John is considered to be one of the premier executive coaches in Silicon Valley, having coached CEOs and Founders for over 25 years. John built his career working with the top leaders at companies ranging from early stage start-ups to Fortune 500 firms like Apple, Nike and Twitter. His first company ExecutivEdge set the standard for executive coaching in Silicon Valley over 20 years ago.
John’s passion for bringing strong leadership and culture building skills to early stage ventures resulted in the founding of the Velocity Group in 2015. He and Managing Partner Edward Sullivan have positioned Velocity as the “go to” coaching firm for early stage companies beginning to scale. They have worked with companies at various stages of growth including CultureAmp, Darkstore, Doordash, Grail, Krux, MasterClass, Marketo, Noom, Remitly, and many others. John also serves as a Fellow at Sapphire Ventures.
John holds a PhD in Organizational Communication and Leadership from Purdue University. He spent 17 years on the faculty at San Jose State University in the College of Business and was named Outstanding Professor of the entire University during his time there. He serves on a number of nonprofit local and national Boards.