Melanie Polk brings to her coaching practice over 25 years of senior-level management and leadership experience working with leaders in diverse industries, most notably entertainment, packaged goods, beverage, healthcare, high-tech, education, and retail. Melanie’s unique combination of business experience and leadership coaching have helped her clients make transformative shifts. 

Melanie works with senior-level and mid-level executives, high-potential employees, and teams.  Clients include leaders at Disney, LinkedIn, Groupon, Sephora, Columbia Sportswear, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and Rice University’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders. 

Melanie is known as an effective and insightful communicator.  Her style is described as creative, energetic, articulate, and collaborative – with a healthy dose of humor thrown in for good measure!   She believes a successful coaching engagement comes out of a trusted partnership with clients that provides the right amount of challenge as they seek some type of change or growth.  She believes the answers lies within her clients and as their coach, she is there to help uncover insights, perspective and accountability.    Melanie is certified in the EQ-I 2.0 suite of assessments measuring Emotional Intelligence and The Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment.

In addition to providing leadership coaching nationally, Melanie facilitates workshops on leadership, creating coaching cultures in organizations, and enhancing key leadership competencies.  She is also an instructor at CoachRICE, a 60-hour ICF-accredited coach training program through Rice University that helps develop and expand leadership coaching skills.

Certification

• Professional Certified Coach (PCC), ICF
• Bar-On EQ-I Assessment
• MRG 360
• Korn-Ferry 360
• ICF PCC Marker Assessor
• Predictive Index (PI) Behavioral Assessment

Education

• Evidence-Based Coaching Certificate, Fielding Graduate School
• Master of Business Administration – Marketing, University of Texas at Austin
• Bachelor of Arts – Psychology, Rice University

Practice Areas

• 360 assessments
• Business/Marketing Consulting
• Conflict Resolution
• Executive Coaching
• Leadership Development
• Meeting/Program Facilitation
• Qualitative Research Moderator
• Strategic Planning/Brand-building
• Team Building
• Training