Celebrating 25 Years of Service
Transformation Catalysts
for
You • Your Team • Leaders • Organizations
We have helped 500 businesses and 2000 leaders in 80 industries, 50 states, and 18 countries to achieve measurable results and meaningful success.
Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates
Who We Are
A successful consortium of diverse, highly committed, and experienced executive coaches and management consultants since 1998.
- Executives with expertise in business and public service
- Critical thinkers who work across industries throughout the world
- Highly committed to the success of our clients
- Emily BarnesEmily Barnes
CEO & Executive Coach
Business owner and leadership consultant for twenty-five years, including ten years as a certified executive coach to leaders and their diverse teams in corporate, government and non-profit organizations.
As successor CEO to ECCA founder Ira Chaleff, and one of ECCA’s longest serving member coaches since 1998, Emily is committed to enhancing and promoting the legacy of excellence modeled by and achieved under Ira’s leadership.
Emily’s remarkable success in addressing work and people management issues common to professionals in positions of authority informs her skill in helping clients and coaches navigate leadership, relationship, performance, and communication challenges inherent in their roles. Her passion for transformation is engaged when serving the needs of clients who are committed to change and coaches who help them achieve it.
Specialties:
- Executive Coaching
- Team Coaching
- Individual Coaching
- Cyndi RadkeCyndi Radke
COO, Executive Coach & Business Consultant
As a catalyst for change and transformation, Cyndi works with clients to apply management and innovation concepts to build stronger individuals, teams and organizations. She is a certified coach and consultant who has 20+ years’ experience as a business leader in start-ups and F500 companies. She is an expert in guiding her clients toward greater self-awareness, and helps them shift their perspectives and behaviors in ways that will increase their effectiveness and empower them to make impactful decisions while meeting personal and professional goals.
Specialties:
- Leadership Development
- Executive Coaching
- Sales and Productivity Improvement
- Finding Fulfillment and Success
- Career Exploration & Career Management
- Career Transition & Job Search
- Creating Work/Life Balance
- Ira ChaleffIra Chaleff
Founder & Senior Advisor
Ira Chaleff is the founder and former president of Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates. He has been named one of the top 100 leadership thinkers by Executive Excellence Magazine. He practices the high-stakes art of helping talented people prepare for and succeed in senior level roles. Whether working in the public sector with Senior Executive Service leaders or in the private sector with CEOs and leadership teams, he brings clarity to core success issues, and provides savvy and supportive guidance in tackling them.
- Speaking & Presenting
- Ted BurkTed Burk
Ted Burk coaches leaders confronting challenge and change. A former naval officer and fighter pilot, he brings deep insight into the nature of team performance under pressure. Living and working abroad has reinforced the importance of culture and the challenge of shaping it. As a coach and narrative consultant, Ted possesses a unique ability to listen and unlock the power of his clients and their stories.
Specialties:
- Corporate Storytelling
- High Performance Teams
- Executive Leadership Coaching
- Leandria DevisLeandria Devis
Leandria Devis has cultivated a thriving coaching practice grounded in the fundamental principles of clarity, confidence, and unwavering commitment. For the past 9 years, she has been wholeheartedly dedicated to transforming the lives and careers of professionals from a wide array of industries, encompassing education, non-profit, social impact, business, marketing, finance, healthcare, and tech/engineering. Leandria’s passion lies in empowering individuals, especially those from diverse backgrounds, to unlock their full potential, secure fulfilling careers with competitive salaries, and nurture a resolute and self-assured mindset.
Her expertise extends beyond her coaching practice, as she brings a wealth of leadership, program management, and operations experience to the table. Having successfully managed one of the largest teams at a top-performing organization, she was entrusted with overseeing a department operating on an annual budget of 4 million dollars, while simultaneously leading a diverse team comprising over 100 talented individuals.
Leandria’s holistic approach to coaching, coupled with her exceptional leadership and operational expertise, sets her apart as a trusted and invaluable partner in driving personal and organizational success. Her unwavering commitment to her clients’ growth and her ability to foster transformative change make her an invaluable asset to anyone striving to reach new heights in their careers and lives
Areas of Expertise
- Executive Coaching
- Individual Coaching
- Coaching Leaders in Transition
- Coaching BIPOC Leaders
- Coaching New Leaders
- Program and Operations Consultant for Organizations
- Career Exploration & Career Management
- Gabriela EngelsGabriela Engels
Gabriela Engels has been coaching businesses, training teams, and speaking about related topics for 25+ years. Having created multiple successful businesses in healthcare, hospitality, and publishing, Gabriela coaches entrepreneurs to succeed in their own business ventures. Her distinction is an amazing ability to identify underlying barriers to success and then neutralize them. Gabriela’s mission is to help individuals and organizations grow to their definition of next-level success. She shares her knowledge and skills through ongoing weekly and monthly workshops with audiences world-wide.
Areas of Expertise
- Speaker/Trainer
- Business Growth & Development Coaching
- Relationship Coaching
- Group Coaching
- Yuvay FergusonYuvay Ferguson
A lifelong lover of education and a fierce champion for activities that impact the professional growth of business leaders, Dr. Yuvay Meyers Ferguson has a proven track record of providing strategies for innovative partnerships that engage companies with both internal and external populations to further the goal of preparing the workforce of today and tomorrow. Her academic research, which centers on generational cohorts and their behavior in the marketplace, has given her insight into how the general characteristics of the groups impact dynamics in the workforce. With almost 20 years of professional and academic experience, Dr. Ferguson has a unique understanding of adult education, leadership coaching, and evidence-based training techniques to help companies successfully strategize and implement people-forward initiatives in today’s new labor environment.
Areas of Expertise
- Strategic Planning and Consulting
- Speaking/Moderation
- Corporate Training
- Leadership Development
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging
- David GrauDavid Grau
As an executive and leadership coach, with an in-depth consulting background in organization development and change management, Dr. David Grau has over 20 years’ experience in leadership and management coaching, organization and employee development and conflict prevention and resolution. David is a certified Resilient Leadership Coach. He works with leaders to help them develop a new way of seeing, thinking and leading that helps them lead with calmness, clarity and conviction. This shift can lead to positive changes in one’s personal life, as well.
- Executive Coaching
- Group Coaching
- Individual Coaching
- Marsha HughesMarsha Hughes
Marsha believes that coaching can help her clients “leverage” their strengths, enhance their leadership presence, and increase their overall effectiveness to optimize organizational performance and create joy in the workplace. Her coaching approach is informed by the ICF Code of Ethics and the latest research in adult development, leadership development, neuroscience, and psychology of change.
Specialties:
- Executive Coaching
- Team Coaching
- Individual Coaching
- Beverly JonesBeverly Jones
Beverly Jones works with leaders to create strong teams and positive cultures, and helps professionals thrive in their careers. Her strengths include helping clients to sort out complicated strategic challenges, frame complex issues, and find greater satisfaction and meaning at work. Among Bev’s clients are leaders in companies, universities, nonprofits and government agencies. For 20 years she has been a Professional Fellow at the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service at Ohio University. Bev writes and speaks about many issues related to team-building, engagement, and personal and professional growth. Her new book, “Find Your Happy at Work,” is a handbook for finding more joy, meaning and success in your career. Her podcast, “Jazzed About Work,” is produced by WOUB Public Media and heard on NPR.org and other podcast portals.
Specialties:
- Executive Coaching
- Leadership Consulting
- Career Consulting
- Workplace Consulting
- Edna PrimroseEdna Primrose
Edna Primrose 20 years of executive expertise, leading comprehensive programs in organizational management, workforce development, and community development in the public and private sectors. During her 10-year tenure as a Federal Senior Executive, she served in administrator and chief operating officer positions in the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Labor for multi-billion-dollar programs in youth education, water infrastructure, public-private partnerships, and administrative operations. As a private sector executive in multiple industry sectors, Ms. Primrose managed complex programs, developed leadership and organizational structures for growing companies, and led major policy initiatives. She is active on multiple boards, including boards at her alma mater, Towson University, MD, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business Administration. She is passionate about incorporating lifelong learning, growing leaders, creating community, and cultivating lasting impact in her consultancies.
Specialties:
- Business Coaching & Consulting
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
- Benny RodríguezBenny Rodríguez
Over twenty years of experience in leadership and team development, coaching, innovation, and limiting beliefs’ transformation. His passion is to help leaders develop a goal-oriented performance attitude, collaboration culture, innovative mindsets, and healthy communication environments to achieve higher and long-lasting results. He has worked with private and public companies, not-for-profit organizations, and universities in 15 different countries. Besides his clinical psychology degree, he is a Certified Human Performance Coach, Communication Profile Analyst, NLP Practitioner, and Adventure-Based Therapist / Facilitator. He has gained clients recognition for facilitating innovative, experiential-based training with a great sense of humor and a values-centered perspective.
Specialties:
- Leadership Development
- Team Development / Performance
- Diversity Equity & Inclusion
Learn More about Benny Rodríguez »
- Mandeep SinghMandeep Singh
Mandeep partners with leaders to significantly increase their impact while remaining completely true to their values. Mandeep’s clients increase their self-awareness and personal mastery, their ability to influence and inspire people, and unlock their ability to bring their own vision and passions into service for the world. Mandeep’s natural style is gentle, and he forges long term, easy, trusted partnerships with his clients.
As a consultant, Mandeep facilitates interventions with senior leadership teams, helping them surface key issues and create jointly owned action plans to solve them. He is adept at uncovering unclear, missing or misaligned roles and accountabilities, business process gaps, and unspoken organizational agreements on topics that are undiscussable. Mandeep can create environments within which teams bring up the elephant in the room.
• Executive Coaching
• Team Coaching
• Individual Coaching
• Facilitating
• Training
• Strategic Planning - K. Michael SlaterK. Michael Slater
Senior Executive Leadership Coach & Consultant with extensive public and private sector expertise designing and delivering organizational, change-management and DIE&B initiatives. He is internationally recognized for achievements in executive coaching, cultural integration, conflict resolution, crisis management, and group facilitation. Michael is a leading expert in designing and delivering effective equity, inclusion, and diversity initiatives, cultural assessments, and organizational change strategies.
Specialties:
- Executive Leadership Coaching
- Diversity, Inclusion, Equity & Belonging
- Change Management
- Kari UmanKari Uman
Senior Consultant with Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates, is a certified professional coach (PCC) and change management consultant with a record of accomplishment helping senior executives, mid-level managers, and teams optimize business performance and organization success by navigating leadership and organizational transitions, relationships, and communications challenges in more effective ways. Kari works with leaders, especially women, to evaluate their own behaviors, identify, and understand the impact of these behaviors on the organization, and, when needed, learn new behaviors that are more productive for the successful performance of their role and the accomplishment of the organization’s mission. She helps organizations going through transitions identify the gaps between their present and future vision, reduce resistance to change, and implement new ways of doing business to achieve success.
Specialties
- Leadership Coaching
- Coaching Female Leaders in Transition
- Managing Organizational Transitions

Emily Barnes
CEO & Executive Coach
A strategy coach and consultant, Emily Barnes coaches high performers to better results and helps clients

Cyndi Radke
COO & Executive Coach & Business Consultant
A strategy coach and consultant, Emily Barnes coaches high performers to better results and

Ira Chaleff
Founder & Senior Advisor
Ira Chaleff is the founder and president of Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates. He has been named one of the top 100

David Grau
Executive Coach
As an executive and leadership coach, with an in-depth consulting background in organization development and change

Beverly Jones
Executive Coach
Beverly Jones helps executives bring new productivity to their organizations, and works with professionals to restructure

Edna Primrose,
DE&I Consultant
Edna Primrose 20 years of executive expertise, leading comprehensive programs in organizational management,

Mandeep Singh,
Executive Coach
Mandeep partners with leaders who want to bring their own vision and passions into service for the world to increase their

Kari Uman,
Executive Coach
Kari Uman, has more than twenty-five years’ experience as a coach, consultant, and trainer. Her particular experience and interest
What We Do
- Business Coaching & Consulting
- Executive Coaching
- Team Coaching
- Individual Coaching
- Facilitation
- Training
- Strategic Planning
- Motivational Speaking
Why Top-Perfoming Executives Choose Us
- Stronger Leadership Performance
- Healthier, Happier Workplace
- Strategic Planning
- Organizational Optimization
- Personal Optimization