Our Story

Shirley & Kristin's serendipitous meeting at a women's networking event sparked an instant connection. Drawing from years of experience in the tech industry, they both transitioned into coaching with a shared passion: helping others realize their full potential and shape their careers, teams, and lives with purpose.

United by this vision, they founded Teal Dot—where individuals connect not only with themselves but with others, embracing their inner teal: calmness, stability, creativity, and emotional balance.

We Believe…

  • We help individuals and teams connect their dots by building awareness, identifying patterns, synthesizing information, and providing insights. Through this process, clients gain a deeper understanding of the interconnections of their personal and professional lives to navigate challenges more effectively and capitalize on growth opportunities.

  • In our approach, we create a safe and non-judgmental space for open and honest dialogue, encouraging you to explore your aspirations, challenges, and concerns authentically. Recognizing the importance of allowing room for growth at a comfortable pace, we provide a supportive environment for you to navigate your journey with confidence and authenticity.

  • Grounded in practicality, our approach offers tangible tools, strategies, and guidance applicable to real-world situations. We focus on solutions that are effective, efficient, and sustainable, ensuring clients can implement them with confidence. Our aim is to provide practical resources that empower individuals and organizations to achieve their goals effectively.

  • We prioritize building collaborative relationships grounded in trust, respect, and shared goals. By working closely with our clients, we acknowledge their success as our own. We hold ourselves and our clients accountable for achieving desired outcomes, setting clear expectations, and taking responsibility for actions to ensure alignment & success.

  • We inspire action and proactive engagement to drive progress and achieve goals. By setting clear objectives, developing action plans, and taking deliberate steps towards desired outcomes, we empower individuals to take ownership of their journeys and make meaningful changes in their lives through deliberate and consistent actions & habits.

  • At the heart of our approach is sustainability, ensuring our clients implement and maintain new habits and ways of being over the long term. We guide individuals in cultivating habits, routines, and systems that support ongoing progress and resilience. Our goal is to foster a growth mindset and facilitate continuous improvement to embrace positive changes as a permanent part of their lives.

Our Team

Shirley Braun Ph.D. 

Founder & Partner

Shirley Braun is a leadership coach, an advisor to leadership teams, and a former Global People C- level executive with 25 years of experience.

With decades of experience working with professional women, coaching, working with the C-suite, and helping women scale their impact, she blends her broad global business experience, servicing professionals and leaders, with a transformative, and caring, approach to coaching. She is passionate about helping her clients find their true needs, unleashing their potential, and accomplishing their goals.

Through her work, she partners with growth motivated leaders to reach performance and wellbeing with ease and flow. She loves to share with her clients the practical tools needed for scaling their impact.

Shirley is an ICF certified coach and holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology, an MA in Industrial and Social Psychology, and a BA in Psychology. Shirley is a published expert in the area of women in the workplace and workplace inclusion.

Past clients have described Shirley as someone who has the ability to build trusting and collaborative relationships, promote a high-performance mindset, growth motivation, and influence results. She is inquisitive, has a good sense of humor, and is supportive. She understands first-hand both the challenges and opportunities that come with leadership roles in various organizations and cultures.

When she is not coaching, she is an avid learner and loves to spend time with close friends and family traveling, cooking, and dancing.

Kristin Kobey -ACC

Founder & Partner

Kristin is a creative and pragmatic coach who seamlessly integrates her 20+ years as a coach-like leader in tech into her coaching practice. As a certified Leadership & Performance coach she focuses on helping individuals and teams build awareness around their strengths and blockers, and helps turn insights into actions that build sustainable growth for individuals & teams.

Building purposeful tech products has been a career passion for Kristin who has created and launched numerous B2C & B2B products & platforms including educational games for Nickelodeon, a karaoke app & contest platform for StarMaker Interactive and The Voice, and Autodesk’s pioneering AI/ML Virtual Assistant. Her extensive product experience ranges from pre-seed startups to large enterprises. Across all she strategically emphasizes the balance of three core pillars: People, Products, Process.

Throughout her work Kristin has built a solid reputation for developing engaged, connected, durable teams who rally together towards shared achievement. Her 1:1 clients describe her as a deep listener, powerful dot connector, and creative guide who helps people find the answers within and take action to live more confidently & purposefully.

Kristin holds an ICF ACC certification and a Leadership & Performance Coaching Certification from Brown University. Kristin is a co-founder of Teal Dot and can also be found coaching through UC Berkeley, Products That Count, Women in Product, and OpenWater.

Kristin loves to hike, explore new places, read, paint, and spend time with family and friends.