Executive coaching in San Francisco.
I am an executive coach for CEOs, founders and senior executives in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and I held the seats before I coached them: EVP at New Relic, a San Francisco company, while it grew from $300M to $500M; founder and CEO of the company that became Web.com, taken to a Nasdaq IPO; founder and CEO of an AI company that shipped a generative AI product Fortune 500 teams use; COO in a VC-backed turnaround. I am CEC and ICF certified, with a BS in Psychology and a master’s in CMHC underway.
For my years at New Relic I flew from Atlanta to San Francisco every week, Sunday to Friday, to work with the team at its Spear Street headquarters. 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. San Francisco and Bay Area companies get the same terms and the same operator.
Three ways to work with a San Francisco 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 San Francisco 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 San Francisco and the Bay Area: 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 San Francisco companies: scaling leadership, AI strategy, board counsel, and work with private equity and venture 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 Bay Area 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 San Francisco.
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 San Francisco’s technology companies
Salesforce, Uber, Airbnb and Databricks, and the AI companies founded here or moved here, OpenAI and Anthropic among them. Change inside a company growing that fast is its own seat; I held it as EVP at New Relic.
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.
Leaders taking a company through AI
AI companies have been founded in San Francisco or moved here for its talent and its venture capital, and every board now wants an AI answer. I founded and ran an AI company as CEO and shipped a generative AI product that Fortune 500 teams use. See AI consulting.
What is different about leading a company in San Francisco.
San Francisco runs on technology. Salesforce, Uber, Airbnb and Databricks are headquartered here, and a new wave of AI companies, OpenAI and Anthropic among them, were founded in the city or moved here for its talent pool and its proximity to venture capital. I was EVP at New Relic, a San Francisco company, while it grew from $300M to $500M: I led a 450-person organization through significant change and a new-product push worth $50M+ in incremental ARR, and presented to a board that included partners from Benchmark, Trinity Ventures and Madrona.
The city has been here before. Startups invigorated its economy in the dot-com boom of the late 1990s; in that boom I founded an internet infrastructure company, took it to 650 people and a Nasdaq IPO, and through a merger with MicronPC it became Web.com. Since then I spent a decade as a managing partner at a venture firm and board member across 35 deals and 18 exits, was Chief Product Officer at Coursedog through an $80M exit, and sat in the COO seat of a VC-backed turnaround. When we talk about your San Francisco company, the seats are the ones I have held.
Executive coaching in San Francisco: the questions people actually ask.
How do I choose an executive coach in San Francisco?
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.
What makes your coaching different from other SF executive coaches?
I held the seats before I coached them: founder and public-company CEO, EVP at New Relic, a San Francisco company, Chief Product Officer and COO. 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, and the author of the Amazon best seller Business Breakthrough 3.
How much does executive coaching cost in San Francisco?
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.
Which San Francisco and Bay Area leaders do you coach?
Founders and CEOs of venture-backed companies, executives inside technology companies scaling fast, leaders taking a company through AI, COOs, presidents and product leaders, and whole leadership teams.
How does executive coaching help with San Francisco’s tech leadership challenges?
Most of them are scaling problems: an organization that doubles before its leaders do, a board that wants growth and margin at once, and leaders promoted into seats nobody has held at this size. I was EVP at New Relic while it grew from $300M to $500M, so the coaching starts from the seat, not a framework.
Do you coach startup founders and venture-backed CEOs?
Yes. I founded the company that became Web.com and took it public, spent a decade as a managing partner at a venture firm and board member across 35 deals and 18 exits, and sat in the COO seat of a VC-backed turnaround. See coaching for startup CEOs.
Do you coach leaders through AI transformation?
Yes. I founded and ran an AI company as CEO and shipped a generative AI product that Fortune 500 teams use. The coaching is the leadership side: where AI pays in your business, who owns it, and how the team changes. See AI consulting.
Do you coach leaders on burnout and the pace of a Bay Area company?
Yes, and I have lived that pace. At New Relic I flew from Atlanta to San Francisco every week, Sunday to Friday, and logged 200,000 miles a year between customer advisory boards and global keynotes. It is a lot of fun until you do it. The coaching covers the balance around the work too: family, health and the things that keep you whole, so you show up as your best self in the boardroom and at the dinner table.
Is executive coaching confidential?
Yes. If your company is funding the engagement, it will know the engagement is happening and may want to agree the goals up front, but what is said in a session stays in the session.
Do we need to meet in person in San Francisco?
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 leadership teams in the Bay Area, or only individuals?
Both. Leadership team coaching treats the team as the unit: decision rights, how the team disagrees, and the follow-through after an offsite. It often starts with one executive and widens to the team.
Do you facilitate executive offsites in San Francisco?
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 City (travel, remote)
- San Francisco (travel, remote)
- Chicago (travel, remote)
- Miami (travel, remote)
- Washington, DC (travel, remote)
- Boston (travel, remote)