Tawny Lees, M.B.A

Tawny’s coaching career began in 2004, inspired and informed by over 18 years of corporate leadership experience. She held VP roles in the financial industry in functions as diverse as Risk, Sales, Service, Operations, Change Management and Marketing. A quick learner, strong collaborator, and adept leader, she was known for being able to build functional organizations from the ground up and quickly turn around struggling ones. Despite literally growing up in crazy-paced organizations, Tawny maintained a pragmatic and grounded perspective on leadership.

  • Through Tawny’s practical and intuitive approach, her clients:

    • Define their vision and aspirations for themselves as leaders.

    • Assess their “current state” of leadership and design a roadmap to improve specific leadership behaviors in areas such as relationship building, influencing, coaching, making decisions, delegating, and thinking strategically.

    • Explore their perspectives/thinking to achieve greater satisfaction and impact.

    • Take control of their time and energy to overcome “overwhelm,” becoming more productive and less stressed.on text goes here

  • Tawny has coached Directors to C-Suite leaders at companies such as AppFolio, Avantus, Bill.com, FreshWorks, Athleta, Archer, Google Ventures, Honor, Instacart, Meta, Sofinnova Ventures, Tapestry, PayPal, and Zynga. Sample engagements include:

    • Chief Financial Officer of a post-IPO technology company scaled her functional teams and aligned C-suite colleagues on priorities and structure for the rapidly growing organization. Moved from being a brilliant IC to bringing out the best in others and influencing more effectively.

    • Chief Digital Officer of a large retail company became more effective at influence and harnessing the talent on his team in order to create a culture of innovation.

    • Chief Operating Officer of a growing tech company navigated complex and difficult relationships and uncertainty to steer the company through a period of significant change.

    • M.B.A., Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

    • B.S., Finance with Economics minor at California State University, Hayward, cum laude

    • Coaching: Certified organizational coach by John F. Kennedy University and many ongoing trainings with the Enneagram and other coaching modalities to keep her fresh.

Warm - Candid - Savvy

Clients appreciate Tawny’s ability to connect with them quickly and deeply and be both a supporter and challenger. On the personal front — she has three kids from college-aged to adults and considers herself a recovering workaholic — so she understands what it means to juggle it all. Being a new “free-flyer” (not “empty-nester”) she’s on a rampage to travel even more and spend more time floating on the water and down the slopes in Lake Tahoe. Always striving to have a positive impact in her community, she’s involved in several organizations focused on helping youth thrive.

  • "My individual progress with Tawny as my coach brought me a new-found level of professionalism and leadership on a local and industry-wide basis. For my team Tawny created and led a smart program that exceeded our expectations. She challenged us, taught us, and left us a better team and improved results. She's a results-oriented professional - I’m still seeing improvements in our organization's effective and efficient use of communication, feedback, and collaboration. I wholeheartedly recommend Tawny as a coach and group facilitator!"

    - Director at top 5 university in the world

  • “Having never worked with a coach previously, I really didn't know what to expect...and was somewhat skeptical about the process. I worked with Tawny over the course of several months and she exceeded my expectations. Tawny invests the time and energy to really understand her clients (their strengths / weaknesses / personalities) and tailor recommendations that reflect that understanding. I found our time together to be very productive and would certainly enjoy working with her again.”

    - VP Corporate Partnerships

  • “Tawny is one of those few people who can both see the big picture and make sure all the details are running correctly. She has a talent for quickly discerning the right course of action in ambiguous situations and her communications and technical skills enable her to work effectively with others of diverse backgrounds. Her ability to remain calm in stressful situations, her self-effacing manner and her sense of humor make her an effective leader. It would be my privilege to work with Tawny again in the future.”

    - Former colleague/direct report

  • "Tawny was amazing. She was able to relate to my desire for professional growth but the struggle to balance my ambition with my three (very busy) kiddos. She was never judgmental (even with my sometimes questionable priorities) and was able to ask great questions and get to the root cause of a lot of work anxiety and problems. She pushed me outside my comfort zone."

    - VP Operations