability to leverage technology in unlocking human potential
With a career rooted in high-performance collaboration, Dafna is a recognized thought leader and trusted advisor on elite mental conditioning, leadership development, and AI-driven people analytics and workforce planning. Whether shaping the next generation of business leaders or advising elite athletes, her mission remains the same—helping individuals and teams consistently level up their performance in dynamic, high-stakes, competitive environments.
My Story
Born in Chicago, I spent my formative years as a latch-key kid in Highland Park, Illinois. After school sports, two-hand touch, driveway basketball, family tennis outings, and watching the Bears, the Cubs, the Bulls, and the Olympics developed my passion to compete and joy of playing sports. My childhood room was adorned with Nike posters, athletes (i.e. Carl Lewis, Gabby Reese, Andre Agassi, "Monsters of the Midway" '85 Bears defense, the Bulls, and other sports action posters), quotes and handmade collages of professional and Olympic athletes. My parents helped shape my strong work ethic and self-motivated spirit. We were an active family, out in the snow or sun. I loved emulating the professional athletes I watched compete. I remember recording the Olympic Games and watching the tapes over and over. Family friends I grew up with would record football games, and we would spend time analyzing players in-between games of foosball. My active imagination would recreate sport scenarios in my head where I was living out the actions and emotions. For example, I'd take my tennis racket and a tennis ball, bike to my junior high school, and transform the brick side of the building into a match against Monica Seles or Steffi Graf.
I spent time training in figure-skating, volleyball, basketball, soccer, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field, and cross country. I competed in multiple sports throughout high school, earning Varsity letter, Captain, and Scholar-Athlete recognition for Volleyball, Basketball, Cross Country, and Track and Field. Named Female Athlete of the Year, and my cross-country jersey retired, I graduated with records in multiple sports, and my mile time currently stands as the fastest in school history. Throughout the training, pregame routines, and free play, music became a tool to help motivate and moderate energy levels. To this day music is a major part of everything I do.
As I developed into an elite middle-distance runner, I had two significant mentors who nurtured my internal motivation, self-confidence, and exposed me to mental skills (imagery, self-talk, journaling) at an early age. Intermixed with the negative coaching experiences during a time of adolescent development, I struggled to trust the training process. I overtrained and became obsessed with nutrition, resulting in multiple stress fractures and an unhealthy relationship with food. Post college, I trained with an elite road racing team, competed in 5Ks, 10ks, the Marine Corp Marathon and the Boston Marathon (running with a stress fracture). I self-identified as a runner and struggled accepting and defining myself otherwise.
Living in NYC, I had a rewarding career with Deutsche Bank, forging the field of human resource analytics (also known as Workforce Analytics and People Analytics). I took time off focusing on motherhood and being present for my children. I always knew I would reenter the workplace, motivated by the exceptional role model my mother was to me, and I wanted to try and be for my daughter and son. The path to returning to school and earning a Masters in Sport Psychology was carved through being an independent business consultant, understanding what I liked about those experiences and reflecting on what was still missing. Sitting at my son's little league baseball game, listening to parents yelling at their 7 year old children, chastising coaches and umpires, criticizing other children made me question the parents' motivations and effect on their kids. I recall the moment the lightbulb went off and I knew exactly what I wanted to do: parents were yelling and screaming, then laughing amongst themselves, and one parent jokes "I know my son is going to need therapy soon." Something clicked, and I knew I wanted to have a positive impact in a space that was such an important, integral part of my life. I wanted to understand the interplay between the variables (i.e. social, cognitive, physical) leading some people to succeed and thrive, versus others burning out. If I was no longer an elite athlete, I want to help others pursuit of exceptional, consistent performance excellence.
Sport Psychology offers a new extension of what it means to be an athlete. My passion & philosophy is to support athletes self-actualize their potential through sport science and psychology, and empower organizations to unleash this potential holistically. Combining sports science, psychology, and neuroscience sets the foundation for my holistic approach to building a relationship with teams and athletes, emphasizing the whole person. Understanding the behavioral traits and personality traits is key component to unleashing excellence, sustaining motivation and self-confidence in the face of pressure and adversity. Building self-awareness yields information we combine with my resources to create knowledge and transform performance. As a mother of two athletes, I believe in an individualized and collaborative style, emphasizing a growth mindset, harnessing passion and joy in the process as critical pillars of success.