I coach founders, CEOs and senior executives in Austin, and I held the seats before I coached them: founder twice, the second company taken from $0 to $200M and a Nasdaq IPO; EVP at New Relic while it grew from $300M to $500M; COO in a VC-backed turnaround; Chief Product Officer through an $80M acquisition. I am CEC and ICF certified, with a BS in Psychology and a master’s in CMHC underway.
I am a native Texan, born and raised in Galveston, and my practice runs nationally: standing coaching calls on video with leaders everywhere, and on-site work, offsites, working sessions and consulting, anywhere in the country when the engagement books time for it. Austin companies get the same terms and the same operator.
Three ways to work with an Austin company.
Executive coaching, on a standing cadence
A standing cadence on video, weekly, every other week or monthly, with access between calls, on the same terms as all my executive coaching: a practical, candid thought partner who has held the seat you sit in. Executive coaching in Austin for CEOs, founders and senior executives, and leadership team coaching when the team is the unit.
Offsites, in your room
Executive offsites, strategic planning sessions, retreats and leadership alignment workshops, run by an operator, not a moderator. See facilitation for how the room works. Executive offsite facilitation in Austin: strategic planning sessions, leadership retreats and executive team alignment, in your room or the venue your team chooses.
Consulting, on your site
Operational work happens where the work is: your floor, your standups, your board meeting. From strategy consulting to AI consulting, on site when the engagement calls for it. Strategy consulting for Austin companies: scaling through the next stage, board counsel, and work with private equity and venture-backed portfolio companies.
What you get from executive coaching.
Executive coaching is leadership development built around the seat you are in, not a course. Here is what an engagement delivers, as leadership development for Austin executives built around the company you actually run.
Success, defined up front
Before the work starts we agree what success looks like and how we will both know, and we check the work against that measure at set points along the way, not only at the end.
A thinking partner who has held the seat
Standing calls weekly, every other week or monthly, in person or on video, and access between calls, because the hard things do not wait for the calendar.
A sharper view of your own patterns
Blind spots named early, and a clear view of how you lead under pressure. We can work on the board meeting and the person walking into it in the same hour.
Executive presence and stakeholder management
Presence with a board, investors, PE operating partners and the peers who wanted your job, and a plan for the transition into a bigger seat before it arrives.
Progress on the problems that do not fit on a slide
The team that worked at the last size and does not at this one. The difficult conversation you have been putting off. Accountability that does not backfire. Alignment across a leadership team.
Habits that outlast the coaching
The right formula, the right tactics, and repeatable actions: the rhythm that keeps the change alive after we finish. Insight alone does not survive a real quarter.
Your company can fund it. Most of my clients are funded by their company as leadership or professional development, because companies invest in the leaders they intend to keep. If you need to make that case internally, I will help you build it.
Who I work with in Austin.
I have sat on every side of the table, so I understand how the whole organization moves, not just the seat you are in.
Technology founders and CEOs
CEO coaching for founders and first-time CEOs: scaling past the team you started with, investor expectations, and the move from founder-led to a real leadership team. I have made that move myself, and I was EVP at New Relic while it grew from $300M to $500M.
Leaders of PE- and VC-backed companies
A sponsor with a playbook and a clock, and a board that wants the plan delivered. I spent a decade as a managing partner at a venture firm, and I was COO in a VC-backed turnaround.
Executives inside Austin’s tech giants
Dell’s worldwide headquarters in Round Rock, Tesla’s headquarters at Gigafactory Texas, and the Austin offices of Apple, Google, IBM, Intel, Meta and Oracle. Leading inside a large technology company is its own seat: I was EVP at New Relic, and I led transformation inside an 80-year-old enterprise at Cox Automotive.
Leadership teams
Leadership team coaching: the team as a unit, not only its leader. Executive team alignment, clear decision rights, and an offsite that turns into follow-through. More on facilitation.
COOs, presidents and product leaders
The second in command, whether the title is chief operating officer or president, and the most senior product leader. I have held the COO seat and the product seat. More on coaching for COOs and coaching for Chief Product Officers.
Founders facing a raise or an exit
Austin runs on venture money, more than 60 percent of the Texas total in 2018. The next round or the sale is a call I have made more than once as a CEO, and I have been part of 18 exits across my career, three as an operator. More on coaching for startup CEOs.
What is different about leading a company in Austin.
I am a native Texan: born on Galveston Island, BOI as islanders say, and raised there. I caught my first sandtrout off the Gulf Coast Fishing Pier at 4 and started on computers at 10 in Galveston. Texas is where my story starts, and Austin is where so much of Texas technology now gets built.
Austin has been called Silicon Hills since the mid-1990s: enterprise software, semiconductors, corporate R&D and a deep bench of startups. Dell’s worldwide headquarters sits in Round Rock, Tesla’s headquarters inside Gigafactory Texas employs more than 20,000 people, and Apple, Google, IBM, Intel, Meta and Oracle all run offices here. The city felt the dot-com boom and the bust harder than most. So did I: I founded the company that became Web.com, took it from $0 to $200M and a Nasdaq IPO, and steered it through the dot-com collapse by merging with MicronPC.
Austin is also a venture town: in 2018 its companies drew more than 60 percent of all venture capital invested in Texas, and at least 15 startup incubators work here, Capital Factory among them. Those founders face the calls I have made: the next round or the sale, which I have decided more than once as a CEO; the move from founder to CEO; the modernization that sets up an exit, which I led as Chief Product Officer through an $80M acquisition. I spent a decade as a managing partner at a venture firm and sat on the operating side as COO in a VC-backed turnaround. When we talk about your Austin company, the seats are the ones I have held.
Executive coaching in Austin: the questions people actually ask.
How do I choose an executive coach in Austin?
Start with which seat the coach has held and what happened to the company, then the credentials, then how the cadence works week to week. I wrote up six questions to ask any executive coach, including me.
How is your coaching different from other Austin executive coaches?
I held the seats before I coached them: founder twice, public-company CEO, EVP, COO and Chief Product Officer. You work with me directly for the whole engagement, not a matched associate. I am CEC and ICF certified, a member of the APA, ACA and LPCA, the author of the Amazon best seller Business Breakthrough 3, and a native Texan, born and raised in Galveston.
Do startup founders really need an executive coach?
Not always. A founder needs one when the company has outgrown the way the founder leads: the team that worked at twenty people does not at eighty, the board wants a CEO rather than a founder, or the next round depends on decisions the founder keeps deferring. I have made that move myself, from founder to public-company CEO.
When is the right time for a founder to start coaching?
Before the next step, not after it: ahead of a raise, a first executive hire, a reorganization or an exit process. Coaching that starts after the board has lost patience is harder work for everyone.
Can coaching help with a raise or an exit?
Yes, as preparation for the leader, not as banking. The next round or the sale is a call I have made more than once as a CEO, I have been part of 18 exits across my career, three as an operator, and I led the product modernization that set up an $80M acquisition.
Which Austin leaders do you coach?
Founders and CEOs of venture-backed and bootstrapped companies, executives inside Austin’s large technology companies, leaders of PE- and VC-backed companies, COOs, presidents and product leaders, and whole leadership teams.
What is different about leading a company in Austin?
The pace and the money. Silicon Hills pairs global technology employers with a dense startup scene, and Austin draws most of the venture capital invested in Texas, so leaders are often scaling faster than their teams. The section above walks through it and the seats I held that map to it.
How much does executive coaching cost in Austin?
Most of my clients are funded by their company. The price depends on cadence, length and how much of the work is on site; you get a scope and a number on the discovery call. What the market charges is in my guide to executive coaching costs.
Do we need to meet in person in Austin?
No. Most of my clients work with me on video on a standing cadence, with access between calls. On-site work, an offsite, a strategic planning session or a working session with your team, happens where your team is, anywhere in the country, when the engagement books time for it.
Do you coach the whole leadership team or just the founder?
Both. It often starts with the founder and widens to the team: decision rights, how the team disagrees, and the follow-through after an offsite. Leadership team coaching treats the team as the unit.
Do you facilitate executive offsites in Austin?
Yes: executive offsites, annual and quarterly strategic planning sessions, and leadership team working sessions, run by an operator, in your room or the venue your team chooses. See facilitation for how the room works.
How do we start?
The same way every engagement starts: a discovery call. Forty-five minutes on video, the real problem on your desk, and a straight answer on whether I am the right person for it.
Start with the real problem.
Forty-five minutes, no pressure, no pitch. Bring the real problem on your desk and you will leave with a sharper version of it, and a straight answer on whether I am the right person for it.
- Send the note, or book the call if you would rather pick a time.
- Forty-five minutes, on video.
- A scope and a number if it makes sense to work together, and a straight no if it does not.
Or reach me directly:
(629) 304-8755
ken@kengavranovic.com
In person, or remote. City by city.
Executive coaching across a table, offsites in your room, consulting on your site. Based in Alpharetta, Georgia; remote everywhere.
- Alpharetta (home base)
- Atlanta (home market)
- Nashville (travel, remote)
- Dallas (travel, remote)
- Austin (travel, remote)
- Charlotte (travel, remote)
- New York (travel, remote)
- San Francisco (travel, remote)
- Chicago (travel, remote)
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- Washington DC (travel, remote)
- Boston (travel, remote)