Dr. Christina Villarreal is an executive leadership coach with over 20 years of experience at the intersection of behavioral and psychological health within high-performance professional environments. Trained as a cognitive-behavioral health psychologist, she brings clinical depth and evidence-based precision to the study of human behavior and its psychological underpinnings. She currently works as an executive coach across the technology and finance ecosystems of Silicon Valley, supporting founders and senior corporate leaders on the behavioral and psychological dimensions of performance, resilience, and sustainable success. Her dual background of clinical psychology and executive coaching offers students a rare vantage point: rigorous grounding in health psychology science paired with firsthand knowledge of how these principles operate in real-world, high-stakes professional contexts.

Her executive coaching practice is rooted in a strength-based model of leadership development with expertise in emotional intelligence, team dynamics and executive presence, guiding organizational leaders through the lifespan of their careers. What distinguishes her coaching style is the unique perspective she brings to her engagements, shaped equally by rigorous doctoral training and experience as well as years of applied work inside high-performance environments where the psychological, behavioral, and physiological dimensions of human functioning play out in real time.

Dr. Villarreal earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, a Master’s Degree from the University of San Francisco in Counseling, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Health Psychology from The California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) at Alliant International University, with specializations in Behavioral Medicine, Cognitive Neuroscience and Personality Assessment. She is trained as an Advanced Certified Personal and Executive Coach (ACPEC) through the College of Executive Coaching, focusing on leadership and corporate people management. She has conducted research through the Center for HIV and AIDS Prevention (CAPS) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), with scientific publications in the areas of sexual risk behavior as it relates to gender and cultural constructs. She teaches coursework in Personality Theory, Abnormal Psychology, Assessment of Diverse Populations (UC Berkeley), Conflict Resolution (Hult International Business School), and Personality Assessment, Cognitive Assessment and Health Psychology/Behavioral Medicine (Argosy University).

Dr. Villarreal currently provides executive coaching and leadership training for global organizations and their leaders across the tech ecosystem, finance/venture and media industries.  She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, California. She has experience coaching C-suite/SVP/Director/senior manager leaders and teams from an extensive range of organizations, including Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Pixar, Slack, Airbnb, Bluesky, Frog Design, Klaviyo, Kapor Capital, LinkedIn, Netflix, Instagram, Salesforce, Hubspot, Box, Bitso, Uber, ICONIQ Capital, Vertex Ventures, Pivotal Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Toast, ServiceNow, San Francisco Giants, Tomabravo, JLL Spark, a16z, Wonderschool, Certares, UiPath, BetMGM, Ro Health, Forethought.ai, Credit Karma, Willett Advisors, Fivestars, Peerspace, Y Combinator, AfroTech, Echoing Green, Camelback Ventures and Kauffman Fellows.

Dr. Villarreal’s past work has been featured in a variety of international publications and television news networks including The Wall Street Journal, Techcrunch.com, The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), ABC, CBS, .Mic, KQED San Francisco, NPR, The Oxygen Channel, TD Jakes Show, The Lifetime Channel, Scholastic Scope Magazine, OWN, Topix Media Lab, and La Tercera, Chile’s national news publication.

Currently, Dr. Villarreal balances her professional time between executive leadership coaching and consultation, corporate training and psychology education and resides in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, California.