#262: Edward Sullivan and John Baird of Velocity Group, a Top-Tier Full Spectrum Coaching Firm for Start-Ups

Velocity Group provides top-tier executive coaching to startup founders, venture capitalists, and corporate executives with the goal of building lasting companies that impact the world in positive ways. Velocity helps leaders learn to tackle a range of issues that keep them from scaling even faster. These include building & sustaining high performing teams, hiring more effectively, founder chemistry & communication, leadership style and developing a corporate culture that reliably delivers bottom-line results. Their data-driven approach to coaching, training, and facilitation gives startup founders and corporate executives practical strategies for scaling their organizations. Velocity has 15 coaches in San Francisco, New York, & London who have worked with over 2,000 CEOs and executives at some of the most successful companies in history and at some of most promising start-ups of today.

Edward has been coaching and advising start-up founders, Fortune 100 executives, and heads of state for over 15 years. His clients include executives from Google, Salesforce, Slack, and dozens of other fast-growth companies. He holds an MBA from Wharton and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.

John Baird is the Chairman of Velocity Group. He has been considered one of the premier executive coaches in Silicon Valley for over 25 years, and built his career coaching in the C-Suite at companies ranging from Apple and Nike to start-ups like DoorDash and MasterClass. He earned a PhD in Organizational Leadership from Purdue University.

Some of the Topics Covered by Edward Sullivan and John Baird in this Episode

• What Velocity is and the intention with which they started it

• Edward and John's background before Velocity and how they got into executive coaching

• Guiding founders from building products to building companies

• The value of authenticity, particularly in leadership

• How they help their clients understand their own leadership styles

• How they approach blind spots

• The danger of false harmony

• Velocity's 360-degree feedback approach

• Investor and board management

• Introverts vs. extroverts

• Navigating the co-founder relationship

• Growing Velocity organically

• John and Edward's upcoming book The Power of Insight

• How John and Edward invest in themselves

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