My Approach

I’ve been in your shoes. 

I’ve honed my skills as a senior executive leading 6 organizations over 25 years.  I know the territory and bring a lifetime of potent frameworks and methodologies into my role as coach and consultant.

Two fundamental leadership precepts guide my work; choice follows awareness and energy follows attention.

Leadership is complex. Bringing big ideas and visions into the world is a collaboration; a team sport.

While no one can succeed by themselves, my experience is that leaders need a certain presence to be effective. They need highly evolved skills for navigating complexity. And they need to develop best practices for themselves and their teammates.

You may think leadership is a natural talent. But for most people, leading requires a specific set of skills that are refined over time.

“A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.” - Brene Brown, professor, storyteller, researcher who’s spent two decades studying leadership, courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy.

“It’s my lived experience that leadership is something that can be learned, and it’s generated in relationship with others. Exemplary leadership is not a thing—the correct genes, an appointment, a technique, or the chance of the draw that favors one individual over another. Exemplary leadership is a way of being, whether you’re leading others or leading your own life.  It’s a skill and art that can be development through commitment and practice.” - Richard Strozzi-Heckler, author of 9 books, coach and consultant on “embodied leadership and mastery,” seventh degree black belt Shihan in the martial art of Aikido.

Bio

For two decades I’ve collaborated with entrepreneurs, product developers, educators, digital marketers, artists, thought leaders, senior executives, organizers, engineers, and vintners from organizations of all sizes - from 130,000 employees to 5.   

I hold a Bachelor’s in Anthropology from UCLA and a Master’s in Organizational Development from Antioch University. I have extensive training in a number of coaching and transformational disciplines which are listed below under key influences. 

As an executive, my leadership brought workshops to 100,000 middle and high school students a year with Challenge Day, an award-winning program highlighted by Oprah Winfrey and MTV that dramatically reduced bullying and suicide in schools across the U.S.

For nine years I was CEO of MediaOne Services, the premiere broadcasting, satellite, and studio production hub in San Francisco for marquee clients such as NBC, HP, Climate Alliance, BBC, and the San Francisco Giants.

For the past six years I was President of the Strozzi Institute, the founding global somatic institute for leadership and coaching, where I continue on faculty.

Current and Past Collaborations

Key Partnerships

Key Influences

Connor Beaton (Men’s Work), Jude Bijou (Attitude Reconstruction), Brene Brown, EOS Operating System, Fernando Flores (Pluralistic Networks & Conversations for Action), Hand-in-Hand Parenting, IFS/Internal Family Systems, International Coaching Federation, Staci Haines (Somatics Trauma & Resilience), Prentis Hemphill (Finding Our Way), Andrew Humberman (Huberman Lab Podcast), Piper Makepeace (Heart of the Matter), Jill Morris (Choice Theory), Rayona Sharpnack (Institute of Gender Partnership), Richard Strozzi (Strozzi Institute), Spiral Dynamics, David Treleaven (Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness)