Executive Leadership Coaching and Strengths Development for Tech Leaders

You excel in your craft, yet the scope of senior leadership continually asks you to stretch into new territory. Expanding mandates, complex organizational shifts, and high-visibility expectations carry real weight. Navigating that level of responsibility is demanding work that benefits from dedicated, confidential support.

With over 25 years leading design organizations at companies including Smartsheet, Dropbox, Dialpad, Gap Inc., and Monster Worldwide, I understand the realities of technology leadership from the inside.

As an ICF-credentialed (ACC) and Co-Active certified (CPCC) coach, I work from the principle that you are naturally creative, resourceful, and capable of charting your own path. I serve as an objective thinking partner. Through deep inquiry, active listening, and structured reflection, I help you access your own clarity, uncover blind spots, and make high-stakes decisions with conviction.

Sustaining High Performance in High-Stakes Roles

How you lead and how you feel are deeply connected. High-friction organizational dynamics disrupt sleep and executive focus. Days spent jumping between meetings drain patience and presence. Sustainable leadership requires understanding your personal operating rhythm and giving your well-being the same strategic focus you give to business outcomes.

Core Areas of Focus

  • Executive Onboarding and the First 90 Days: For newly appointed Directors and VPs stepping into broader scope. We explore your strategic vision, cultivate authentic presence, and help you build strong relationships across the executive bench.

  • Leading Through Organizational Shifts: For leaders guiding teams through rapid expansion, restructuring, or company strategy pivots. We explore how to anchor your team while protecting your personal stamina.

  • Cross-Functional Influence and Alignment: For leaders working to establish an authoritative voice alongside peers across product, engineering, and executive leadership.

  • High Output and Energy Management: For leaders delivering strong commercial results who want to reclaim focus, physical vitality, and day-to-day patience.

  • Strategic Career Direction: For experienced leaders reflecting on what matters most in their next chapter, evaluating future opportunities through the lens of personal values and natural strengths.

Schedule an Exploratory Call

Ways to Work Together

I offer two distinct ways to partner, depending on whether you need a sustained thinking partnership or a focused strategic reset.

Six-Month Executive Coaching Engagement

A comprehensive partnership designed to support your long-term growth and day-to-day execution.

  • Cadence: Bi-weekly 1:1 coaching sessions over six months.

  • Focus: We address real-time operational challenges as they happen while building long-range leadership capabilities. We examine stakeholder dynamics, strategic alignment, team health, and sustainable personal habits.

  • Outcome: You develop consistent clarity, stronger self-trust, and practical tools to lead complex organizations with composure and authority.

Start the Conversation

Elevating your leadership begins with an intentional pause to examine your current operating rhythm.

Schedule an Exploratory Call

90-Minute Gallup CliftonStrengths Session

A targeted, intensive deep dive to explore your natural wiring and apply those insights to a specific leadership challenge.

  • Format: One 90-minute 1:1 session based on the Gallup CliftonStrengths assessment, completed online prior to our meeting.

  • Focus Tracks (Choose One):

    • Thrive Where You Are: For leaders looking to maximize energy and satisfaction in their current role. We analyze your Top 5 themes, conduct an energy audit of your weekly commitments, and craft intentional adjustments to reframe or delegate daily drains around your strengths.

    • Find Your Next Move: For leaders evaluating a career change. We map your past career peak moments to your themes, build an objective five-point role-fit scorecard, and develop a clear positioning narrative for executive interviews and conversations.

  • Outcome: Immediate tactical clarity on where your energy comes from, how you do your best work, and specific actions you can apply right away.

The Whole-Leader Methodology

My practice bridges operational leadership with holistic personal performance through three distinct disciplines:

  1. Operating Tech Experience: Having spent decades building, scaling, and restructuring design teams in fast-moving technology environments, I understand your daily operational context immediately.

  2. Co-Active Coaching Framework: Grounded in ICF competencies and Co-Active principles, my coaching process uses structured inquiry and deep listening. I challenge assumptions and help you test perspectives so every decision and action comes authentically from you.

  3. Integrative Well-Being: As a certified health and wellness coach, I help you connect cognitive clarity to physical fundamentals like rest, movement, and nervous system health. These daily habits support the physical and mental stamina needed for the long run.

My Leadership Coaching Toolkit

Strategic Vision & Executive Influence

  • First 90 Days Integration — Land your new VP or Director role with clear priorities, established stakeholder relationships, and early wins.

  • Stakeholder Mapping — Identify the key individuals who shape your success and develop strategies to build trust and cross-functional alignment.

  • OKR & Leadership Visioning — Turn abstract goals into measurable outcomes while defining the kind of authentic leader you want to be.

Team Dynamics & Organizational Design

  • Org Structure & Role Design — Structure your growing product, UX, or engineering team so responsibilities are clear and people can execute effectively.

  • Career Ladders & Competency Frameworks — Establish clear growth paths and expectations for your team, built from decades of experience defining them at scale.

  • Conversation Rehearsal — Safely practice high-stakes feedback, performance reviews, and strategic pushback before you step into the boardroom.

Sustainable Performance & Energy

  • Calendar & Energy Audits — Identify your hidden drains and redesign your week around deep focus, delegation, and essential recovery.

  • CliftonStrengths Assessment — Discover your top natural talents to lead authentically from your strengths rather than forcing someone else's management style. (Note: If you prefer VIA Strengths here like the health page, you can easily swap this!)

  • Nervous System & Resilience Routines — Implement simple breathwork, sleep, and nutrition habits that sustain your focus, mood, and decision-making through long days.

Group Coaching

Nicole's group coaching combines personalized attention with the power of peer learning at roughly half the cost of 1:1 coaching. Participants gain diverse perspectives, shared accountability, and collective problem-solving while building lasting professional relationships. Leaders grow not only from coaching but from each other's challenges and breakthroughs.

Coaching Circles

  • 6 participants maximum

  • Six 90-minute group sessions (bi-weekly)

  • Peer learning and shared accountability

  • Email and Slack support between sessions

  • Focus on shared leadership challenges

Women's Leadership Circle

Women leaders often face unique challenges: being the only woman in the room, balancing competing demands, and overcoming systemic biases. The circle format provides validation, strategy, and community that 1:1 coaching alone cannot offer.

  • 6 participants maximum

  • Six 90-minute group sessions (bi-weekly)

  • Safe space for women leaders to navigate workplace dynamics and leadership challenges

  • Peer support and shared accountability

  • Email and Slack support between sessions

  • Focus areas: leadership presence, advocating for yourself, work-life integration, imposter syndrome