About Me
Johnny LaLonde is a coach, counselor, and teacher who draws on his extensive experience and doctoral training to offer insight and to support individuals in their process of personal and professional growth.
As a coach, Johnny draws on his doctoral training, therapy experience, and his work with founders at Builders VC. While coaching conversations may venture deep into the internal world, personal life, or family of origin for the individual, these are explored in the service of vocational and professional development. As a coach, Johnny conducts individual coaching, provides co-founder coaching, and facilitates off-sites, trainings, and challenging conversations.
In addition to his independent coaching practice, Johnny is an available resource for Founders in the Builders VC portfolio. In this role, Johnny brings experience and training in order to help individuals and teams grow. Johnny began working with individuals at early stage companies shortly after moving to San Francisco in 2011. Johnny understands the entrepreneurial journey as an unfolding process of external and internal demands. He believes that founders need personal support in this process. He is most enlivened by the deep questions of personal growth and identity that emerge in the demanding environment of scaling a company. Johnny joined Builders to be a consistent resource for the interpersonal and intrapersonal challenges faced by founders. He hopes that his work will lead founders to describe Builders as the most empathic and supportive venture fund they have worked with.
Johnny is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in the state of California. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Central Florida, a Master of Arts in Counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and a PhD in Counseling from Oregon State University. After finishing his Masters degree, Johnny’s entrepreneurial side saw him founding a counseling center. In 2011, Johnny was recruited to begin work as a counselor at City Church San Francisco’s counseling center, of which he soon became director. In his years at the City Church Counseling Center, Johnny clinically supervised interns, led trainings and classes for the community, maintained a regular roster of clients, co-facilitated a yearlong course of spiritual formation, and provided clinical direction for the center.
Johnny lives in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset neighborhood with his wife, Christy, and their daughter, Hope. When he isn’t teaching, coaching or in session you can find him roasting his own coffee, playing basketball, cooking, or endlessly tinkering with projects at home. Since moving to SF, he has adopted the Warriors while he waits for the Orlando Magic to “return” to glory.
