About Portico
How you show up for others starts with how you show up for yourself.
My approach
It’s about presence, not perfection
Perfection is an unachievable goal, and chasing it gets in the way. What actually helps you lead better, listen more, and bring people with you is presence: being alert, open, and accessible, whether you are on a stage, in a hard meeting, or in a passing conversation.
Small shifts lead to
big benefits
I’ve seen it again and again: the biggest changes come from the smallest shifts, in how you think and in small daily exchanges and routines. You may barely notice them as they happen, but over time, they evolve into real, lasting change.
Vulnerability is a strength
Vulnerability builds trust because it takes courage to let yourself be seen. When you are willing to share your own challenges and uncertainties, you make it safe for the people around you to do the same and to invest their full selves in the work.
Gina Morris
Portico Founder
I am a leadership coach and a communications trainer for executives and senior leaders who want more connection, collaboration, and fulfillment. I’m here to help each client bring their full, dynamic self to work and to life, and to influence the outcomes that matter most to them. Over more than 25 years, across Silicon Valley start-ups and Fortune 500 corporations, world-class universities and mission-driven nonprofits, I have built relationships, strengthened communication, and led the kind of change that lasts.
What matters most in this work, though, is not on a résumé. Life has handed me some hard chapters of my own, the kind that reshape a person, in both personal and professional life. Coming through them is what lets me be a steadier, more present partner when someone is in the thick of their own transformation. I know what it is to wander without a map, and I walk beside the people I work with rather than ahead of them.
Before launching my coaching and training practice in 2017, I served as Vice President of Programs for a Silicon Valley EdTech company, building strategic partnerships and leading initiatives across global engineering, marketing, and program teams. As CEO of a national youth development organization, I brought together corporations, celebrities, professional sports franchises, and community leaders to launch nationwide programs that reached schools, children, and families and strengthened adolescent and family well-being. I have also been a curriculum and product design director at Stanford University, adjunct faculty at the University of San Francisco's School of Education, a middle school dean, and a classroom teacher.
I am a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) and an ICF-credentialed coach (ACC), and I hold a master's in Policy, Organization, and Leadership from Stanford University and a B.S. in Psychology from California State University. My work also draws on training in inquiry-based practices for meeting stress and the stories we tell ourselves.
I live in Berkeley, California, with my husband and daughter, and I love time on a river, a good book, and a memorable evening around the dinner table with family and friends.
“In every role I’ve held, from teacher to CEO, the work I loved was the same: drawing out the best in others.
I just call it coaching now.”
“Gina is a consummate professional and is compassionate in her approach to the needs of executives. Working with her, our organization has actualized our vision for our philanthropic work, making our program a true success, both for us and our beneficiaries. I greatly value and respect Gina and her work with us.”
— Don, Board President