INICIO

About the Founders

Kimberly Kearney, founder and managing director, is a former covert CIA Case Officer, diplomat, and Silicon Valley-based executive coach. As an ICF-certified coach, Kimberly offers dynamic perspectives gained over 15 years spent tackling the most critical national security and policy challenges across multiple continents in pressure-packed environments. By weaving her unique professional backgrounds together, she specializes in helping executives and leaders navigate high-stakes environments with clarity and purpose and empowers her clients to transform organizations and careers through visionary leadership and clear communication.

After navigating the crisis-filled world of international security and international relations - from Washington D.C. to Asia to Europe - Kimberly now brings that same level of strategic thinking and composure under pressure to INICIO. Kimberly's global perspective and high emotional intelligence enables her to form meaningful connections with clients from diverse backgrounds, cultures and industries.

Kimberly believes deeply in the power of visionary leadership and clear communication to transform both careers and organizations. She helps clients cut through complexity to find simple, actionable solutions to their biggest challenges. Her signature approach is a combination of deep curiosity and pragmatic problem-solving, along with an ability to bring calm to chaos, simplify intractable problems, and offer objective clarity in ambiguous situations. Kimberly is also available for speaking and facilitation.

Personally, Kimberly is a wife and mom who enjoys exploring Northern California with her family and actively participating in her local community. She has professional fluency in Spanish.

Joey Kearney, co-founder, is a former covert CIA Case Officer, diplomat, and global security and risk management professional with 15+ years of experience in the public and private sectors. His leadership spans fields such as insider threat, risk analysis and mitigation, physical security, counterintelligence, cyber security, and investigations in complex, high-stakes environments. Joey has strong Mandarin Chinese and Spanish skills.

Joey offers rich perspectives gained through multi-year assignments in East Asia, Western Europe, and South Asia. In diverse organizational contexts, Joey has leveraged attention to detail, strong written and oral communication skills, and cross-cultural expertise to build security alignment between U.S. Government (USG), industry, and foreign partners. He is adapt and integrating data-driven decision-making in cross-functional roles to deliver results. His established ability to communicate complex analyses to diverse technical and non-technical audiences has made him a versatile leader in both national security and industry.

As INICIO’s operations lead, Joey manages all core business functions and helps INICIO deliver excellent service to our clients.

In his free time, Joey can most often be found spending time with his family and volunteering in their local church and community. He also serves as a parent-coach for a local youth soccer league and as a volunteer career coach for The Honor Foundation.