My story
After several rewarding roles in Silicon Valley, I was on a path with a lot of momentum, but I wondered if it was the right (or only) direction for me.
To explore these questions, I started making art while working full-time–on nights, weekends, and early mornings. I share my story and this body of work in my first book, which was a finalist for Best Overall Design in Non-Fiction in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. A year later, I had my first solo show at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery.
From my studio, I started coaching mid-career and experienced professionals who are going through job transitions. We work together to grow in their current roles or to discern a new one (or both!). I also work with teams to bring this same level of intention to their organizations as they scale. Across different industries, countries, and cultures, they all have this in common: they are thoughtful and kind lifelong learners looking to grow. It’s an honor to walk with them along the way.
How these all fit together
These different areas of my work are simply fractals of one another. Mutually interdependent, they nourish and inspire one another. To use a metaphor from weaving, tech and coaching form the “warp” (vertical, y-axis) and art is the “weft” (horizontal, x-axis). Together, they create a fabric that’s soft, strong, and whole.
Through my work, I continue to challenge readers and viewers around the world to consider the lives that we’re creating for ourselves and for one another. In tracing my ongoing journey from separation to wholeness, I invite others to do the same.
About
Bernadette launched products at Google, spanning both B2B and B2C products across Google Maps, AdWords, and Chrome. As a Product Manager at MoPub and Twitter, Bernadette built products, established processes, and led teams of cross-functional stakeholders during a critical period of hyper-growth. Through these roles, she has experienced the full company life cycle: from startup to scaling (team, product adoption, and key business metrics), all the way to acquisition and IPO.
Bernadette has coached leaders from Google, Coinbase, the US State Department, Palantir, and more. She also works with early stage founders who are leading with intention as they create products, businesses, and company cultures. Bernadette blends life coaching and executive coaching, product and marketing strategy, and organizational design (sequencing hires, leveling, establishing cross-functional processes) with mindfulness tools to help leaders take their companies to the next level and grow themselves as leaders along the way.
Bernadette studied Management Science & Engineering with a concentration in Organizations, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at Stanford University. In addition, she completed a tutorial in Strategic Management at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford.
Artist Statement
Bernadette’s studio practice spans painting, drawing, textile art, and installation. Her work invites viewers to consider the lives we are creating for ourselves and one another. She combines the linear elements of graphic design with meditative practices and Eastern philosophy. Each piece emphasizes the tactile quality of the material, an antidote to our increasingly complex relationship to physicality in the digital age. Through a sensitivity to texture and line, her work hopes to soften the edges of modern life.
She completed her first solo exhibition at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery. Bernadette’s work has been exhibited at Printed Matter and the A.I.R. Gallery in New York, as well as the Gray Area Foundation, the Diego Rivera Gallery at the SFAI, and The Galallery in San Francisco.