Michael Wilkinson

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Michael Wilkinson, author of The Secrets of Facilitation ' The SMART Guide to Getting Results with Groups, is one of the nation's leaders in the facilitation industry. He is a Board member of the National Institute for Facilitation (nifac.org) and founder of the National Facilitator Database (NFDB.com). He has been awarded both the Certified Professional Facilitator and the Certified Master Facilitator designations for experience and demonstrated expertise in facilitation. In December, 2003 he was named Facilitator of the Year by the Southeast Association of Facilitators (www.seaf.org) for contributions to the field.

Michael is founder and Managing Director for Leadership Strategies ' The Facilitation Company (www.leadstrat.com). His firm is the east coast leader in facilitator training and specializes in providing organizations with professional facilitators to lead executive retreats and task forces through strategic planning, process improvement, information needs analysis, and issue resolution.

Michael is a much sought after facilitator, trainer and speaker, both in the U.S. and around the globe. He has completed international assignments in Bangkok, Brisbane, Glasgow, Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Melbourne, Milan, Singapore, Sydney and New Zealand.

His client experience covers a wide range of public and private sector organizations, including The Coca-Cola Company, Sears, Unisys, KPMG Peat Marwick, Storehouse Furniture, the City of Atlanta, Families First, the American Cancer Society and the United Way of America.

Prior to Leadership Strategies, Mr. Wilkinson spent eight years in the information technology practice of Ernst & Young's Management Consulting Group. He has been a certified data processor and was selected by the Governor of Georgia to serve for three terms on his twelve-member Information Technology Policy Council.

Michael's life is a storybook example of the positive results of affirmation action. Born in Washington, DC, he spent his early years living in a government housing project. As one of six children, he and his brothers and sisters worked odd jobs from an early age to help supplement the family's very modest income. While a newspaper carrier, he received a scholarship through the help of the Washington Post to attend St. Mark's School, an exclusive New England preparatory school. The academic environment was much more challenging for him, as indicated by his early grades. However, within three years, he was rated in the top quartile of his class. As a senior, he was named a National Merit Scholar and awarded a grant by the UPS Foundation to attend Dartmouth College.