Making the implicit explicit.
For more than 25 years, I have served as a trusted thought partner to CEOs and senior leaders, helping them design and implement their leadership with greater clarity, intention, and impact.
PROFILE
A lifelong inquiry into high performance and human meaning.
My path to this work began long before I had a name for it. As a nationally-ranked junior and collegiate tennis player, I became obsessed early with questions that have never left me: What informs and sustains commitment to excellence amidst a chosen craft? What are the habits and practices that support high performance? What separates those who reach their potential from those who don't?
That line of inquiry led me to a second, equally compelling series of questions: how do people make meaning around their lives and particularly their work? What really motivates them? What are their core values, and how do those values inform their actions? What ultimately animates their leadership?
These questions — about performance and meaning — have been the cornerstones of my work for more than 25 years. It’s why I do what I do.
I have coached executives across many industries, with a growing focus on entrepreneurs and founders. I have lived, worked, and consulted throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. I reside with my family in the San Francisco Bay Area.
HOW I WORK
A thought partner in the design of your leadership.
I don’t fully identify with the title “executive coach.” My work toggles — organically, never linearly — between being a sounding board, a trusted advisor, a mentor, and a strategic provocateur. The appropriate role in any given moment depends entirely on what is most needed.
MAKING THE IMPLICIT EXPLICIT
CEOs are under constant and increasing scrutiny. Every behavior, every decision is interpreted by those around them. I help leaders make their guiding principles and inner logic more legible—surfacing the “why behind the what.” I often describe the CEO as the Chief Context Officer: the person responsible for setting context not just in support of the strategic direction of the organization, but also around their own behavior and values.
FIRST PRINCIPLES OVER BEST PRACTICES
Too many leaders blindly adopt practices from other organizations without examining whether their own context is sufficiently similar. Much of what passes for “best practice” is really just common practice. My work helps leaders define their own first principles, getting clear what problem they are actually trying to solve and what solution is genuinely best given their specific circumstances.
THE HYGIENE OF PARTNERSHIP
Effective leadership is inseparable from effective partnership. I help leaders think rigorously about the quality of their most critical relationships—ensuring mutual clarity of expectations, building the capacity for candid conversation, and making sure key people know where they stand.
BEHAVIOR AS THE DIAGNOSTIC
The truth of any situation—about a person or an organizational culture—is always found in actual behavior. It’s about the “do” more than the “say.” I use real use cases from my clients’ work as the primary vehicle for insight: working through specific situations to extract the leadership principles that can be applied going forward.
STAKEHOLDERS IN THE ROOM
I have largely moved away from anonymous 360-degree feedback. In my experience, it prevents leaders from engaging directly with the data, and it weakens the organizational muscle for honest conversation. Instead, I bring critical partners and stakeholders directly into dialogue with my clients. This yields richer insight and actively builds the culture of candor.
BALANCING THE NEAR AND FAR
Every working session is oriented around what is most at stake for my client right now. But I hold both my clients and myself accountable for balancing short-term, tactical concerns with longer-term strategic ones. The best leadership development happens amidst that intersection.
My work is not about providing answers. It is about building a leader's capacity to diagnose and solve their most complex challenges with greater clarity, intention, and effectiveness.
WHO I WORK WITH
Selective by design.
I am deliberate about who I work with, knowing that the quality of my partnerships is the foundation of the quality of my work. These are some of the characteristics I seek.
APPLIED CURIOSITY
I am drawn to leaders who are curious in the fullest sense — about the world, themselves, and the people around them. They are critical thinkers, form nuanced perspectives, and value learning as a practice.
INTELLECTUAL HONESTY
The leaders I work best with can hold two things at once: genuine belief in what they are building, and clear-eyed honesty about current reality. These aren’t in tension — they are both necessary. I need partners who are willing to tell the truth about the way things are, because that is the only foundation on which real improvement is possible.
A CREATOR’S ORIENTATION
I am most compelled to work with leaders who think like builders — people committed to solving meaningful problems and creating organizations worthy of the challenges they are taking on. Whether they are founding a company or leading a large enterprise, what distinguishes them is that their focus is outward and forward: on what they are building, and why it matters.
THE RIGHT CONDITIONS FOR INFLUENCE
Leadership at the most senior level is complex enough that no single advisor can or should serve as the only source of counsel. I encourage leaders I work with to create a sufficient “village” of perspectives and inputs in support of their development. That said, it’s essential there is a sufficient foundation of trust in order for me to have genuine influence.
ORGANIZATIONS IN SERVICE OF HAVING CONSEQUENTIAL, POSITIVE IMPACT
I need to invest in organizations I believe in — enterprises that are creating genuine value in the world.
SELECT CLIENTS
A representative sample of client organizations
Abnormal AI
Bill.com
Blink Health
CHG Healthcare
Filevine
Intuit
Roblox
ServiceNow
Verily