Inspiring and transforming lives through coaching and leadership expertise.
You may have had a great career and are not ready to stop working; however, you would like to find something new and different that better incorporates your own unique skills and talents in a way that has purpose and meaning for you.
Whether you are seeking a promotion, pivoting into a new role or looking to ignite your passion, it is time to create your career roadmap and begin your journey.
MVP has developed a proprietary personalized methodology that engages our clients in a meaningful experience that will impact their lives in a long-term and positive way. Our process helps to open our client’s minds and hearts to drive results that ignite positive change in their future roles as executives.
The MVP 360 Coaching Methodology includes working with a dedicated coach, while incorporating the Ten-Step proprietary process.
Step 1: Go Deep
The first step is taking the time to get to know yourself – what are your hopes, dreams, and passions? What makes you truly happy? We look at your life from a holistic perspective; financial, professional and personal. Everyone has dreams; however, we help align your dreams with reality.
Step 2: Personal Brand
What is it that makes you unique? What sets you apart from the rest? Why should an organization hire you over someone else with the exact same experience? How can your unique career experiences be a benefit and set you apart from others? What are your strengths and how can you “sell” them? What is your pitch?
Step 3: Positioning
What is your personal brand in the market? How does your resume look? What is the strength of your social media profile? A robust professional on-line profile is key – in addition to a strong resume, so it is essential that this is as powerful as it can be.
Step 4: Explore
The Target List – We help you think strategically about finding the best company and best opportunity for you. We work with you as our client to design a Target List – to cast a wide net. We encourage you to look at all potential options and ideas with a fresh lens.
Step 5: Expand
Your Network – We help you think expansively about who you will target, when and how. Utilize the power of networking on all fronts: our firm’s networks, your own professional network and the network of friends and family. We encourage you to think outside of the box and go for it.
Step 6: Opening the Doors
We help navigate through the confusion and noise and find the right approach to every unique opportunity and organization.
Step 7: Preparation and Rehearsals
We work diligently to help you prepare for interviews and for every networking opportunity created. We help you do your homework – and provide the resources and research for the people you will be meeting in addition to the company itself. We want you to be prepared and put your best foot forward to “wow” the executives who are in charge of hiring.
Step 8: Connected and Relevant
We are with our clients every step of the way to help you navigate and foster relationships that will lead to your next opportunity.
Step 9: Making it Happen
Throughout all these steps, we help you create a roadmap to guide you to your next great career adventure. We are with you as a resource and a coach. We are also here to help you navigate and negotiate an offer that is a win-win for you and the organization.
Step 10: Successful Onboarding
We stay connected and close to you even after you have accepted the new position. We offer three additional hours of onboarding coaching to help you adjust and excel in your new role.
Testimonials
“I’ve been fortunate enough to have a career helped by mentors and coaches leading me with sound career wisdom. Some use systems and profiles designed to create a more successful path. Some of that has worked, other methods have not been a good fit.For the past 10 months I’ve had the opportunity to sit virtually in front of Mary and Mel and listen to their advice. I can say without reservation, they are the best professional coaches I’ve ever used. They do it differently. They listen, combine the right set of tools and design a very unique path for each of their clients. What a joy it is to learn in that environment. Their process is all about building relationships, addressing hard truths and finding creative solutions. It takes the best to know how to use the right tools at the right time in a way that’s best for you. That’s Mary and Mel, hands down.”
“I’ve had the pleasure of engaging with Mary as an executive coach, leadership development professional, colleague, and friend. As a senior executive in healthcare technology, I’ve encountered numerous coaches and consultants throughout my career. Mary stands out not just for her professional insight but also for the unique blend of intellect and heartfelt empathy she brings to her work.Mary’s MVP coaching program is the essence of transformative leadership development. She combines an analytical mind with genuine compassion for personal and professional growth. My journey with her program was nothing short of extraordinary, inspiring and motivating me to implement strategic insights into leadership with practical tools, all within a supportive environment that fostered self-reflection and personal growth.
What truly distinguishes Mary is her ability to tailor her coaching to your unique needs. She offers advice that resonates on a personal level and helps you see opportunities that you may have missed without her. Mary’s methods are innovative yet grounded and reflect an understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by today’s leaders. Her coaching has had a lasting impact on my leadership approach, instilling a sense of value, understanding, and empowerment, for which I am deeply appreciative.
For anyone looking to elevate their leadership skills, whether you’re in a startup or large organization, I cannot recommend Mary highly enough. Her coaching is an invaluable investment in your professional journey. Feel free to reach out directly to Mary or DM me for a personal introduction. Engaging with her is a decision you’ll look back on as a pivotal moment in your career.”
“I am grateful to have worked with Mary as a career/life coach on and off for nearly 10 years. I have always been impressed with her insight, her professionalism and willingness to go the extra mile to find a solution or make a connection. Mary’s positive energy is unmatched when it comes to guiding her clients and friends. I look forward to the next 10 years of working together.”
“Mary flirts with being a unicorn coach because she brings to her work many years as a successful executive placement CEO, so she knows what it takes for executives to succeed and prevent them from failing.”
“Mary is an incredible partner who possess a set of diverse tools and techniques. Her ability to deftly work across various training and coaching requirements is superbly complimented by her passion to get to best out of her client. I wholeheartedly recommended Mary to anyone looking for first class executive support or professional coaching.”
“MVP Executive Search and Development offered me much more in content and results than I ever expected. I had engaged a few other “coaches” with mixed or even some negative results. I was wary to do it again, but definitely felt that I needed a perspective shift, and something to help me package my skills and experience in the best way. MVP Exec takes a completely in-depth and holistic approach to their work. I was an active participant in the process, and with their guidance took a new look at my history, successes, relationships and bad habits. It was truly eye-opening and allowed me to think about what I genuinely wanted. I believe their process was the key to my VERY successful job search. From the beginning to end of the actually quite enjoyable 10 session process with Mary Olson-Menzel and Laura Cassidy we talked, tweaked my materials and messaging, expanded my vision and ultimately, with their exceptional support, led to 2 amazing job offers. I highly recommend their services!”
“Mary helped me see the best aspects of my experiences and together, we crafted my personal brand accordingly in a holistic way. In addition, Mary also provided me with networking and job search strategy plus the gentle push for me to be accountable to my career goals. Net net, I would recommend MVP for anyone who wants to make a career and life pivot journey successfully!”
“Mary is an exceptional career coach who brings her years of HR experience, great listening skills and holistic approach to bear in her career consulting engagements. She worked with me 1:1, on a weekly basis for several months to help me frame my priorities for my career and was an invaluable thought partner in helping me make key decisions about my career journey. She has a very solid and well vetted process to help you in your journey, and will also challenge you. You have to do the homework as what you put into it is what you get out of it. Lastly, she will also leverage her large personal network to help you in any way she can. I highly recommend her, and in fact have since recommended 2 clients to her!”
“I have worked with Mary for over 4 years. She has been an incredible asset to help me navigate the day to day challenges I face managing a team of 50 as well as pushing me to think long-term about my company, my people, and my own development. Based on my experience, I have had several of my direct reports work with Mary to help successfully advance their own professional aspirations.”
“I have had the pleasure of partnering with Mary on two fronts. She and her partner provide executive coaching to the members of our Communications Leadership Council at Ragan and the feedback from our membership has been outstanding. On the recruiting front, MVP has been a trusted counselor for us at Ragan. Mary’s intelligence, warmth and attention to detail and customer service are highly valued by me and my team. I highly recommend her for recruiting and executive coaching.”
“You will never go wrong by working with Mary. A professional in every aspect of the process with a great personality to match, Mary delivers results. I recommend that you spend some time speaking with her, and you’ll see what I mean.”
“I’ve experienced working with MVP as a candidate, hiring manager, and a coaching client. They understand my needs and are very thorough. I trust their work and always get to the outcome desired. Their advice has always been spot on.”
“In leading our process of hiring an Executive Director, MVP was critical in helping solidify and stabilize our organization. As we looked at our future strategy, MVP helped us take to clearly think through the key requirements of the position, and then laser focus to find candidates that specifically fit those requirements and then guide us through the process of interviewing and negotiating with the narrowed group of great candidates. Almost a year later, we couldn’t be happier with the candidate we hired.”
“MVP delivered on their promise and did exactly what we asked – sourced a large and diverse slate of highly qualified candidates. Their ability to manage the candidates through a lengthy and challenging interview process was so important. It was really interesting for me to work with them from both sides of the experience, as they also placed me at the College of American Pathologists. I understood and saw first hand. how they cared for both their client and their applicants. We will most certainly call on them again when we need to recruit executive talent. ”
“The experience I’ve had with MVP Executive Search and Development has been extremely valuable to my personal journey. As I was contemplating major career decisions, the process rolled out to me while working with Mary Olson-Menzel and the MVP team was comprehensive. My background was fully explored and brought to life in a powerful way that allowed me to see my options more clearly and with greater confidence. I thought through all the scenarios in a systematic manner with an open mind and was able to focus on what I truly wanted to achieve. Their series of exercises clarified my thoughts and left me energized and inspired about my career.”
“I absolutely recommend MVP for those needing extra support in finding a new position. Being new to Chicago, my network was limited so I wanted that extra support to proactively find opportunities. However, I received so much more than expected! MVP’s process provides support in looking deeper into my skills and experiences; preparing for interviews and providing contacts at various companies to network with. My coach, Kay McCabe was absolutely fantastic to work with. She was excellent with follow up and also making sure I was very prepared for interviews. Furthermore, Kay is a wonderful person and I’m happy to have gotten to know her!”
“Mary helped me see the best aspects of my experiences and together, we crafted my personal brand accordingly in a holistic way. In addition, Mary also provided me with networking and job search strategy plus the gentle push for me to be accountable to my career goals. Net net, I would recommend MVP for anyone who wants to make a career and life pivot journey successfully!”
“Mary is one of the brightest people I know. Her skills at quickly and efficiently connecting the right people to the right company is almost unmatched in my opinion. In addition to uniting people and position, Mary has been a great sounding board to me for a host of human resource issues.”
“I had the honor of working with the MVP team for a recent placement they had for a senior healthcare executive. Their work was outstanding. I found them professional and highly knowledgeable about the role, the company and the industry. Both Kathleen and Mary had great insight into the culture and needs of the company and were also able to quickly align around my career goals and identify the right fit for the both of us. They were diligent in their follow-up and made sure I was aware of very step in the process. I have worked with a number of the larger executive recruiters on both recruiting for open position or being recruited and the personal commitment and trust built by the MVP was impressive and stands out.”
“When you work with MVP, you will see that the entire team takes the time to get to know you – they take into consideration a client’s experience and talents, and also factor in the psychological and emotional aspects — the aspirations and anxieties — that drive them as they reach for more in their careers as executives. They provide a wonderful holistic approach to career transition that goes beyond the traditional executive search and coaching firm.”
“Mary works tirelessly to get beneath the surface and really understands the needs of an organization, and once armed with that info, does a tremendous job of finding candidates who are “spot on” and a great fit for the role and the company’s culture. She also does all this quickly and efficiently, and then follows through after the hire, ensuring that the new employees’ integration goes as smoothly as possible.”