Our Founder
Richard Metheny
Richard Metheny is a highly committed and experienced executive coach and leadership consultant with a solid background in both business and professional services. He provides skilled support for leadership development initiatives, selecting and evaluating talent, coaching executives, teams, and high-potential leaders.
Within Richard’s areas of expertise are solutions to help senior leaders, as well as high-potential leaders, to work and live with self-awareness and purpose. The Aware Leader’s solutions address both short-term opportunities and provide long-term support that ensures the leader and their team continuously improve and excel.
Richard coaches and consults with both individual clients and entire organizations to maximize success. All of The Aware Leader’s work is growth-focused, results-oriented, and impacts organizational performance.
THE AWARE LEADER
History & Experience
Before The Aware Leader LLC, Richard created and led the leadership solutions practice for one of the nation’s leading professional services firms, for nine years. He also served other organizations during his career in roles as Chief Human Resource Officer, Vice President of International Human Resources, and Vice President of International Marketing and R&D. In addition, Metheny was the Chief People Officer for one of the 101 Best and Brightest Companies To Work For – he was successful in developing people strategies that helped grow businesses.
Richard’s experience spans Fortune 50 public (PepsiCo) and Top 20 privately held companies (Carlson), including consumer products, marketing, communications, manufacturing, and hospitality sectors. His expansive background in business includes 14 years of operations experience before moving into human resource leadership positions. His experiences in both operations management and human resources leadership gives him a unique blend of know-how that helps him understand his clients, the work they do, and the challenges they face.
Richard has been a key influencer and member of several executive teams reporting directly to the CEO with a focus not only on people-strategies but on the organization’s business results and success as well. He now enjoys leveraging his experience to support the success of senior leaders, their teams, and their organizations.
Education, Certifications, & Publications
Metheny obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Psychology from Baylor University in Waco, Texas as well as additional post-graduate studies at Baylor University and University of Dallas in Psychology and Business.
He is a Certified DDI Facilitator, holder of the Leadership Executive Coaching Certificate from Georgetown University, and a member of the International Coaching Federation.
Metheny is an accomplished author, writing The Aware Leader: Self-Knowledge is the Key to Your Success, which was released in January of 2020 by the Graham Publishing Group, as well as Solution-Focused Leadership: Coaching Employees to Generate Solutions which was published in 2014 by Graham Publishing Group as an eBook.
In addition to Metheny’s lengthier publications, he has accrued a wide and deep collection of articles and citations throughout his working career. A few of these such publications are:
Can Higher Education Leaders Tap Into Their Business Sides? – Jun 18, 2015 College Planning and Management 1105 Media Inc
A Blueprint for Stemming a Corporate Culture Crisis – Jul 21, 2014 Chiefexecutive.net
Tesla’s Bold Move – July 9, 2014 SHRM Cited in article regarding Elon Musk
Elon Musk: Is Arrogance a Success Factor? – July 1, 2014 Industry Week Cited in article
Target CEO Out as Data Breach Fallout Goes On – May 5, 2014 USA Today Cited in article
Navigating the Perils of Succession Planning – Jun 6, 2013 Talent Management
Plan for the Unplanned CEO Succession – Oct 26, 2012 Talent Management
