Katie Lee.

Executive Coaching & Leadership

Executive Coaching & Leadership Development

Empowered leaders empower teams.

I help you level up your leadership — so your team and your organization level up with you.

Twenty years running organizations. Now I coach the people who run them.

Apply to Work With Me

Bringing this to a team? Same first step — tell me about them on the call.

20+Years leading operations, programs, and people

$10MAnnual revenue org led as Chief Operating Officer

600+Staff and educators inside organizations I've run

100+Leaders and individuals coached one-on-one

What changes at the top

Nobody warns you about the switch.

They promoted you for what you could do. Then they handed you people, and the job quietly changed shape.

Now you're in meetings all day and still the bottleneck. Your team waits on you to decide. Your calendar is full of things that don't need you.

You're not underperforming. The role changed, and nobody handed you the new instructions.

The higher you go, the fewer people tell you the truth.

Your team is careful with you. Your boss is busy. Your peers are also your competition. So you're making bigger calls with less honest input than you had three levels down.

That's the gap I fill. Someone outside your reporting line, with no stake in the politics, who has sat in your chair.

Why me

I've run the org, not just read about it.

I served as Chief Operating Officer of an education company generating more than $10 million a year. I founded and led an organization serving over 2,000 families across Northern California. Before that I owned a $2.6M regional P&L, directed statewide operations across 250+ programs, and led 15 regional managers and more than 600 educators.

So I know the parts that don't make it into the leadership book. The layoff call. The manager who's brilliant at the work and drowning with the people. The quarter where the number isn't there and the team still needs you steady on Monday.

Then I got certified as a coach and spent the last three years working one-on-one with leaders through exactly this.

That combination is the whole point. A consultant hands your people an answer. I help your leaders build the judgment to find their own — faster, and with fewer expensive detours. I just happen to understand the operating reality they're finding it in.

Two ways to work together

One leader, or the whole bench.

Most organizations start with one. The good ones don't stop there.

Private · Six months

Executive Coaching

A six-month partnership with one leader — a new VP, a founder whose company outgrew the way they lead, or the person you're deliberately building into the next seat.

The Leadership Audit. Weeks one and two. Where the time actually goes, what only they can do, what their team says when I ask, and where their judgment has gone quiet.
Private sessions, every week. Real live situations — the conversation they've been putting off, the decision on the desk right now. Not case studies.
Access between sessions. The hard moments don't wait for Tuesday. Text me; I respond within 24 hours.
A 90-day checkpoint. Progress against the goals we set at the start, reviewed with the sponsor if there is one.

Investment discussed on the call. Limited number held at a time.

Team · Half-day, full-day, or a series

Leadership Intensives

Facilitated sessions for your leadership team, onsite or virtual. Built from interviews with your people first — never pulled off a shelf.

Leading through change you didn't choose. Reorgs, new ownership, a strategy that shifted underneath the team.
Delegation and decision speed. How to stop being the bottleneck without losing the thread.
Feedback that actually lands. Including the conversation your managers have been avoiding for a month.
Building a bench. So the org isn't one person deep in any critical seat.
Optional follow-through. Sixty days of group coaching for the managers who attended, so the room doesn't wear off by Friday.

Scoped after a discovery call. Half-day, full-day, or quarterly series.

The actual work

What we work on.

Delegating so the work doesn't come back to you

Deciding faster, with less information

Having the conversation you've been avoiding

Managing up when the target keeps moving

Leading a team through change you didn't choose

Getting your time back for the work only you can do

How an engagement runs

Clear at every step. Especially about confidentiality.

Step One

Discovery call — 30 minutes

What's happening, what good looks like, and whether I'm the right person for it. If I'm not, I'll tell you and point you somewhere better.

Step Two

Scope and agreement

Goals, cadence, length, and investment in writing. For organizations: exactly what gets reported back to you, and what doesn't.

Step Three

The Leadership Audit

Weeks one and two. Structured input from the people around them, an honest look at where the time goes, and a shared picture of where the work actually is. Your leader gets seen before they get coached.

Step Four

The work — months one through six

Weekly private sessions on live situations, with access in between. Change shows up in how they run a meeting and how their team behaves when they're not in the room.

Step Five

The 90-day review

Progress against the goals we agreed to at the start. Themes and movement — never transcripts.

On confidentiality

What your leader says in session stays in session. What the organization gets is progress against the goals we set together — where they've grown, where they're still working, what would help from your side. If a leader can't speak freely, coaching turns into performance management with a nicer name, and it stops working.

Proof

What clients say.

"She has a rare ability to help you uncover the limiting beliefs holding you back while providing the guidance and support needed to take real action. Through our coaching, I've felt deeply supported, challenged in the best way, and empowered to trust the process. … The investment in her coaching has been absolutely worthwhile, and I'm so grateful for the transformation I've experienced under her guidance."

Dunya · Chicago

"She pushes you at just the right pace — sometimes uncomfortably fast — but that's exactly what's needed to grow. Katie's been through the trial and error herself …"

Jaycee · Canada

Fit

Is this a fit?

A good fit

Leaders who want to grow their leadership and strengthen their organization
New directors, VPs, and executives — or the person about to step up
Founders whose company outgrew the way they lead
Organizations investing in a leader they don't want to lose
Leadership teams heading into change

Not a fit

Building a case to manage someone out
A leader who was sent and doesn't want to be here
A one-hour keynote with no follow-up
A structural problem coaching can't fix

Questions

The ones I get asked first.

How is this different from hiring a consultant?

A consultant studies your business and hands you a recommendation. Useful — but it leaves when they do. I work on the leader, so the capability stays in the building. If what you actually need is an operating recommendation, I'll tell you that on the call.

What does it cost?

We'll talk about it on the call, because the number depends on scope — one leader for six months looks different from a leadership team plus follow-through. Reaching out doesn't commit you to anything. It starts a conversation.

Do you work onsite or virtually?

Both. Private coaching runs on Zoom, which keeps it consistent and easy to protect on a full calendar. Team intensives are better in a room together when travel makes sense — I'm based in the Bay Area and travel for the right engagement.

We're not sure who should get coaching. Can you help us figure that out?

Yes, and it's a good question to bring rather than guess at. Usually the highest return is the leader with the most people downstream of their decisions, or the one you'd have the hardest time replacing. We can talk it through on the call before anyone commits.

What does the organization actually get reported back?

Progress against goals we set together at the start, at the 90-day mark and at the close — themes, movement, and what would help from your side. Not session content. That line is what makes the work honest enough to be worth paying for.

You also coach women through personal reinvention. Is this the same thing?

Same practitioner, different practice. This division is built for leaders and organizations, and the work stays there — your career, your team, your decisions. If you want to know about the other side of what I do, just ask.

Next step

Start with a conversation. No deck, no pitch.

Thirty minutes. You tell me what's actually happening — with you, with your team, or with the leader you're thinking about. I'll tell you straight whether this is the right investment and what I'd do first.

Apply to Work With Me Bring This to My Team

Both go to the same short application. It takes about four minutes.

Katie Lee — Executive coach and twenty-year operations leader. Former Chief Operating Officer of a $10M+ education organization; founder and CEO of a community education company serving 2,000+ families. B.S. in Organizational Behavior & Leadership, University of San Francisco, summa cum laude. Certified coach, The Life Coach School.