15. Women's Spotlight: Tara Myshrall - Kristen Brun
On this month´s Women´s Spotlight, Tara speaks with Kristina Brun, an executive and leadership coach and corporate facilitator who previously spent 15 years leading teams in advertising tech and marketing at companies (Yahoo, Verizon, and Hearst) ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 100 companies. Today, she helps technology leaders advance their careers, make better decisions, execute change effectively, develop innovative solutions, and successfully engage their teams.
Kristen is a board-certified coach as well as an ICF-credentialed coach (the gold standard). In addition to an undergraduate business degree from the University of Southern California, she has a Master's degree in Management, Strategy, and Leadership from Michigan State University. She is also I’m also a certified practitioner with the Applied Improvisation Network and a Certified Consultant for the Big Five Workplace assessments.
Kristen is also a founder and executive Coach at Emboldify. She was a guest speaker at the Women Tech Global Conference on May, 2023, discussing "How improvisational thinking makes you a better leader."
She took her first improv lesson in 2016. Not only did she fall in love with the art form, community, and sheer fun of improv, but she also discovered she was gaining skills that would benefit her in many aspects of her life, especially work. She gained confidence, improved her ability to think clearly, increased her self-awareness and empathy, became more present in the moment, and felt more creative than she had since she was a child.
In her spare time, she can be found playing with her improv group, Required Taste, in San Francisco and at festivals across the country. She is also likely to be seen skiing, crocheting, trying new restaurants, reading, listening to podcasts, or relaxing at home with her fiancé and their two cats.
On the show, Kristen talks about time when she started to work for the Startup tech company and how she felt she had a "seat" at the table, which is exactly what she wants. Later, she began to have issues with the company since she was unfairly blamed for various things. She now wished she had the confidence to tell them that this is not acceptable. She also discusses how she moved away from it and overcame the trauma.