Mary McGuinness

Mary McGuinness creates environments for innovation, taps multiple intelligences, and provokes new ways of thinking and doing. She helps her clients to maximize their potential to create and execute ambitious plans for themselves, and for the organizations and teams they lead.

Mary is a leadership development specialist and ICF-certified executive coach who partners with her clients to create collaborative cultures, improve employee engagement, and better navigate through the change, transitions, and challenges that arise in organizational life. Mary is past director of workplace learning and performance at DePaul University, where she designed and implemented initiatives to improve performance management, leadership, and employee relations. Prior to that she directed the Hay Leadership Project, where she co-developed an intensive values-based leadership certificate program that strengthened leadership from “the inside-out,” and served as an organization development consultant to mission-driven organizations.

Mary possesses a B.A. in Theatre and French from University of Wisconsin and a M.Ed. in curriculum theorizing from DePaul University. Mary has studied adaptive leadership with Martin Linsky and Ronald Heifetz at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Public Service, coaching and adult development at Fielding Graduate University, and leadership at the University of Chicago.

Working across sectors, Mary and her team author and deliver leadership, management and professional development programs for nonprofits, higher education, and private business. She regularly teaches leadership and management in DePaul University’s School of Public Service.

She is a proud alumna of Voyageur Outward Bound and a lifelong international adventurer.