
Grant R.
5.0
(38)
Ex-Google Career Coach | Northwestern & BYU Alum

Supercoach
Studied at Northwestern University

Worked at Google
Available Friday at 2:00 AM UTC
Usually responds within 2 hours
After 8 pm MT preferred (to make sure my young kids are fully asleep). Rescheduling or cancellation <24 hours out is still billed.
Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.
Grant's Coaching Offerings

Write Powerful College Essays
Expert help to brainstorm, draft, and polish winning college essays
Starting at $1,0005h+ of coaching

Nail Your College Admissions Interview
Practice realistic mock college interviews with a trained expert
Starting at $6003h+ of coaching

Get Into Your Dream College — Getting Started
Build a strong foundation and college strategy from day one
Starting at $1,0005h+ of coaching
Custom hourly · $200/hr
Get help with Editing, Recommendations, and .
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Grant’s College Qualifications
Coaches professionally
10+ people coached for College
Hi there! Welcome to my profile! I know what it takes to get into top schools and excel once you get there. I graduated Magna Cum Laude (top 5%) from BYU (BS Business Management) and with a perfect 4.0 GPA from Northwestern University (MS Learning and Organizational Change). I also know how to transition strong academic performance to strong work performance, having spent my whole career at top-tier companies like Google and Pure Storage. I have coached 100+ high achieving professionals, helping them achieve their career goals. Knowing what it looks like to succeed on the "other side" of college makes me uniquely positioned to help you approach your college journey with the end in mind. Whether you're aiming for a top university, seeking clarity about school selection, or looking for help to make the most of your college experience, I'm here to help you succeed. Let's connect and make your college dreams a reality!
Grant can help with:
Editing
Recommendations
Interviews
School Selection
Secondary Review
Application Strategy
Essays
Resume
Grant also coaches for Career Coaching, Leadership Coaching, and Master’s Programs. View all.
About Grant
Hi! I'm Grant Russell, a senior HR leader and certified coach with a passion for helping people grow personally and professionally. I'm also a husband and proud dad to two young boys, which are my greatest source of joy and growth. For fun, I enjoy doing pretty much anything outside, especially if there are big trees, mountains, or bodies of water nearby! I'm also a big fan of LEGO and Survivor. I live in beautiful Provo, Utah. I hold a master's degree in Learning and Organizational Change from Northwestern University and a bachelor's degree in Business Management from Brigham Young University. I spent 10 years at Google, helping transform and lead many of the company's talent and leadership development programs. I accelerated learning and performance for thousands of employees at scale and instituted cultural practices to spur novel innovations like self-driving cars. I also coached over 100 colleagues in 1:1 career coaching sessions, helping them navigate transitions, overcome limiting beliefs, define values, clarify vision, and more. It was an exhilarating and rewarding ride. After a decade focused exclusively on growing individuals internally at Google, I’ve shifted my focus to help individuals thrive in their career regardless of where they work. The essence of my coaching is to empower growth, self-awareness, and self-belief in people like you! My background in psychology, adult development, business, and technology comes together in a unique way to help you make progress. Through proven, structured prompts, we’ll partner to reflect on your work and life experiences to identify what's worked (and why) and find ways to build on and harness your unique strengths. When necessary, we'll identify and reframe your limiting beliefs and develop new ways of thinking you can try in the future. You'll craft a powerful personal narrative so you can build a career that truly resonates with your values and goals. I also use the latest AI tools to supplement my human coaching. I deeply believe that with the right mindset and resources, you can overcome anything! My life experiences have taught me how to overcome significant challenges. In fact, my hardest obstacles have become my greatest learning opportunities. For example, shortly after we started dating, my (now) wife was diagnosed with a chronic medical condition. As a result, I now carry the bulk of our daily household chores and parenting responsibilities, on top of my full-time day job and coaching passion project. This has forged an incredible bond with my kids and a deep appreciation for life, health, and well-being. I have chosen optimism and resilience rather than defeat. I bring this same grit and positive thinking to my coaching practice. I’m passionate about creating a space where you can bring your whole self. My commitment to you is that I will do everything I can to help you make progress and find what you're looking for. My services: Career Coaching: Tailored sessions to help you land a new role or promotion, switch industries, or find a new direction. Resume & LinkedIn: Live or asynchronous support crafting strong resumes and profiles that get you noticed and keep you top of mind. Interview Prep: Practice and guidance to give you the skills and confidence to succeed in any interview. Leadership Coaching: Tailored sessions to help you build leadership skills (e.g. executive presence, communication), identify your blind spots, or assimilate to a new senior role.
Why do I coach?
I believe coaching is among one of the most powerful accelerators for performance and growth. As I think back on my own journey, I can name many people whose "coaching" made me who I am, even if they didn't know it or call it that. Being coached has helped me overcome self doubt, navigate tricky crossroads, identify my blindspots, find clarity, develop critical skills, set meaningful goals and stay on track to achieve them. It has helped me become a better person and find more purpose in my life. It was these first hand experiences which encouraged me to receive formal coaching training, and that has only made me more convinced of its impact. Coaching others has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I count it a great pleasure to be invited into your growth journey and consider it my responsibility to ensure you have the best possible experience.
Work Experience
Senior Manager, Performance & Talent Management
Pure Storage
May 2025 - Present
▪ Established trust and credibility quickly, assuming executive-facing talent responsibilities from the Senior Director of Talent Management within 1 month of onboarding. ▪. Matured stakeholder engagement model by embedding agile product management approach into the performance management programs, resulting in stronger end-to-end collaboration across IT, HR Comms, and HR Business Partners. ▪ Pioneered the development and implementation of a universal manager success rubric, serving as a key thought leader and strategic advisor to guide the integration of key manager behaviors across talent programs and processes.

Performance Management and Development
January 2023 - May 2025
▪ Co-developed and implemented a new end-to-end, global performance management approach in 50+ countries encompassing expectation-setting, check-ins, feedback, performance reviews, people (talent) discussions and promotions to fuel business success and accelerate development and impact for 170K+ employees. ▪ Drove continuous improvement of the promotion and people discussion system and programs through tooling enhancements, process simplification, and enablement efforts informed by research, user feedback, and industry best practices, resulting in 86% manager CSAT (highest rating among similar tools). ▪ Helped managers identify promo-trending talent and make fair and consistent promotion decisions by designing and launching a structured, on-demand talent assessment to evaluate employees’ skills, business impact, teamwork, and capabilities.

Career Coach
August 2022 - May 2025
▪ Achieved 100% coach favorability from 70+ clients across Google, from junior ICs and senior managers.

Team Development Coach & Consultant
May 2019 - May 2025
▪ Developed teams across Alphabet by designing and facilitating 25+ unique workshops that incorporated the latest research, insights, and best practices from management science and social psychology.

Multiple HR leadership roles
April 2015 - November 2022
▪ Promoted 3x in 7 years in recognition of operational excellence, project management, program enhancements, and strategic leadership across a variety of domains including learning and development, immigration, HR technology, compliance, and global mobility.

Leadership and Organizational Development
X, the moonshot factory
December 2020 - December 2021
▪ Championed a company-wide "continuous growth" practice focused on self-reflection, feedback, experimentation, and learning, resulting in 91% (+8%) of managers providing actionable feedback to support development and growth. ▪ Oversaw leadership and high-potential development programming in partnership with The Leadership Consortium (affiliated with Harvard Business School) which increased participant confidence in business acumen and leadership skills by 800%.
Grant was also given offers to work at
Teach For America
Education

Brigham Young University
BS, Business Management
Magna Cum Laude Minor: International Development
Northwestern University
MS, Learning and Organizational Change
Industrial & Organizational Psychology meets MBA. 4.0/4.0 Thesis: “Making work work for them: How virtual workers use job crafting to thrive at work and beyond” Organizational Leadership and Coaching certificate
Grant was also personally admitted to
Pepperdine University
Brigham Young University - Idaho
38 Reviews
Overall Rating
5.0
Knowledge
5.0
Value
5.0
Responsiveness
5.0
Supportiveness
5.0