Who We Are
We are guides, not gurus. Here are the people who will walk alongside you.
Stride Partners | Who We Are & Why It Matters
Most people who come to us don't think they need a coach. They think they need a better strategy, a cleaner calendar, or a stronger morning routine. So, they keep optimizing—squeezing more performance out of a life that, somewhere along the way, stopped feeling like theirs.
That's exactly where we begin.
The Problem Beneath the Problem
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that high-achieving professionals know well. It doesn't announce itself; it hides behind a good salary and a LinkedIn profile full of accomplishments. But it shows up in the tension at the dinner table, the Sunday-night dread, and the quiet but persistent sense that the person showing up to work every day is a performance—a well-practiced version of who you thought you were supposed to become.
This is not a productivity problem. It is an identity problem.
The professionals we work with are mid-career and, by most measures, successful. But they feel increasingly misaligned and depleted. They are overwhelmed—not because they can't handle pressure, but because they've been handling pressure for so long that they've lost touch with themselves. They've stopped asking why, and the silence where that question used to live has grown loud.
They’re wondering whether the work they’re doing is meaningful or just a way to survive. They feel the frustration of internal conflict bleeding into their relationships. They’re anxious about what comes next—about whether it’s too late to build a life that actually fits. Many are living inauthentically, showing up as a version of themselves that no longer reflects their values, limiting their influence everywhere that matters.
The Stride Difference
Most coaching starts on the outside and works in: goals, accountability, action plans. We believe that’s backwards. Stride Partners starts on the inside.
Before we talk about career, leadership, or performance, we help clients do something harder and more important: we help them become self-ish.
Not selfish—self-ish. The deliberate, courageous act of prioritizing physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing as the foundation for everything else. You cannot build a meaningful life on a depleted foundation, and you cannot lead others well if you are estranged from yourself.
From that foundation, we guide clients through The Stride Path—a cyclical, non-linear framework of self-discovery built on three practices that reinforce one another:
- Self-awareness: Learning to see yourself honestly, without judgment.
- Self-ishness: Choosing yourself, consistently and without apology.
- Self-acceptance: Making peace with who you are as the ground for who you’re becoming.
This is not a linear curriculum with a graduation date; it is a lifelong practice. We walk it with our clients—not ahead of them, not behind them, but alongside. That’s what the word Partners means. Coaches and clients become Striders together.
Who We Are
Alex and Steve founded Stride Partners out of their own lived experience of career transition, identity disruption, and the long walk back to wholeness. Between them, they bring decades of experience across law, real estate, high-tech, startups, and consulting. More importantly, they bring the hard-won wisdom of people who have personally navigated the terrain their clients are walking.
This is not incidental; it is the requirement. Every coach we bring into Stride Partners has made at least two significant career transitions of their own. We don’t guide people through territory we haven't crossed.
There is also something deeper at work in how Alex and Steve coach. There is a distinction we keep returning to:
- Pushed to accomplish: Driven by expectation, necessity, or fear of what happens if production stops.
- Pulled toward fulfillment: Moving toward what you are when you are fully yourself.
The work of Stride Partners is to help clients discover what pulls them and to build a life organized around that pull.
Find your stride. Live with purpose.
This is the work. It is quiet, it is deep, and it changes everything.
Alex’s coaching work was shaped long before it was ever named. After more than two decades in legal and technology environments, Alex learned what it takes to perform under pressure—and what it costs when performance is disconnected from identity. Over 20+ years, Alex led complex, high-stakes initiatives across technology startups, Fortune 10 companies and global law firms, including roles at Apple and McKesson spanning litigation, eDiscovery, information governance, and enterprise transformation.
Known for translating technical complexity into clear, human-centered narratives, Alex built a reputation for fostering trust across stakeholders and leading teams with steady, results-focused clarity. Together with a relationship-driven approach to collaboration, Alex became a highly valued leader who enabled teams to deliver results. That journey also extended into the education and nonprofit space, where he served as a private school administrator during a season of significant transition. By most measures, Alex was a success.
But even meaningful success can leave a person misaligned.
What followed wasn’t just a season of reflection—it was an unraveling. Questions surfaced that achievement alone couldn’t answer: Why am I doing this? Who am I, really? What once felt clear became uncertain. What once drove him no longer held.
It became one of the darkest seasons of his life—not because of what was happening externally, but because he no longer recognized himself and lost understanding of his purpose.
What began to rebuild that identity wasn’t a new strategy, but a different way of being.
Alex learned to let go of expectations and the need to control outcomes. He began creating space for stillness—time to step back, reflect, and face himself honestly. And in that process, he discovered something just as important: he wasn’t meant to do it alone. The trusted relationships became a critical part of the rebuilding—people who could walk alongside him, offering perspective, support, and truth when he couldn’t see clearly on his own.
Today, as co-founder of Stride Partners, Alex coaches career professionals at all levels who appear successful on the outside yet feel depleted, fragmented, or off-course internally. These are individuals who don’t need more strategies—they need clarity, space, and a trusted partner.
Steve’s professional journey is defined not just by success, but by evolution.
His career began in Silicon Valley’s high-tech sector, where his business talents and acumen fueled his quick rise into middle management before realizing he was called to build something of his own. That realization led him to co-found with two partners his first of four startups—an ambitious tech venture that, while ultimately proven to be “ahead of its time”, laid the foundation for the entrepreneurial mindset that would define Steve’s career.
He then transitioned into a highly successful career in commercial real estate, where he spent nearly two decades advising high-tech companies in one of the most competitive markets in the world. During this period, Steve recognized the need for the creation of an alliance of likeminded firms. He became a key force in the founding of CRESA Partners, a national tenant representation firm. As the managing partner of his own boutique brokerage firm, Steve led major client engagements across local and national markets while also serving on CRESA’s Board of Directors.
From the outside, it looked like success. But internally, something was off. Despite Steve’s many professional achievements, the pace came at a cost. Long hours and frequent travel led to burnout, and he found himself disconnected from what mattered most—his family, and his sense of presence and of purpose. That realization marked a turning point. Steve was forced to step back and ask a question many high performers eventually face: Is this all there is?
What followed was a period of exploration, reinvention, and growth leading to new paths through consulting and entrepreneurship, including work in network marketing. What stood out most during this season wasn’t the businesses themselves, but the fulfillment he found in mentoring, developing, and coaching others. It was a natural extension of the leadership he had practiced for years—but now with deeper meaning and satisfaction.
That calling became undeniable when Steve was asked to formally coach a leader navigating a new role. The experience was transformative – not just for his client, but for Steve himself. Encouraged by his own longtime coach, Steve embraced what had been building for decades – a transition into coaching.
Today, after a brief period of retirement, Steve is a co-founder of Stride Partners and brings decades of real-world experience to help professionals navigate the moments that define their lives – career transitions, identity shifts, reinventions, growth and the pursuit of a meaningful and fulfilling life. He specializes in working with individuals who have achieved success but know there is something more. Steve helps clients realign their lives and careers with who they truly are, redefine what success means, and take intentional steps forward with clarity, purpose, and confidence.
Because finding your stride isn’t about doing more – it’s about becoming aligned with who you were meant to be.
Ready to Find Your Stride?
The hardest part of any climb is taking the first step. Let's find out if we're the right partners for where you're headed.