San Francisco
Executive career coaching for San Francisco leaders
For VPs, C-suite leaders and founders across San Francisco, Marin and the East Bay. Virtual, discreet, and built around how the technology industry actually hires.
What is different about a San Francisco executive transition?
San Francisco transitions have their own physics. Equity vests on a cliff, so the calendar rather than the opportunity often dictates timing. Title inflation at startups confuses recruiters everywhere else in the country. Layoff cycles release a large number of strong peers into the market at the same moment, which turns an ordinary search into a crowded one.
Standing out means not competing in the pile. That means a sharper value story and a campaign that reaches decision makers before a role is ever posted.
Who does Linda work with in the city?
Software and platform leadership, artificial intelligence companies, fintech, and the venture-backed ecosystem that surrounds all of it, plus the executives moving between those worlds and larger enterprises.
The other recurring client is the founder returning to an operating role, which is one of the hardest repositioning problems in the market.
- VP and C-level engineering, product and design leaders
- Founders and former founders re-entering operating roles
- Fintech and financial infrastructure executives
- Go to market leadership: CRO, VP Sales, VP Marketing
- Operators moving from startup scale to enterprise scale
How do you reposition a founder as an operator?
By separating what you built from what you would own inside someone else's profit and loss. Hiring executives read founder experience as a risk signal by default: they assume you will not take direction, will not stay, and cannot operate inside constraints.
The repositioning answers all three before anyone asks. It is a positioning problem, and positioning is the core of the practice.
Is virtual coaching a compromise for Bay Area clients?
No, and in this market it is the norm. Career campaign work is conversation and document work: assessment, positioning, resume and LinkedIn, interview preparation, negotiation strategy.
Linda has coached West Coast executives remotely for years with Pacific-time morning and early-evening availability. The structure of the engagement is identical to an in-person one.
Why does ATS optimization matter more in technology?
Because nearly every application in this industry passes through screening software before a human reads it, and technology companies run some of the most heavily configured systems in the market.
A resume that reads beautifully to a person and fails a parser never reaches the person. The executive resume writing work is built around that reality rather than around design.
What about equity, severance and the parts nobody explains?
The negotiation coaching covers sequencing: what to raise first, what to hold, how to handle an exploding offer, and how to value an equity grant against the cash you are giving up.
Where a question becomes tax or legal, Linda says so directly and tells you to bring in a compensation attorney. Coaching that pretends otherwise costs people real money.
Linda Van Valkenburgh holds five career-coaching certifications (MS, CCMC, CJSS, CSMCS, CELDC), is an invited Executive Career Coach Expert for the CEO Trust community of chief executives, and works with senior leaders across the United States. Every engagement starts the same way: a free assessment, then a complimentary thirty-minute consultation. See packages, the C-suite coaching page, or an honest answer on whether a coach is worth it.
Questions San Francisco executives ask
Can you help me negotiate equity compensation?
Linda coaches the negotiation itself: what to ask for, when, and how to sequence salary, bonus, equity and severance. For the tax and legal specifics of a grant she will tell you plainly when it is time to bring in a compensation attorney.
I was laid off alongside thousands of others. How do I stand out?
By not competing in the pile. The campaign targets the hidden market through direct outreach to decision makers, network activation and recruiter strategy, led by a value proposition that is specific rather than a job title.
Do you work with founders returning to operating roles?
Yes, and it is a recurring engagement. The reframing from founder to operator, meaning what you built and what you would own inside someone else's profit and loss, is a positioning problem.
What hours do you offer for Pacific time?
Morning and early-evening Pacific slots. The free assessment and the complimentary consultation are scheduled around your calendar.
Do you understand technology titles and levels?
Yes. Title inflation is one of the specific problems this market creates, and part of the positioning work is translating a startup title into language that enterprise recruiters and boards read correctly.
Is San Francisco different from Silicon Valley for a job search?
Meaningfully, yes. The city skews toward startups, AI companies and fintech, while the Peninsula and South Bay skew toward large technology employers with formal leveling systems. There is a separate Silicon Valley page for that.
Start with the assessment
Five minutes, then a complimentary thirty-minute consultation with Linda.
Take the Free Assessment