Increase your impact, accelerate your growth, develop new ways of thinking, and succeed in your role

through one-to-one, tailored
coaching & mentoring

Get results.

Experience a range of positive impacts through working together:

 

Develop new ways of thinking and change your perspective, improve your systemic and strategic thinking, and increase your decision-making skills.

Operate more successfully, and scale teams and organisations faster by building more effective, self-sustaining teams and organisations.

Know what “good” looks like and successfully navigate the unknown unknowns. Benefit from working with my experience as a leader, executive, and from my work with a large variety of organisations.

Grow personally and professionally through ongoing learning, short feedback loops, personalised support and strong accountability.

Achieve better business results through increased motivation and employee satisfaction, plus overall organisational improvements.

Get ready to grow: Is coaching for you?

Are you ready to grow and partner with an experienced leader who challenges you? If your answer is yes, contact me and let’s discuss how I can help you accelerate your growth.

My clients typically are:

  • Executives: CEOs, CTOs, CPOs

  • Senior People Managers: VPs Engineering, Heads of Engineering, Engineering Directors

  • Senior Engineers: Principal and Staff Engineers, Tech Leads

  • Engineering Managers, Team Leads

  • Software Engineers transitioning into technical and people leadership roles like Staff+ Engineer, Tech Lead, or Engineering Manager/People Manager

I have extensive experience partnering with engineering leaders on challenges like

  • Transitioning into a new role, new company, or getting ready to move to the next level

  • High-change leadership in times of scaling, downturns, or high ambiguity

  • Growing your own and your teams’ impact, increasing efficiency, effectiveness, and engineering productivity

  • Managing up and across, and improving your alignment and effectiveness in partnering with others

  • Career coaching, including developing career plans, preparing for job interviews, updating your CV, and finding your next role

  • Marketing your work and getting better recognition for your impact

  • Handling and overcoming imposter syndrome

  • Being the only “x” in a leadership role in your organization, or dealing with challenges related to your identity, e.g. being the only woman, queer person, parent, or disabled person

Read about what to look for in a leadership or executive coach in this article.

Pillars of our partnership

  • leadership coaching

    Tailored to your goals

    There's no one-size-fits-all approach. Together, we develop a custom coaching roadmap tailored to your individual goals and needs, and accounting for the unknowns.

  • leadership coaching

    Coaching & Mentoring

    I use coaching tools to help you unlock your potential, develop new ways of thinking and operating, and accomplish your goals. Plus: Benefit from my leadership experience through optional mentoring!

  • leadership coaching

    Accountability

    Coaching is most powerful when it results in a transformation. Through a combination of clear goals and high accountability, applying lessons in your daily work, and short feedback loops, you learn and grow quickly.

  • leadership coaching

    Real talk and no BS

    There’s a lot of fluff in classic leadership advice. I will give you real talk to help you get rid of behaviours and thought patterns that hold you back. I’ll challenge you and won’t gloss over hard truths if you need to hear them. No BS, I promise.

  • leadership coaching

    Systems thinking

    Leaders constantly navigate, influence and design technical and human systems. These systems impact you. Improve your ability to understand and build organisational systems and increase your impact.

  • leadership coaching

    Deep dives

    To deepen your learning and broaden your thinking and leadership approaches, I share vetted resources from my extensive library of articles and books on engineering and engineering leadership topics with you as a follow-up for our sessions.

Hear what leaders say about working with me

  • “Lena was a tremendous support as I faced the challenges and unknowns that came with my first engineering manager role. She guided me to uncover the goals, questions, and outcomes that I actually needed to focus on. The resources Lena provided helped me show up for my team as the manager they deserved.”
    __
    Annie Pennell
    Engineering Manager

  • “Becoming a good leader takes time, and there are ways to progress faster. One such way is working with Lena: She's an accelerator. Discussing with Lena strengthened my confidence in my decisions and myself.”
    __
    Stefan Kamphausen
    SVP Engineering, Acrolinx

  • "My goal was to explore ways in which I could bring my practice as an OSS engineer to a closed-source corporate world in a way that honestly reflected my values of openness, collaboration and creativity. Lena very patiently listened, then carefully analysed and suggested resources and potential paths and approaches to take.

    Since then I have reflected upon the road ahead and have a much clearer sense of the next steps I should be taking to authentically achieve my goals."

    __
    Nicholas H. Tollervey
    Principal Engineer

  • “When we started working together, I was emotionally drained from constantly pouring my energy into those around me. Lena helped me reframe my perspective on management, shifting from a mindset of overextension to one of balance. This shift allowed me to gain clarity in who I am as a leader and unlocked a capacity and desire to develop the next level of skills in my career.”
    __
    Kate Carcia Poulin
    Senior Engineering Manager

  • “Our sessions were super productive - she was great in helping me identify my concerns and then supported with me to define the necessary next steps. I experienced Lena as being a very concise and focused partner. I felt that I could trust her and that her advice was useful and actionable.”
    __
    Martin N.
    Engineering Manager, Ecosia

  • “Lena has been an exceptional sparring partner, consistently asking insightful questions and offering fresh perspectives that helped me focus on what I could change and not where I wasted energy. Her greatest strength lies in her ability to actively listen, follow up, and delve into aspects of my statements that I might have overlooked.”
    __
    Joerg
    Lead Developer

  • “Lena then helped me get my footing in my challenging role, being supportive and candid, and occasionally giving hands-on advice from her own time in Engineering Management roles. If you're like me and you're primarily looking for support and coaching in the non-technical aspects of Engineering Leadership, Lena is a top-notch choice.”
    __
    Clemens Kofler
    Principal Engineer

  • "I strongly recommend working with Lena for anyone who is in any management role in any organization. Lena is a breath of fresh air! She challenged me about some of my ingrained habits and beliefs in a direct but thoughtful and kind manner. My team have seen a difference and are more engaged as a result.”
    __
    Selina
    Head Of Product Operations

  • “Her ability to listen, provide insight, and challenge me to think differently made me more aware of what I was capable of as a manager. I am confident that I am in a much better spot, having worked with Lena, than I could have ever been on my own.”
    __
    Jacob MacElroy
    Head of Engineering, Okteto

  • Lena has helped me simplify the gnarliest and broadest set of problems I've had to face in my career yet, and helped me secure a promotion whilst making my work more joyful and less stressful.

    Lena's coached me on everything from setting up a new business department to putting together the perfect presentation. I highly recommend her as your coach for whatever challenges and opportunities you face.

    __
    Client Director at Softwire

  • "Throughout the engagement she achieved an excellent balance between support, encouragement and challenge. She is insightful, adaptable and creative and she helped me work through really tricky leadership problems.

    I'm a stronger, more resilient leader thanks to Lena and would recommend her whole heartedly."

    __
    Neil J.
    VP Engineering

  • “Lena’s approach struck a perfect balance between coaching and mentoring.

    As a result of Lena’s coaching, I've significantly improved my communication skills with both executives and my peers, becoming clearer, more concise, and more strategic. My confidence has grown immensely, transforming me from reactive to proactive in my day to day.”

    —
    Graeme Harvey
    Director of Product Engineering

  • "It has been great to work with Lena, she has a great depth of knowledge and expertise. Her coaching style has empowered me to hone my leadership abilities, enabling me to navigate complex situations with confidence.

    The guidance, support, and knowledge that she shared have been invaluable.”
    __
    Marc Asher
    Engineering Manager, Bright Energy

  • "Lena has helped me to navigate the transition from managing a single engineering team to managing an entire engineering organization. I always leave our conversations with valuable insights and actionable steps to take. I cannot recommend Lena enough for anyone looking to grow as a leader.”
    __
    Dianne McEwan
    Director of Engineering

  • “Lena has been instrumental in my career development at Stripe. She’s exceptionally good at breaking down enormous, fuzzy problems into manageable next steps and highlighting areas of improvement I would not have found by seeking feedback within my organizational support system.”
    __
    Andrew Bonventre
    Staff Product Engineer, Stripe

Contact me, and let’s do great work together!

In addition to my regular rates, I offer a sliding-scale Choose-What-You-Pay Rate because I work with leaders across the globe whose financial and life situations vary, and as a way for people to work with me who otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

Contact me