What leaders are saying about our work together

  • “I truly believe anyone who needs to influence others would benefit from working with Kara. This work is for anyone who needs to drive outcomes and shape conversations. That’s what Kara teaches: how to influence effectively. When I first started coaching, I had one specific goal—executive communication—but I walked away with so much more. Over time, I realized how many different aspects of leadership Kara could help with. Whether it was crafting my promotion document, advocating for others, or leading my team, I constantly found new ways to apply what I learned. Many of the topics we covered weren’t things I initially expected, but they became invaluable. Looking back, I can see just how much our work together shaped the way I communicate and lead. Working with Kara over the course of a year, the biggest outcomes I’ve noticed is the consistency with which I engage with teams, other leaders, customers, and other people in general. All of that led to a promotion to VP, and then to CISO, and I know for a fact that draws directly from the coaching I got from Kara.”

    —Michael Fanning, CISO, Splunk (Cisco)

  • “A deep thinker, attentive, intelligent, and a master of communication, Kara is equal to none. She listens deeply and provides incredible intelligence and insights. With a short session, she pivoted my communication style and cadence. She provides tools that are unique and non-standard, and as a result, builds leaders of a different caliber. I cannot recommend her enough. Thank you, Kara: You have been one of the greatest gifts I received, the leadership lessons and tools you've shared with me will carry me for life.”

    —Orna Berryman, Senior Director of Engineering, Intel

  • “My work with Kara was — and is — very, very meaningful to me. Any CEO building a company who's tried to motivate, inspire people, go through hard conversations, talk to customers, this work is absolutely necessary. It's the first thing I recommend to peers, friends, investors, every single time, and if there was only one coach I'd invest in as a CEO, Kara would be it. When I first started working with Kara, I was really trying to understand my own leadership voice, and how to manage a lot of functions that were new to me. She really helped with that whole journey, from scaling to partnerships to ultimately bringing on high-level strategic hires to take the company forward. I've changed my communication style altogether in a much more powerful and memorable way, using a lot of the tools that she and I developed together. I genuinely use Kara's coaching and frameworks almost every single day. I don't think you just become a brilliant communicator just by reading books or watching TED Talks. You really need somebody who's pointing out some of your blind spots, who's coaching through it. As a CEO, it's so critical to be the best leader that you possibly can. This is that tool.”

    —Nancy Xiao, former CEO and current president of Mason, Inc.

  • “I worked with Kara in 2020 and would strongly recommend her as an executive coach. A few things that stood out for me were, firstly, her ability to distill advice and concepts down to practical tools and techniques one can use easily in their daily life, and secondly, her ability to adapt the program based on your needs and requirements, which evolve from session to session. As someone who had not had a lot of experience being ‘executive coached’ these qualities were extremely important to me. It was a pleasure to work with her and her coaching definitely helped me become more effective as a leader.”

    —Manvinder Singh, VP of AI Product Management, Redis.

  • “It has been wonderful to work with Kara as my exec coach. She was instrumental in introducing me to many tools and frameworks, which not only benefited me in my growth areas, but also I was able to introduce some of these to the folks who I mentor and coach. Kara's expertise in storytelling and communication skills was unparalleled. I gained so many powerful insights from her. Thank you, Kara, for your continued support. I have learnt so much from you. Highly recommend her.”

    —Syamla Bandla, Senior Director of Production Engineering, Meta

  • “Kara brings an extraordinary combination of insight and knowledge to the table as a communication coach. Her breadth of skills and experience allow her to identify the most pressing strategic and tactical needs quickly and iteratively, making each session enormously productive. I find myself regularly referring to our work together, either while making my own communication choices or when working with my team members on how they communicate. I recommend Kara highly to any individual or organization that wants to improve the quality and impact of their communication processes.”

    —Steve Carter, Senior Director of Data Science, Quizlet

  • “Kara is one of the best executive coaches I have worked with. I became a different person after working with Kara. First off, she is extremely strong at communications. She helped me establish my executive presence. She came with strong tools and principles that are extremely actionable, and helped make my improvement persistent. Secondly, she helped me improved my overall productivity with consistent intent and focus. I feel extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to get Kara's help. I would recommend Kara to anyone looking for an executive coach.”

    —Felix Wong, Senior Director of Engineering, Snap

  • “Kara is an amazing coach. She used my real life examples to teach me techniques that I was able to apply immediately after each coaching session, in how to communicate effectively as a leader. Kara was very good at spotting the root cause of issue and areas to be focused on. The techniques she taught were not complex, easy to grasp but very effective. Those techniques are beneficial to me not only for work, but life beyond work. Kara is a wonderful person to partner with. She is caring, thoughtful and paying attention to details. During our conversation, she knew how to lead with the right questions to explore what I need. She provided very thorough yet concise meeting notes after every coaching session to capture learning and techniques that's easy to refer, and I continue to practice today. I would highly recommend Kara to anyone or organization!”

    —Hui Liao, Senior Director, Technical Program Management, Cloud Programs, Google

  • “Kara is an amazing coach and thoroughly challenged my expectations of what it means to be a leader and my approach to leading. I highly recommend her to anyone seeking leadership coaching and mentoring. In my daily work, I leverage the frameworks and approach we worked on in our sessions and pass on her techniques to my reports. I can confidently say, I am a better leader having worked with her.”

    —Ashoke Chakrabarti, Head of Program Management, Atlassian

  • “Kara was a huge help. She literally unblocked my writers block – helped me write more, write faster, write more clearly and succinctly. She also helped me form communication habits that I use every day, from small meetings to large group speeches. Her style matched my needs: flexible, but also highly prepared and structured to drive retention though simulations and practice. If you can get her, I strongly recommend getting time with her.”

    —John Anderson, GM/SVP of Consumer, Paypal

  • “Kara is an amazing coach who I highly recommend. She connects art and science across communications, human psychology, and empathy. Our conversations would help me unpack challenges I faced to understand them better. She would recommend frameworks to leverage and help me solve real challenges using those. She helped build muscle memory around these through related practice. I highly recommend taking up any opportunity to work with her!”

    —Tapan Kamdar, Senior Director of Product Management, Mozilla

  • “My time with Kara dramatically surpassed my expectations. She developed creative ways to help me work on specific areas of improvement, gave me useful tips and feedback and the opportunity to practice until I was able to implement them, and was incredibly supportive throughout the process. I considered myself a strong communicator before working with Kara, and still I noticed real improvements after only a few sessions. Her input has been invaluable and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have worked with her!”

    —Alice Hudson, Head of Marketplace and Delivery People Operations, Uber

  • “Although I am no writer, I love to write. On a friend’s suggestion I decided to work with a writing coach and serendipitously discovered Kara. I found Kara to be not only highly competent but also very caring. Within two sessions she helped me understand my writing voice, become more effective with its use, and develop a more persuasive writing style. I feel I made more progress with my writing in two months than I did in previous ​two years. I highly recommend Kara to anyone who is serious about taking their writing to the next level.”

    —Abhishek Gupta, Senior Engineering Manager, YouTube

  • “I worked with Kara for almost 6 months. Since I started working with her, I have noticed a significant improvement in my English. I minimized the use of filler words, became more concise, and integrated very useful frameworks for impromptu speaking. Working in a competitive field as a new arrival to the US isn’t easy. Kara’s help with my communication and leadership was definitely an important factor in my smooth integration.”

    —Fabian Schvartzman, Head of AI, BrandBrigade

  • “It has been an incredible pleasure to work with Kara to improve my communication habits. I have had nearly a dozen one-on-one and several group sessions with Kara, and can say that she is incredibly helpful at coming up with great exercises for tackling some of my communication insecurities. She is friendly, conscientious, always prepared, and always follows up with great resources for continuing the learning process. Kara has gone above and beyond to help me improve my impromptu speaking, comfort level with speaking in public, reducing filler words, tone modulation, email communication, and relying on a frame to ensure that I am making effective contributions in meetings. Thanks so much for your support, Kara!”

    —Luci Fonseca, Partner at Base10 Partners

  • "Working with Kara over the past year has been one of the most valuable parts of my leadership journey. She has a gift for asking the right question at the right time—the kind that sharpens your intent and shifts your thinking. Kara helped me communicate clearly—with purpose and a better sense of audience and goals. She doesn’t hand you answers. She helps you uncover your own, drawing from her hard-won perspective. If you get the chance to work with Kara, take it. You’ll walk away sharper, more grounded, and ready to lead with even sharper clarity."

    —Michael Kotick, Vice President of Marketing + Innovation at Starbucks

  • "I had the pleasure of working with Kara Levy as my coach, and it was a truly transformative experience. From day one, Kara deeply understood my needs and tailored our sessions with the right tools, frameworks, and strategic guidance to help me operate at my best. What stood out most was her ability to unlock clarity in how I communicated—whether it was articulating my thoughts, conveying my message with impact, or showing up with greater confidence and authenticity. Thanks to our work together, I not only gained a stronger executive presence, great frameworks but also saw tangible outcomes, winning advisory clients and job offers. I could not recommend Kara enough, she is truly an exceptional executive coach."

    —Lionel Blache, VP Corporate Development and Investor Relations, Qonto

  • "My experience working with Kara over roughly nine months has been one of the most productive collaborations I've had in my career. That period of time has seen many new professional challenges and opportunities, including significant changes in role and responsibilities, organizational shifts and joining a new company. Throughout all of this, Kara was insightful, kind and pragmatic. Most importantly, she challenged my perspective in ways that necessarily didn't drop me rudely out of my comfort zone, but did push me to bring my best to a variety of complex scenarios. The discussions we had ranged across almost all aspects of the professional side of my life including communication, management, work/life balance, stakeholder management and preparation for one-time hard conversations - I know I'm a better leader, co-worker and employee because of the time we've spent working through these topics and more."

    —Ian Smith, former Chief of Staff and Head of Strategy, Chronosphere

  • "As a first-time CEO, I was facing every challenge you can imagine — culture problems, communication breakdowns, leadership struggles, fundraising negotiations. Startups are like flying an airplane while the engines are on fire, and Kara was there as a coach and a partner to help me solve each of those problems. One of the worst mistakes you can make as a CEO is if you’re not listening to your team. Kara spent so much time with me on feedback — how to give it, how to receive it — and it completely changed how I led. She also accelerated my development as a leader, helping me reinvent myself at every stage of growth as our company went from three people in a room to hundreds of employees across multiple offices. Her coaching was so impactful that I required each of my leaders to also work with Kara, because I wanted them to have the same clarity, self-awareness, and leadership skills I had gained. Together we built a stronger culture, learned how to navigate conflict, and aligned as a leadership team in ways that made us far more effective. We achieved what most entrepreneurs call the dream — selling the business for $125 million — and I attribute a lot of that to Kara’s help, not only influencing me but shaping the entire team. She isn’t just an executive coach. She’s a true partner in building leaders, culture, and companies."

    — Justin Ho, CEO + Co-Founder, Sage Care // Ex-CEO, RideOS (acquired by GoPuff)

  • "When I joined Google, I needed to adapt my communication to influence senior tech leaders — a very different audience from studios or startups. Kara was bar none the best partner I could have asked for. She is incomparable in the way she helps leaders show up with clarity and confidence. Working through high-stakes communications with her was unparalleled, and her perspective shaped not just how I communicate, but how I lead. Kara isn’t just a coach — she’s in a category of her own. She helped me clarify my purpose and become a more strategic leader, able to influence priorities, secure resources, and drive global impact in a time of massive change."

    — Ann-Caryn Cleveland, CEO at Stealth Startup + former Design Leader at Google

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