Executive Coaching & Development
What We Do
5D helps leaders at all levels achieve a leadership mindset—a way of thinking and acting, whether for personal or professional goals. We help leaders perform at their best through individual and team coaching, reviews, ongoing support, our premium customized programs, and our results-driven philosophy.
WHAT WE DO
APPROACH
We develop leadership mindsets for individuals and for group leaders.
Our approach is:
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Adaptive – tailored to your priorities
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Comprehensive – addresses the multiple dimensions of effective leadership
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Outcomes driven – supported by lasting, forward-looking solutions
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Grounded – built on the principles of performance-based leadership and its five key drivers
5 DIMENSIONS
We work closely with you to develop a results-driven development plan based on what is the most important. Our structured framework is built on the five key drivers of effective leadership—fundamental skills applicable to all levels of leadership—personal, team, organization:
Modeling – leadership behavior, EQ
Assessing – context, situation, trends
Communicating – values, goals, responsibilities
Empowering – engagement, initiative
Executing – accountability, managing change
“The 5th Dimension is achieved when individuals are prepared to act for the benefit of others through selfless service.” D.C.
OUR DIFFERENCE—BROAD & DEEP EXPERIENCE
5x
CEO
Startup
Strategic growth
Turnaround
Family business
DECADES
4
Building and refining
the foundation and
framework for 5D Leadership
10
INDUSTRIES
3 sectors
Private
Public
Nonprofit
COMMITMENT
100%
Client development, empowerment, results. Certified Transformative
Leadership Coach
WHO WE SERVE
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Individuals – aspiring to achieve personal and professional goals
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Developing managers – wanting to improve their leadership skills
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Teams – searching for collaboration and effective team dynamics
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C-suite executives – looking to improve their teams’ performance
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Founders – seeking independent and non-judgmental support
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Family business leaders – facing complex and delicate challenges
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Boards of directors, private and non-profit – for their management teams
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Investor sponsors – with requirements in their portfolio companies
SUCCESS STORIES
Leadership
Strategic Partnerships
Challenge: The premier global adventure travel company had a revolving door of company presidents. I was brought in as CEO to stabilize and grow the business.
Outcome: We rationalized the organization, rebuilt the management team, launched new marketing initiatives and actively created an effective culture that engendered staff engagement. That enabled us to navigate global crises, form exclusive partnerships with the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian, and the New York Times and grow revenues grew threefold.
Re-positioning and Turnaround
Challenge: An 80-year-old family business importing to the U.S. military lost both its operating partner and its owner, leaving the company leaderless and adrift. The company faced increased competition, shrinking market, declining sales and flagging morale. I was recruited as CEO to firm up the business.
Outcome: We re-positioned the company, developed new products and customers, aligned and empowered key personnel, and grew the business 50 percent in just two years.
Cross Functional Teams
Challenge: For the then largest-ever university capital campaign, the institution needed to build the capacity to reach 90,000 alumni worldwide and to solicit donors based on school affiliation.
Outcome: Provided the leadership motivation, recruited the leadership teams, managed two separate but integrated groups, developed the strategic plan and managed the teams that solicited 90,000 prospects with 1,100 volunteers in 25 cities. Both annual and campaign contributions exceeded the targets by 25 percent.
Coaching
Leadership Coaching
Challenge: The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers has a comprehensive annual 9-month-long leadership course. Its objective is to accelerate the development of career professionals chosen in a highly selective process. The challenge was to take an existing course and modernize and enliven it while maintaining the key requirements of the Corps.
Outcome: Revised and launched the program with new elements – field and team building exercises, new tools, enriched curriculum, and a developmental coaching protocol.
Family Business
Challenge: A four-generation family, whose members had disparate backgrounds and perspectives, was struggling with vision, governance, and decision-making to the point where substantial time had gone by with major organizational and directional questions left unresolved. The family dynamics were complicated and contributed to the inability to make decisions and resolve conflicts constructively.
Outcome: Engaged disparate family members and coached them through a structured framework that is collaborative and forward looking with deployable decision points. Now coaching the family on developing annual plans with specific deliverables.
Executive Career Development
Challenge: A senior university executive was faced with a difficult and sensitive career choice. He had five conflicting alternatives and was under pressure to make a decision. No matter his choice, there would be organizational consequences that would have to be managed.
Outcome: Coached him by helping to clarify values, goals, options and personal fit. He was able to implement a smooth succession plan and move into a senior private sector role.
Startups
Team Creation
Challenge: A pre-revenue precursor to today’s search engine and affinity social media companies was in need of operational oversight and team development. The founder was a brilliant engineer focused on technology. The Silicon Valley venture firm financing the company recruited me as CEO to stabilize operations and rationalize the organization.
Outcome: Re-positioned the company from a technology orientation and aligned the team around product/market fit. Despite global recession sold the company.
Team Alignment
Challenge: A seed stage startup in the nutraceuticals space needed to develop a team to gain initial product and market traction. I was recruited as the COO to help build the senior management group.
Outcome: We successfully built a senior team in sales, marketing, R&D, production, finance which worked together to launch six new products and initiate retail distribution.
Business Development
Challenge: Create, develop and commercialize innovative products and practices in alternative/complementary medicine that met the clinical standards of traditional western medicine. Co-founder of search fund in complementary medicine. This was a visionary exploration of innovative practices across multiple modalities.
Outcome: Formed partner relationships with the three leading MDs in the field and re-positioned fund to clinically proven solutions.
TESTIMONIALS
OUR STORY
Making decisions—where you don’t control the environment or the competition, where there is limited information, conflicting perspectives, high stakes and strong emotions—and then implementing those decisions, whether personally or with your team, that is the art of leadership.
Throughout my career I have chosen roles where I could learn and practice transformational leadership under challenging conditions. Everything from business, nonprofit, and academia to high altitude mountaineering teams, Outward Bound and offshore ocean racing crews.
As a 5x CEO, in different sectors and at varying scales, I saw the need for effective coaching, leadership and team development. Encouraged by professionals in the field, I created 5D Leadership as an outgrowth of my experience:
-Navigated changing markets and guided teams and entities through pivotal inflection points – troubled situations, major geo-political crises, re-positioning, team building, strategic partnerships. Achieved significantly increased revenues, operating margins and team performance.
-Serving on boards, founding two search funds, and early experience in private equity, M&A and venture capital taught me about building teams, the drivers of value creation, and that proper execution is essential.
-MBA, BA, Stanford University. Transformative Leadership Training, Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute. Corporate Finance Adjunct Instructor, Golden Gate University. Academic Advisor, Stanford University.