Michelle Kemling
Senior Director, HR - Twilio
Shannon & Debra are amazing partners for Twilio. We are very focused on developing our leaders and wanted to build a customized leadership program for our managers. Shannon and Debra partnered with us to make this happen. They really understood our needs and were creative thought partners in designing the program content to uniquely meet them. They are skillful facilitators who bring a wealth of knowledge and connect well with our culture and the diverse group of leaders attending the program. The program has helped us to build a common foundation for our managers to hone their leadership skills and ultimately drive business results. They are valued, trusted, and flexible partners that are also fun to work with. You couldn't ask for more!
I and some of my team members have worked with Debra for both meeting facilitation planning and executive coaching. She brings energy, focus and a rich skill set to both.
Debra begins all her work by diving in to understand the core need at hand. She asks the right questions and cleverly reads people and situations to really peel back the layers of the onion, honing in on exactly the right goals. That insight alone is not easy, and is an incredible gift.
Once a goal is established, she brings a mix of frameworks, tools, research, patience, energy and enthusiasm to work towards that goal. Her multi-faceted approach ensures that one always has exactly what one needs to rise to the challenge at hand. The tools she offers are exactly what’s needed in the moment, never too much or too little, which is an almost magical balance to strike.
Debra also brings the right mix of flexibility and focus. At the beginning of our work, we started with a plan. As new challenges and opportunities arose, she skillfully helped me navigate those, while always making sure we kept on track. I barely realized until the end of our first 6 months, when I sat back to review, that as she was giving exactly what I needed in the day-to-day, she was also making sure to keep me on track and moving forward according to our plan.
Finally, Debra is just a truly wonderful person and a joy to be around - truly positive, caring and enthusiastic.
I could not recommend her highly enough.
Andrea Spillmann-Gajek
SVP Operations & Customer Success - Captricity
Rafa de la Guia
Principal - Omidyar Network
Debra was a great coach. She approached our conversations without preconceptions about what I should do. Instead, Debra was a careful listener, picked up rapidly on key cues and conflicting options, and validated ideas. She helped me create a structure for decision-making and pushed me toward taking action.
Rachel Sherman
VP of Customer Success & Operations - Jiff Inc.
Debra is an unbelievably talented executive coach. I started working with Debra as I was stepping into my first executive-level role at a tech company and my work with her has been truly transformational.
Most directly, Debra has made me a better leader. She has helped me navigate increasing responsibility and scope in a high-growth company. She offers a combination of practical frameworks and deeper, root-cause exercises that together allow her clients to both navigate the situations they are grappling with now, while also developing the tools to approach future complexity.
Two qualities that set Debra apart are her intelligence and her commitment. Debra is whip smart. This is important because it allows her to keep up with, and be ahead of, truly complex business dynamics and work with a range of clients, no matter how technical or senior they are. Debra is also extraordinarily committed. She provides undivided attention, she proactively reaches out with ideas, advice, and resources between sessions, and she somehow always makes herself available to work through a situation when something comes up.
Debra has not only made me a better leader, she has made me a better person. She models the behavior that she teaches: she leads with generosity and empathy, she listens and remains open, and she invests fully in the people and things that she cares about, including her work. She is a master of her field and a wonderful human being.