A Personal Conviction

This practice was born from a journey that is both professional and deeply personal.

Between us, we’ve spent decades coaching senior leaders across technology, life sciences, and high-growth organizations — and kept seeing the same pattern: the leaders who were hardest to fit into traditional development programs were often the most capable people in the room. Analytical. Unconventional. Wired differently.

At the same time, this conviction is personal. As the father of two sons on the Autism Spectrum, Ken has been on a parallel journey — learning to see neurodiversity not as a set of deficits to accommodate, but as a different operating system with profound strengths. That experience shaped how we understand leadership, and what organizations leave on the table when they try to fix leaders who don’t need fixing.

Why We Came Together

Ken, Joanie, Ennis, and Rod came together because we share the conviction — and bring depth from very different angles. Twenty-five years of executive coaching for technical leaders. A decade building executive assessment at UC San Diego. Twenty-five years of corporate leadership at Google and Visa, as a successfully exited founder who is Autistic with ADHD. And a sprint methodology purpose-built to make cognitive diversity the engine of innovation. Each of us arrived at the same conclusion from a different direction: the standard model wasn’t built for the people who need it most.

What We’re Building

NVA is not a traditional coaching firm. We’re building an integrated platform: Joanie’s Advanced Assessments map your cognitive profile before coaching begins. Ken and Ennis provide coaching built around how you actually think. Rod’s Sandbox42 sprints use AI-accelerated methods to put neurodivergent thinking at the center of the innovation process. And we’re actively developing the AI tools — including the NeuroVantage Coach, an AI agent trained on our curated neurodiversity library — that extend the work between sessions.

Our defining differentiator: we pair your internal neurodistinct contributors with NVA resources — so cognitive diversity isn’t just the subject of the work. It’s how the work gets done.

The Bigger Mission

Our commitment extends beyond individual engagements. The NeuroVantage Foundation is our vehicle for building real pathways into employment and leadership for neurodistinct individuals. We’re actively engaged across:

• Parents Advisory Board, Stanford Autism Center
• Advisory Task Force, Stanford Neurodiversity Project
• Advisory Board, Stanford Center for Neurodiversity & Human Potential (SCNHP)
• Co-Chair, Golden Gate Regional Center Self-Determination Local Advisory Committee

We built this for the leaders who’ve always outperformed the system. And for the ones still finding their way into it.