About Dr. Chris Phillips
Founder & Life Fulfillment Architect, Valor Institute
About Dr. Chris Phillips
Dr. Chris Phillips is a clinical and performance psychologist with more than twenty years of experience optimizing human potential in the highest-stakes environments. After completing his assignment as the Clinical Psychologist for Special Operations Command Europe Headquarters (SOCEUR) in Stuttgart, Germany, he returned home to Colorado Springs to launch Valor Institute with one focused mission:
To guide leaders who have served in the most demanding special mission units and sensitive national security roles, Special Operations Forces, senior military leaders, intelligence community operators, and their home-front partners, into a post-uniform life of clarity, renewed purpose, and unbreakable alignment.
What Truly Drives Chris
The mindset, tools, and teamwork that kept operators and their marriages alive downrange can, and must, be deliberately redirected to build an even stronger life after the uniform. He has watched too many Tier-1 performers and senior leaders, along with their relationships, quietly fracture in transition. Valor Enterprises exists to stop that.
Experience & Leadership
SOF Experience
At SOCEUR, Dr. Phillips was responsible for the psychological health, resilience, and operational performance of U.S. Special Operations personnel. He simultaneously served as a SERE Psychologist, advised senior leaders, delivered executive coaching under relentless operational tempo, helped build multinational resilience programs, and provided direct clinical care to operators, civilians, and families carrying the long weight of the mission.
Prior Service & Civilian Leadership
Prior to SOCEUR, he served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force as a SERE psychologist and was selected earlier in his career than any other officer in USAF history to serve as Psychological Consultant to Space Command. He established the DoD’s first Rocky Mountain regional Integrated Behavioral Health training program, directed neuropsychological services at Peterson AFB, and served as the primary psychological advisor to commanders at NORAD, U.S. Northern Command, and the 21st Space Wing. His civilian leadership experience includes serving as Chief Psychologist at one of Colorado Springs’ leading family medicine practices and directing an inpatient combat-trauma treatment program.
Beyond the Summit
Outside the Summit room, Chris and his wife Lisa have mentored single-mother-led families transitioning out of homelessness, a natural continuation of a lifetime of service that began in apartheid-era South Africa, rural hospitals in Nigeria, teaching English in post-Soviet Russia, and serving in America’s inner cities.
Now rooted permanently in Colorado Springs, Chris is committed to the men and women who carried the load for years, and to the families who carried it with them, helping them shift into the next phase with clarity, cohesion, and unbreakable strength.
