Jeff Birkeland

Jeff Birkeland is an executive coach and product operator who works with senior R&D leaders — rising stars, directors, VPs, and new CPOs — through the moments their existing playbook stops working: stepping into a bigger role, leading a team through change and AI, or finding their voice as a leader. Alongside 1:1 coaching, he runs short, time-boxed product-org diagnostics for companies navigating hard inflection points.

Before coaching, Jeff spent 25 years building and leading product at Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Facebook, Headspace, and Included Health — across consumer tech and digital health. He's led product organizations through growth, reinvention, and reorg, launched products used by hundreds of millions, and built and mentored the teams behind them. That range — from zero-to-one to scaled platforms — gives him the depth to coach leaders through the real texture of the work: ambiguity, org politics, team-building, and communicating sharply.

His coaching stays practical and grounded — but the work that matters usually runs deeper than tactics: improving presence, quieting the self-doubt, trusting a read, and leading with confidence when the pressure is real. Before tech, Jeff worked in documentary television, and he brings that eye to the room: finding the real story, the human moment, and what's actually going on beneath the surface.

As a coach, Jeff works 1:1 with leaders building the confidence, judgment, communication, and executive presence to grow into their best selves — and to do it as the leader they actually want to be. He is a Co-Active trained coach, based in the Bay Area.