Maria van Hekken's brief story and background:

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Maria van Hekken is a leadership coach who helps executives and their teams become even more successful with a special approach that inspires positive vision, encourages positive action, and delivers positive results. She has an established record of success supporting diverse leaders in corporations, the federal government, and universities.

Bringing a Positive Vision to Coaching

As president and founder of Yes2Yes® Leadership-for-Success Coaching, Maria brings a wealth of experience and a unique, positive approach to executive and leadership coaching. She has over 20 years experience as a trusted advisor to executives including CEOs, C-level executives, senior executives, top talent and emerging leaders. She helps leaders build exceptional team performance, communicate more effectively, manage difficult conversations successfully, hold people accountable in a clear, collaborative way, and create a vision that others will want to achieve.

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Maria did her coach training at Georgetown University and was faculty in the Georgetown Leadership Coaching program for over 8 years. She holds an International Coach Federation (ICF) Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credential and has served as the president of the Philadelphia area chapter of the International Coach Federation.

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Offering Special Areas of Expertise

Her work focuses primarily on helping leaders in technical arenas–-energy, engineering, science, technology, pharmaceutical, medical, and business–-to reach higher levels of performance. Special areas of expertise include leadership development, communication skills, team performance, on-boarding, managing up, leadership presence, relationship building, conflict management, mindfulness, and adult development.

Maria has worked with corporate clients including: Allergan, Allstate Insurance, American Water, APPI Energy, Capital One, Covanta Energy, Daiichi Sankyo, Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck, SCA, Shire Pharmaceuticals, Siemens, Sodexo, Teva, Toll Brothers, United Drug, Whitford Worldwide and Xerox. University work includes Georgetown University, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn State University, Rutgers University, and Montana State University.

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She has worked with U.S. federal agencies including: Army Corp of Engineers, C.D.C., Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service, N.I.H, National Park Service, National Security Agency, U.S. Air Force, U.S.A.I.D, U.S. Navy, U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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What’s more, she has in-depth, hands-on experience in leadership, management, administration, project management and team performance in organizations. Maria was director of U.S. programs at the Rodale Research Center in Pennsylvania managing Ph.D. scientists. She also served as co-director of the Penn State University-Rodale Institute Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources in Urbanizing Environments and was project manager of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Regional Infrastructure for Sustaining Agriculture Project.

Telling Her Story and Leading with Y.E.S.

The combination of practical experience in the work force and one-on-one coaching with hundreds of clients has led Maria to write her first book, Leading with Y.E.S. It is based on her proprietary method to guide individuals to identify and live what she calls Y.E.S.: your extraordinary story. Her purpose is to help people fully resonate with their extraordinary story so they can be effective and successful leaders in all aspects of their lives. She enjoys spreading her message of Y.E.S. by working with clients, writing, and sharing her Words2Yes on social media.

Maria van Hekken obtained her certificate in leadership coaching from Georgetown University and holds a bachelor of science in environmental biology. Maria is certified in The Leadership Circle Profile, Leadership Practices Inventory® LPI 360°, the Maturity Assessment Profile (MAP), Leadership Agility 360°, and Qualitative Interview Based 360 Assessments.