She Didn’t Just Survive. She Built.

Caitlin Modestine never planned to be on stages, coaching companies, or building a business from scratch. Her earliest ambition was much simpler: become a third-grade teacher. And she did—landing the job at the very school she grew up in. It was a full-circle moment. Dream realized.

But just months in, everything changed. The archdiocese shut down and merged a number of Catholic schools, including hers. Faculty were laid off and forced to reapply for their own jobs. She was rehired—beating out more senior teachers—and taught for two more years. But something had shifted.

“I realized I wanted to work with big people,” she says. “I wanted to make a bigger impact. I just had this calling that I was meant to do more.”

So she walked away from the safety of the classroom. And stepped into the unknown.

The path from teacher to entrepreneur wasn’t linear—and it wasn’t easy. Caitlin didn’t come from a family of business owners. She grew up in a small town outside Philly, in a world where the only visible careers were doctor, lawyer, teacher, businessman. She went to Catholic school her whole life. Stability was the goal. Entrepreneurship wasn’t even a word in the conversation.

But what Caitlin did have was resilience. A lot of it.

“I have complex PTSD with trauma going all the way back to childhood,” she says. “I had to figure it out by myself. I became this solo problem solver. Whatever came at me, I was going to figure it out.”

That mindset shaped everything.

When a family friend asked what made her happy outside of teaching, she answered without hesitation: health and wellness. It had helped her through an eating disorder—a way of regaining control when everything else felt chaotic. So she got certified as a holistic health coach. She worked an office job by day, studied at night, and built a coaching business from the ground up.

Then came workshops. Partnerships with wellness centers. A new community through Beachbody, where she taught herself sales, marketing, recruiting, and grew a social media following—eventually hitting the top 1% of the company.

But it still wasn’t enough.

“It wasn’t financially what I needed it to be,” she says. “But I learned so much. I taught myself every skill I needed to build something real.”

That became her theme: Build. Learn. Pivot. Repeat.

She joined a life sciences consulting firm and helped build the company’s talent function from scratch—training, leadership development, internal recruiting. For four years, it was a perfect fit.

Until the culture changed. Leadership got toxic. She left, heartbroken but clear it was the right decision.

Then came a new offer—an IT consulting firm that had been around 18 years but operated like a startup. They needed someone to build systems across talent, finance, and operations. It was a mess. Caitlin jumped in anyway.

“They hadn’t tracked anything. I couldn’t even make payroll,” she says. “I was basically operating as the COO because the leadership team wasn’t communicating. It felt like I was back in the classroom trying to get everyone on the same page.”

Four months in, they ran out of money.

That was just one chapter of a brutal year. Her uncle passed away. She was traveling constantly. Her belongings were stolen. Her health declined. Then she was diagnosed with stage zero cervical cancer. She had surgery. Recovered. Made it through.

“I woke up on January 1, 2024, and cried,” she says. “I couldn’t believe I made it out of that year alive. It almost broke me.”

But it didn’t.

In the midst of all of it, Caitlin felt something tugging at her: the idea of building something of her own again. She’d always wanted to speak to groups. To write a book. To help people—especially women—turn obstacles into opportunities.

Her husband said it first: “Why don’t you start something of your own?”

She wasn’t sure she was ready. But a former mentor asked her to help build a new business, and she said yes. They launched a consulting company in October 2024.

For a while, it worked—until it didn’t.

The mentor betrayed her trust. The partnership fell apart.

But something had shifted again. Doors had opened. Confidence had returned. She pivoted fast, launched her own LLC in February, and stepped fully into her work as a speaker and resilience coach.

“I’ve been building and growing things for years,” she says. “Now I’m doing it for me.”

Today, Caitlin is focused on coaching, workshops, and speaking engagements. She helps individuals and teams navigate adversity, embrace uncertainty, and move forward when the path gets hard.

“My main area of expertise is what happens when something’s thrown at you,” she says. “You control the controllable. What are you going to do about it?”

She’s also writing a book. And another one after that. Maybe even three. Because when she needed help the most, she turned to books. Now, she wants to be the book someone else reaches for.

Her story isn’t clean or polished. It’s messy. Real. Human.

And that’s exactly what makes her such a powerful teacher.