John Baird

John is considered to be one of the premier executive coaches in Silicon Valley, having coached CEOs and founders for over 20 years. Having founded three coaching firms, John built his career working with the top leaders at companies ranging from early stage start-ups to Fortune 500 firms like Apple and Nike. His first company ExecutivEdge (with Michele Bolton) in many ways set the standard for executive coaching in Silicon Valley over 25 years ago. After leaving ExecutivEdge, he started Edgeman Coaching to continue his work with established companies, including Marketo and Krux.

John’s passion for bringing strong leadership and culture building skills to early stage ventures resulted in the founding of Velocity Group in 2015 (with Ben Tauber). John is currently the Senior Partner at Velocity. He and Managing Partner Edward Sullivan have positioned Velocity as the “go to” coaching firm for early stage companies beginning to scale. They have worked with companies at various stages of growth including AirTable, Clover Health, CultureAmp, Doordash, Grail, Healthtap, MasterClass, Remitly, and many others.

John brings a strong business perspective to his work, helping leaders leverage their natural talents and expand their skill sets to the next level. John is passionate about innovation and change and helps leaders scale and transform their teams and organizations while building cultures of inclusion and diversity. CEOs have found his advice, counsel and practical tools critical to scaling their companies and avoiding many of the pitfalls along the way. John holds a Ph.D. in organizational communication and leadership from Purdue University. He spent 17 years on the faculty at San Jose State University in the College of Business and was named outstanding professor of the university during his time there.