Working with a coach was life-changing for former sales exec Christine Tao. At her last job, also a startup, she was one of the youngest employees promoted to the executive team. Because she was new to the C-suite, her CEO and board assigned an executive coach to work with her as a way to “up-level” her leadership.
“It was so transformational for me that I ended up bringing coaching to my own team and starting a company to make coaching more accessible to leaders earlier in their careers, when I could have used it most,” says Tao, cofounder and CEO of Sounding Board.
The entrepreneur didn’t just land a startup idea from her experience at her last job—she also landed a cofounder.
“I started the company with my [former] coach, Lori Mazan,” says Tao. “She was one of the first of 300 coaches certified in the profession. With her deep domain expertise and my scale-up experience, we felt we could democratize access to coaching without commoditizing it.”
Today, Sounding Board provides a one-stop shop for executive coaching needs. It sells both coaching services and software (which offers mentoring “modules” and other coaching-related tools) to companies looking to offer such solutions to high-potential employees.
Tao’s corporate customers include Intel and Conagra, as well as tech startups like Chime and Cloudera. She says her biggest challenge lately is navigating the current economic climate. “While we were lucky to raise capital right before the economic downturn, we, like many others, are having to stretch that capital through this down cycle,” says Tao, who still meets with an executive coach regularly.
What is one fun fact about you that people may not know?
I love sports. They are a release for me from the stresses of being a founder and also a busy mom. My lifelong sport has been volleyball. It’s how I met my husband. But like many others, I discovered pickleball during the pandemic and am now obsessed.
The Fortune Founders Forum is a community of entrepreneurs chosen by Fortune’s editorial team to participate at the annual Brainstorm Tech conference, which took place in Deer Valley, Utah, in July. Our inaugural cohort was selected based on a variety of factors, including the potential impact of their companies, and reflected a diversity of geographies, sectors, and demographics.