Melinda Stallings

I'm the CEO and founder of The Positive Consultant, and we guide people to find positive solutions to negative situations. My mission in life is to positively impact the world, one individual at a time, and we do that through mainly corporate clientele, but I also have individual executive coaching that I and other coaches align with. I've been in my field for 25 years. I've written a book, The Power of Positive Conflict Resolution, which was released in 2012, and I've probably sold 30,000 copies of that, mainly for speaking engagements. I'm an LSU Distinguished Faculty and received the LSU Distinguished Faculty Service Award. I have taught for them since 2005. I have been instrumental in developing programs to serve the marginalized, to help them get into employers that they otherwise perhaps would not have even had a chance to get into. I worked in partnership with Columbia University to identify talented young adults in coding who could not afford to go to college, enrolling them in a 6-month program where they would get them up to speed on everything from what it's like to work in a professional organization to their coding skills. I framed the entirety of what's expected as you move up, and we placed them in IBM, GE, and many top-level organizations. I've also developed leadership programs for youth, which have always been a pet passion of mine, because I really believe it begins that early, helping us to discover and develop the leaders of the future. I had an international residential program that we put on at LSU called Leadership U, and each year we would bring in two cohorts of 24 students who were either juniors or seniors in high school, and they would go through a two-week residential program of exactly what it means to be a leader. Many of which I still keep in touch with, and they are leaders in their fields. My main gist is consulting. We have a gamified online course for leadership development for frontline managers, those just moving into managers. I regularly speak at service organizations, as well as a national keynoter. I am really connected in the community and a global humanitarian by Global Goodwill Ambassadors in New York. I'm just a lover of life, and I feel so blessed and want to give back.