Executive coach in Nashville.
I coach founders, CEOs and senior executives in Nashville, and I held the seats before I coached them: founder and public-company CEO of the company that became Web.com, taken to a Nasdaq IPO; EVP at New Relic while it grew from $300M to $500M; VP at Cox Automotive through a cloud and DevOps transformation; COO in a VC-backed turnaround. Across those seats and the investor’s side of the table: 35 M&A transactions and 18 exits, through mergers, acquisitions, private equity buyouts full and partial, venture rounds and an IPO.
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. Nashville companies get the same terms and the same operator.
Three ways to work with a Nashville 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 Nashville 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 Nashville: strategic planning sessions, leadership retreats and executive team alignment, run where your team meets.
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 Nashville companies: transformation leadership, board counsel and work with private equity portfolio companies.
Who I work with in Nashville.
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. More on founder coaching from the seed round and coaching for startup CEOs.
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 Nashville’s large enterprises
Transformation inside an established enterprise, where the org chart and the history both push back: the hospital operators, headquarters and manufacturers that anchor Middle Tennessee. I led one 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.
Healthcare and health-tech leaders
Nashville’s largest industry, and a regulated one: hospital systems, outpatient and health IT companies, and the venture-backed businesses built around them. Executive coaching for the seat, not the sector, from someone who has worked in the sector: I built and launched an AI engagement platform that rolled out nationally across retail, healthcare and hospitality in under six months, and inside a national health insurer I have led cloud migration work, a large transformation of the way the company works, and a HIPAA-safe AI automation transformation. I understand the complexities of the health care industry, HIPAA included, and what a regulated operating environment does to the pace of change.
Also coached, each with its own page: VPs of engineering and directors of engineering, IT directors, general managers, and B2B SaaS founders.
Twenty-five years in the seats you sit in.
A trusted perspective, in the boardroom and the press.
Co-author of the Amazon bestseller Business Breakthrough 3.0, with 100+ published articles, international keynotes, and features across leading outlets.
From the clients I have worked with.
- A startup founder raising capital: $5M raised.
- A services company growing 30 percent a year: the team aligned behind a plan it owned for another 30 percent.
- A law firm scaling from a handful of offices to nearly twenty while holding its margins.
- An enterprise product leader trusted by the board and the Street, brought together with the founder and the engineering team.
- A VP stepping into the CTO seat under a new private equity owner: new teams aligned, growth and delivery accelerated through the change.
- A first-time founder growing from $1M to $10M in one year, bringing the leadership team and a leadership style that scaled with it.
- A CEO who wanted to keep growing while the team saw no path: one strategy offsite, a different direction, and a joint plan and number the team owned, another 25 percent year-over-year growth.
- A regional company moving from organic growth alone to organic growth plus acquihires and acquisitions: revenue doubled, from a 30 percent grower to a 150 percent grower.
- A venture-backed company growing 120 percent year over year to a private equity exit.
- A stalled company merging with another to reignite growth and scale.
- A leader moving from a privately owned company to a private equity-owned one, hitting the ground running and delivering the ninety-day expansion plan.
From the people who worked with him.
Working with Ken is genuinely trajectory changing. Ken isn’t interested in telling you what you want to hear. He challenges your thinking, holds you accountable to results, and holds himself to the same high standards.
I have watched Ken boost the output of software teams, raise hiring standards, and transform behavior by example. Every conversation with Ken leaves you inspired.
His leadership during our acquisition was steady, thoughtful, and deeply collaborative.
He brought clarity, velocity, and accountability to every initiative.
What is different about leading a company in Nashville.
Nashville’s largest industry is health care. The Nashville Health Care Council counts more than 900 healthcare companies in the region, generating over $97 billion a year, and the city’s healthcare entrepreneurs have raised more than $2 billion in venture capital in the past decade; HCA Healthcare was founded here in 1968 and sits at number 61 on the Fortune 500. That is a regulated industry run at scale, where the leadership problems are operational and political at once.
The music industry that gives the city its name is a major employer, and technology is growing behind it: Amazon’s operations hub at Nashville Yards, and Oracle’s move of its world headquarters to the city. Headquarters in the metro include AllianceBernstein, Asurion, Bridgestone Americas, Dollar General, Tractor Supply and Nissan North America in Franklin, and around them sit the PE- and VC-backed companies with a sponsor, a plan and a clock. When we talk about what you are facing in Nashville, the sectors are different from the ones I led in, and the seats are not.
Executive coaching in Nashville: the questions people actually ask.
How do I choose an executive coach in Nashville?
Ask what you would ask anywhere, starting with which seat the coach has held and what happened to the company, then how the cadence works week to week. I wrote up six questions to ask any executive coach, including me.
Which Nashville leaders do you coach?
CEOs and founders of technology and health-tech companies, senior executives inside hospital systems and other large Nashville enterprises, leaders of PE- and VC-backed companies, COOs, presidents and product leaders, VPs and directors of engineering, IT directors, general managers, and whole leadership teams. Most are in significant growth or a significant change.
What is different about leading a company in Nashville?
The mix. Health care is the largest industry and a regulated one, so change is operational and political at once; the music and entertainment businesses run on creative talent and tight margins; technology is arriving at scale; and the growth companies around them have investors on the board. I have held seats that map to each.
Do we need to meet in person in Nashville?
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.
How much does executive coaching cost in Nashville?
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 you facilitate executive offsites in Nashville?
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?
With a discovery call: forty-five minutes on video about the problem on your desk. If I am not the right person for it, I will say so on the call.
How do you measure progress?
Against goals agreed before the work starts, in writing when the company is paying, and checked at ninety days. Progress shows in words, not scores: decisions made with more clarity, work delegated and kept delegated, a board conversation that went the way it should, a team that runs without you in each decision.
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 or on video, offsites in your room, consulting on your site.