About Us
Trigate Coaching specializes in building organizational capability at the intersection of inspired leadership and strategic acumen. We believe every leader can be a great strategist and that good business and leadership strategies cannot be developed or activated in a vacuum.
Years of experience with F500 clients have shown us that even top-notch strategies can fail without the right skills to support them. Ensuring success means developing the necessary traits to lead your teams and articulate your vision to make a strategy come alive. This is why Trigate Coaching focuses equally on honing these abilities, allowing you and your team to act decisively and communicate effectively to achieve extraordinary results.
As Strategy Coaches, we bring decades of industry experience and expertise from extensive careers, which allow us to provide invaluable insights and guidance to our clients. We are well-versed in strategy and deeply understand the intricacies of developing leaders and teams.
Meet Our Coaches
Dr. Brandon Barnett Founder & CEO
Strategy, AI, & Business Speaker
Dr. Brandon Barnett is the founder and CEO of Trigate Coaching, whose mission is to elevate leaders and teams to master strategy. With over two decades of experience, Brandon has refined his approach to strategy by experimenting with various theories, frameworks, and processes throughout the corporate lifecycle and across critical areas, including core business growth, industry transformation, innovation, new business development, and technology strategy. His expertise in strategy coaching teaches leaders how to engage their teams in addressing critical questions that produce quality strategies and deliver actionable outcomes.
Brandon’s strategy approach is rooted in complex systems theory, in which networks of companies and stakeholders can self-organize to create and deliver value. With a background in physics, he has pioneered the application of this theory to strategy, actively sponsoring research and publishing on the subject. Additionally, he was an early adopter of artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle strategic and market challenges. The fusion of complex systems theory, hands-on experimentation, and AI has enabled Brandon to develop a transformative approach to strategy.
Throughout his 30+ years in the tech sector, Brandon has held leadership roles involving corporate and business unit strategy, mergers and acquisitions, market insights, innovation portfolio management, and communication to the board of directors. He has successfully developed and executed strategy within competitive ecosystems and culture-driven organizations, collaborating with senior technologists and executive business leaders to establish a unified strategy. Previously, Brandon served as a General Manager in Intel’s New Business Incubator and held scientific positions in Intel’s Next-Generation Manufacturing Technology Group.
Brandon earned a PhD in Applied Physics from the University of Michigan, an MBA from the Oregon Executive MBA program, and a Sc.B. in Engineering from Brown University. He holds nineteen patents, and his work has been featured in publications such as Fast Company, The Washington Post, GigaOm, and The Venture Capital Journal. He has provided advisory support to the Congressional Research Service and Homeland Security panels and has collaborated with the White House and the World Economic Forum. Brandon is based in Portland, Oregon.
Bernhard Ries Managing Partner
Bernhard Ries has over 30 years of experience in the Tech Sector in roles spanning across software engineering, product & brand marketing (including leading Intel’s “Intel Inside® Program” and working closely with leading PC OEMs on joint marketing programs), business development, and corporate strategy, culminating in leading Intel’s Corporate Strategy Office, reporting to the CEO and leading a team of senior strategists to drive the transformation of the company.
Bernhard’s expertise lies at the intersection of strategy, communications, and organizational development. Through leadership roles in diverse technology areas and by operating on three continents (Europe, North America, and South America), he has mastered different facets of business and how to work best in diverse cultural settings. He strongly believes that business performance always comes back to leading with a sound strategy while paying equal attention to developing people and activating the power of good leadership to sustain execution.
Bernhard holds an MSc degree in Computer Science from the Technical University in Munich, Germany. He is an ICF-accredited and Hudson Certified Coach. He is also a certified Birkman Assessment interpreter and Team Diagnostic Survey Practitioner. As a member of Intel’s Executive Coaching team, he is the recipient of the 2022 ICF PRISM award for coaching excellence. He is based in Mountain View, California.
Pam Kelley-Dockter Managing Partner
Pam Kelley-Dockter is a Leadership and Strategy Coach. Her expertise comes from over 20 years of experience in the tech industry as a Leadership Coach, Learning and Development Consultant, People Manager, and Human Resources Practitioner. She gained valuable experience in all areas of talent management, including executive, leader, and manager development, career advancement, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Pam created Intel’s Women’s Leadership Academy, a global program that supports senior leaders in thriving and amplifying their impact. Participants see higher promotion and retention rates. Additionally, she launched Intel’s Authentic Leadership Presence Workshop, an innovative learning experience designed to improve leadership presence, build confidence, and amplify leadership capability.
Pam holds an MBA and a BA in Political Science from the University of Washington. She is an ICF-accredited Whole Person Certified Coach, a Trauma-Informed Certified Coach, and a certified Birkman Assessment interpreter. She is based in Portland, Oregon.