About Cinder · Saint Paul, MN

A coach, not a roster.One practice, one arc, one finish.

Cinder is a solo executive-coaching practice built on a single conviction: the first quarter in a leadership seat is where directors either build the operating habits that hold — or the ones they'll spend years unwinding. So the whole practice is engineered around that thirteen-week window.

Book a 20-minute scoping call Read how the practice works

Who books with Cinder

First-year directors and VPs across operations, product, engineering, and finance in the Twin Cities — many funded by an employer, many paying their own way into the seat they just earned.

Dana Reike, founder of Cinder, at her Saint Paul studio desk

The practice

Named for the thing that keeps burning after the fire.

A promotion is the flare. What matters is the cinder — the steady heat a leader carries into every room afterward, long after the announcement email is buried.

Cinder was founded by Dana Reike, who spent fifteen years inside operations and product organizations watching capable people get handed a director title on a Friday and be expected to lead peers by Monday. The support they got, when they got any, was an open-ended retainer that billed monthly and never quite resolved.

So the practice was built inside a fixed frame: a 90-day engagement, twelve scheduled sessions, one written baseline at the start and one written handoff at the end. The scope is set before the first session and it does not creep. When the arc closes, it closes — the goal is a director who runs the rhythm without a coach in the room.

See the three programs →

How Cinder is run

Four commitments the engagement is built on — and stamped against.

These aren't posters on a wall. Each one is a structural rule baked into how the 90-day arc is scoped, billed, and closed.

The scope is fixed before we start

You know the number of sessions, the length of the arc, and the price before session one. Nothing renegotiates mid-engagement, and there is no auto-renewing retainer waiting at the end.

The same coach runs every session

There is no bench and no associate rotation. Dana scopes your call, writes your baseline, sits with you for all twelve sessions, and writes your handoff. Continuity is the product.

What's said stays between us

Even when a company funds the program, the employer learns only that the engagement is underway and that it concluded — never the content. Confidentiality is written into the agreement, not implied.

The work is anchored to real cases

Sessions run on live decisions — the tough delegation, the peer you now manage, the board update due Thursday. We rehearse it, you run it, and we debrief against the actual outcome the following week.

Fifteen years inside the org before the coaching chair

Dana Reike led operations and product teams through the exact transitions Cinder now coaches — first-time management, reorganizations, and the promotion of individual contributors into people who lead people. The vantage point is practitioner-first, not textbook.

practitioner across the whole arc — the coach who scopes your call is the coach in every session, with no handoff to an associate.

Rooted in the Twin Cities

Cinder works out of Saint Paul and meets clients across the metro — at the studio, at your office, or over video, session to session. Leadership offsites travel to wherever your team gathers.

Where Cinder fits — and where it doesn't

Right for a specific moment, honest about the rest.

The practice is deliberately narrow. That's what makes the ninety days work — and it means Cinder is not the right call for every situation. Better to name that up front than three sessions in.

Check the fit on a scoping call

✓

Built for

Directors and VPs in their first twelve months of the title, stepping up to lead teams — including former peers — and wanting a defined, time-boxed engagement rather than an ongoing arrangement.
✓

Also handles

Leadership team offsites and confidential 360° feedback assessments for a director and their reporting line, scoped as separate programs.
✕

Not the right call for

Open-ended monthly retainers, therapy or clinical support, or a crisis that needs same-week HR intervention. When that's the need, Cinder will say so and point you elsewhere.

The seat is new. The next quarter isn't waiting.

A short call to check whether a fixed 90-day engagement fits your first months in the role — no assessment to fill out first, no pitch deck.

Book a 20-minute scoping call Or call (331) 330-5971