Coaches & Leadership Training

KSB Coaching and Consulting

Contact: Kathe Shaw-Bassett

Prior to establishing my coaching practice, I spent 25 years in business development for professional services firms, small businesses and nonprofits. Over the years, in various capacities, I have coached CEOs, entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, senior executives, business owners and sales teams. My passion is helping people get unstuck and achieve their personal or professional goals. I also work with organizations to improve communication and collaboration to build resilient, effective leaders and teams.

Coaching relationships are, by definition, highly intentional. The best coaches I've had were observant, candid and challenged me to move beyond my comfort zone, always setting a tone of creativity and support in our conversations.

My style of coaching echoes this. My clients count on me to bring attentiveness, compassion and straight talk.  I believe  we are navigating our careers and our lives, one conversation at a time... and that what gets talked about with candor sets our GPS coordinates for the future.

Anamaria Nino-Murcia

Contact: Anamaria Nino-Murcia

I have helped founders and startup leaders feel better and lead better since 2011.

Before I became a coach, I was employee #3 at ElliptiGO, a successful startup producing the world’s first elliptical bicycle. My team started in a storage shed and reached profitability before I left to become the startup-focused coach I never had. Since then, I’ve personally coached over 40 startup leaders to lead their teams more effectively; achieve business outcomes; and become the best version of themselves along the way.

Decode Coaching

Contact: Dane Holewinski

Decode is a coaching company that partners with Startup Founders and CEOs to help them navigate the vast opportunity and intense complexity of building a rapidly growing company. We are based in San Francisco and work with entrepreneurs and their teams in Silicon Valley and around the world.

Founder → Leader

Contact: Jaye Goldstein

Jaye Goldstein, who was previously on the Pillar VC/Petri team, offers leadership, management and communication coaching to biotech startups. She’s particularly passionate about supporting women and diverse founders.

Nancy Raulston

Contact: Nancy Raulston

Nancy draws on her diverse background to discover and address individual and team needs. She has an MBA from Dartmouth and an MA and completed PhD coursework in Clinical Psychology from the Professional School of Psychology.

Ben Kiker

Contact: Ben Kiker

As a resilience coach, Ben has helped numerous businesses, high performers, and executives in recovery successfully work through some of life’s most defining moments. Prior to coaching, Ben had a successful career as a Chief Marketing Officer at some of Silicon Valley’s hottest technology companies. Now, he specializes in working with executives who have ‘hit a wall’ due to substance abuse or other addictions.

Jerry Colonna

Contact: Jerry Colonna

The founder and CEO of Reboot.IO, Inc. Colonna is a certified professional coach, Colonna draws on his wide variety of experiences to help clients design a more conscious life and make needed changes to their career to improve their performance and satisfaction. He established his coaching practice in 2007. Prior to this work, Colonna was venture capitalist focused on investing in early stage technology-related startups.

Julie Engel

Contact: Julie Engel

Julie Engel, Ph.D. is an executive coach, organization development and team development consultant and facilitator working with executives and managers to be more resourceful, grounded and wise as they navigate the ever-changing, fast-moving, uncertain, challenging, and demanding circumstances of their work and the world.

Laura Parrott

Contact: Laura Parrott

Laura brings years of experience working with managers and leaders at tech companies and beyond to her practice.  In her role at HubSpot as their VP of Leadership & Management, as well as in her former role as a Global Lead for Manager & Leadership Development Programs at Google, she helped people managers and leaders strategically approach the challenges of leading at scale.

In addition to her full-time roles, Laura co-creates and leads innovative development programs for high potential business leaders. She regularly coaches emerging leaders from start ups in the Boston area, and was a highly regarded facilitator and designer for Intelligent.ly’s Emerge and Exchange programs.

Bob Radin

Contact: Bob Radin

Bob Radin is a Lecturer at Boston College who teaches management and corporate governance courses in the Graduate School of Management. He also runs a CEO interview series called the Manager’s Studio. His research has focused on power and influence in the boardroom and governance in the mutual funds industry. In addition, he serves as an executive coach to executives in the financial services industry and early stage companies and is a co-founder of Frost Ice Loft located in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

Emily Green

Contact: Emily Green

Emily Green is a serial founder who enjoys collaborating with early-stage CEOs, sharing her perspective as an experienced leader and coach.

Whit Mitchell

Whit Mitchell was recommended to Pillar with high praise by one of our co-founding Pillar CEOs, who has worked with Whit for several years as a coach.

Sam James

Sam was recommended to Pillar by the former GM of a publicly traded company in Boston. Sam has a psychology background, and brings science to his executive coaching in a non-academic way. Sam works with both CEOs and executives.

Fred Harburg

Fred is from Harburg Consulting LLC, and comes highly recommended to us from one of our Founding Pillars, Yvonne Hao. He is based in Chicago, is former military, and now teaches at Kellogg and coaches executives and teams. He’s worked with government agencies, public companies, etc.

Susanne Dowdall

Contact: Susanne Dowdall

Susanne has over 25 years of experience as a psychologist. Her practice centers on coaching executives to build their leadership and presence, improve effective communication with internal and external clients, maximize resource management skills, and consult with teams to improve performance.

Don Arnoudse

Contact: Don Arnoudse

Don Arnoudse works with executives and their leadership teams to co-create the future they want. He guides his clients outside their comfort zones, going ‘where it’s scary’ to grow their businesses beyond what common sense tells them is possible. Don Arnoudse was recommended to Pillar by one of our co-founding CEOs' companies, who has known him for 25 years and has deep respect for his practice. Don primarily works with very senior executives.

Stephanie Tran

Contact: Stephanie Tran

Stephanie Tran has a strong background in leadership development and is enthusiastic about creating positive organizational change by helping people be and do their best. A Partner with SSCA, she specializes in talent management and development, organizational psychology, and behavioral science. Stephanie has worked with the Pillar VC team through workshops and 1:1 coaching.

John Delmonaco

Contact: John Delmonaco

John Delmonaco is Senior Partner with RHR International, a firm of management psychologists who consult to senior executives. John focuses on driving the success of business strategy through developing individual executives, aligning talent around key business imperatives, and strengthening the effectiveness of executive teams. John conducts assessments, 360s, succession planning, and coaching. John comes recommended to Pillar by one of our Co-Founding Pillar CEOs.

Brad Spencer

Brad Spencer is Founder and President of Spencer/Shenk/Capers & Associates, Inc. Brad is a trusted advisor to respected Fortune 500 CEOs, a highly-regarded lecturer on organizational behavior, and an expert in the field of organizational psychology. Brad Spencer was recommended to Pillar by one of our co-founding CEO's, with whom he personally works as a coach.

Anthony Palombit

Anthony is based in SF, and is an experienced executive coach for CEOs and c-suite executives in Fortune 1000 and PE portfolio companies. Anthony uses unique approaches, and is very effective by phone. He also teaches at Wharton part time. Anthony was recommended to us by one of our Co-Founding Pillar CEOs.

Amy Tananbaum

Amy Tananbaum has over 25 years of experience consulting with organizations to improve performance. She manages an extraordinary team of resources who provide learning, consulting, and coaching services to global clients. She is wonderful to work with, and her team has supported individuals ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies. Pillar's Sarah Hodges worked extensively with Amy through the leadership development company she previously founded.

Reboot.io

Founded by former VC, Jerry Colonna, Reboot offers coaching, 360 degree performance reviews, bootcamps, co-founder bootcamps, peer groups, internal trainings and organizational change management for your company, and plenty of rich resources for entrepreneurs. The company is based in Boulder, CO, but offers weekend bootcamps and digital peer groups.

Jim Rosen

Contact: Jim Rosen

Jim Rosen works with several CEOs and executives in Boston at Yesware, Pixability, Influitive and other companies. He was a member of Netegrity's founding management team, and has a strong focus on mindfulness, addressing both the inner dynamics of leadership (consciousness) as well as practical skills development (competence).

Kathy Ball-Toncic

Kathy Ball-Toncic, based in Boston, was in HR as an exec and then transitioned to coaching. She works with individuals and also facilitates workshops across a broad range of topics (eg giving/ receiving feedback, unconscious bias, presence, etc).

CEO Roundtable

CEO Roundtable is made up of private, peer advisory groups of 8 to 12 members from non-competing companies.

Catlin & Cookman High-Growth CEO Forum®

Catlin & Cookman offers curated CEO groups, as well as onsite workshops around culture & values for teams. The company has developed a range of offerings that helps innovative leaders grow great companies. Pillar partner, Russ Wilcox, participated in this CEO group as did many of our Founding Pillar CEOs. The company also offers coaching and strategic planning.

Rob Galford

Rob Galford is based in Boston. He is a former HR exec, has written books and articles, and serves on boards. He works with senior execs and boards, and comes highly recommended to us by Founding Pillar Yvonne Hao.

Steve Schlafman

Steve is a professional certified coach, angel investor, facilitator, speaker, former operator and recovering VC. He currently operates High Output, a boutique leadership development company based in NYC. He partners with founders to help them perform at higher levels, lead more authentically and build resilient organizations.

Nancy Goldberg

Nancy Goldberg is based in Boston. She’s a coach focusing on presentation and public speech-making skills. She's very good at helping with practicing public speaking.

Boston Product

Boston Product is unique in that it's made up exclusively of frontline product managers. It's great to connect and collaborate with people who are actually doing the job every day.

The Leadership Consortium

Contact: Cara Shortsleeve

The Leadership Consortium convenes top talent from best-in-class partner companies, immersing participants in a virtual development experience that accelerates leadership impact. Founded by renowned Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei and led by a team of mission-driven HBS alumnae, TLC helps best-in-class organizations create the conditions for all leaders to accelerate and thrive.

Boston Revenue Collective

Led by Rich Gardner (Klaviyo, Catalant) The Boston Revenue Collective is a private, curated community consisting of revenue-focused executives (VP+ across Sales, Business Development, Marketing, Customer Success) from high-growth companies in the Boston area. The organization is a Member of The Revenue Collective, the largest membership organization for commercial executives at high growth companies in the world.

GH Smart

ghSMART is a leadership advisory firm to CEOs, investors and boards. With two decades of experience and over 18,000 senior executives, ghSMART helps clients achieve their top leadership priorities, including CEO succession, M&A diligence and integration, top talent selection. They offer assessments to help teams learn how to communicate more effectively. The company's assessments also offer a useful tool to incorporate in your hiring process.

The Platinum Rule

Many people know The Golden Rule – treat others as you want to be treated. The Platinum Rule shifts perspective to recognize that each of us is wired differently – treat others the way they want to be treated. The Platinum Rule assessment offers a comprehensive personalized Behavioral Style Report. The tool helps you understand your default behaviors as a leader. By delivering the assessment to your team, you can also understand their personal behavioral preferences. The tool provides a way for you to understand each other to better live by the Platinum Rule. Pillar's Sarah Hodges used this tool extensively at the leadership development company she co-founded, Intelligent.ly.

The Leadership Practices Inventory

Run by The Leadership Challenge, the Leadership Practices Inventory Assessment draws attention to an individual’s strengths and areas for improvement as a leader by measuring how often they practice exemplary leadership behavior. While the LPI Self product offers the practitioner increased self-awareness, the LPI 360 assessment goes a step further by illuminating the effectiveness of a leader and by measuring the level of commitment, engagement, and satisfaction of the individuals they lead. Pillar's Sarah Hodges used this tool extensively at the leadership development company she co-founded, Intelligent.ly.

Real Colors

Real Colors is an assessment for teams. The tool helps you understand each person's personal behavioral defaults, helping you learn how to adapt your style to others for better collaboration. Pillar's Sarah Hodges used this tool extensively at the leadership development company she co-founded, Intelligent.ly.

VPE Forum

Contact: Melanie Ziegler

Led by experienced engineering leader, Melanie Ziegler, the VPE Forum provides a peer group for leading VPEs in scaling Boston companies. The organization hosts small, dedicated groups of executives from non-competing, similarly sized companies meet in a confidential, trusting and supportive environment. Members benefit from the insights, honest advice and shared best practices of their peers. Several trusted friends of Pillar have participated in the program who have wonderful things to say about their experience.

The Speech Improvement Company

Contact: Dr. Ethan Becker

The Speech Improvement Company develops and delivers customized group training programs and private, one-on-one coaching sessions in five key areas: Leadership & Management, Public Speaking, Sales Communication, Customer Service Communication and Accent Modification. This company comes highly recommended from the team at a public company in Boston.

Minds at Work

Minds at Work offers several ways for you to start accomplishing your most important change goals. The team offers small group coaching pods to personalized 1:1 processes delivered by coaches. The Change Course is a 8-week online learning program from Minds at Work that is designed to significantly enhance the capacity of individuals or team-members to deliver on their most important, and challenging, change goals.

Collaborative Gain

Collaborative Gain is a community of senior leaders who help each other lead innovation and customer-centric change to drive business results – the most effective approach to growing your business network and career. The company offers curated peer groups for C-level executives that meet twice yearly.

Lead with Purpose

Contact: Laura Parrott

Lead with Purpose is an immersive, multi-day cohort program for people who lead teams, projects, and/or small organizations. Participants will join a mixed cohort of ~25 leaders from various Boston area companies and organizations to learn, discuss, and reflect upon effective leadership and management practices. Laura Parrott, VP of L&D at HubSpot, designed this six-session workshop with for new managers at high-growth companies in Boston. Laura was previously part of the L&D team at Google, and was a facilitator for Intelligent.ly's management development program.