Bill Underwood

Bill Underwood has coached executives to implement key strategic initiatives by developing their leadership talent for over 30 years. A key partner to Gaines Consulting, Bill is one of the Valley’s top leadership and management skills program designers. As the cofounder and CEO of Catalyst Consulting Team, a Silicon Valley-based consulting firm focused on organizational development since 1985, Bill also coaches executives to implement key strategic initiatives and develop leadership talent, aiming to align teams toward shared business results.

Bill works with Adobe Systems, Autodesk, Cisco Systems, NetApp, eBay, PayPal, Google, Levi Strauss & Company and Oracle Corporation, as well as many startups.

Bill’s particular interest lies in transferring people skills based in the neurosciences and organizational learning. He designs customized training programs in leadership development, teamwork, visioning, change management and critical communication and brought some of the first experiential programming to the Bay Area through Boston University’s Executive Education program.

He devotes time to local Santa Cruz nonprofits and is on the board of Shout-It-Now, an HIV and AIDS education, testing and counseling organization based in South Africa.

Bill holds a BS in anthropology/sociology from Virginia Commonwealth University and completed post-graduate work with Diana Smith in Action Science coaching and trained with Executive Arts Coaching.