Dahlia Season Consulting

My Story

Hello! I’m Elise Shapiro. I don’t do anything in half measures. If there’s a path less traveled, I’m on it. At the age of 16, I left high school and moved 3,000 miles away from home to attend college. A tiny, liberal arts school in the middle of the woods. A school that taught me to love learning, to try new things, to take chances.

I have over 25 years of experience in the technology space. The vast majority of that time has been spent working with venture funded startups, and a few family funded or self-funded. The growth curve from 5 employees up to 500 employees is where I work.

I cut my teeth as a Linux systems administrator before moving into program and project management, and finally into the world of team and enterprise coaching and organizational consulting.

Throughout my career, I’ve gone back to school many times. Whether it’s reading the entire FreeBSD kernel with Kirk McKusick, or obtaining a Certificate in Project Management from UC Berkeley, I’ve sought out knowledge and information to ensure I’m able to bring the best ideas and practices into my organizations.

As I moved into the coaching space, I learned not just a single system, but many. I’m trained in Co-active coaching, Positive Intelligence coaching, and Organization, Relationship & System coaching. I’ve studied Non-violent communications (compassionate communications), which has incorporated emphatic coaching into my practice. And I’ve expanded my leadership skills with the year-long intensive CTI leadership program.

Education is great, but where real learning happens is in the doing. Taking those theoretical concepts and implementing them. I love building healthy company cultures that promote accountability, agency, collaboration, and wellbeing; and I love supporting companies to build products that their customers need, want, and love to use, via modern, iterative, sustainable methodologies and practices.