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How to Become a Thought Leader: A Practical Framework for Executives

For years, I believed that thought leadership was reserved for people with massive platforms, bestselling books, or a constant presence on conference stages.

I was wrong.

True thought leadership doesn’t start with visibility—it starts with clarity.

As The Drop In CEO, I work with executives who already have decades of experience, deep credibility, and powerful insights. Yet many of them still ask me the same question:

“How do I become a thought leader without sounding self-promotional or inauthentic?”

This article breaks down a practical, executable framework for executives who want to become a thought leader in their industry—without chasing algorithms, trends, or empty visibility.

What Thought Leadership Really Is (And What It Is Not)

Before we talk about how to become a thought leader, we need to redefine the term.

Thought leadership is not:

  • Posting inspirational quotes without context
  • Sharing surface-level industry news
  • Positioning yourself as the “smartest person in the room”

Thought leadership is:

  • Offering perspective, not just information
  • Connecting experience to insight
  • Helping others think differently—even uncomfortably—about familiar problems

To become a thought leader, you must move from expert to interpreter.

The Executive Thought Leadership Gap

Most executives already have what they need to become a thought leader:

  • Real-world experience
  • Pattern recognition from years of decision-making
  • Credibility earned through results

What they often lack is a thought leadership strategy that translates experience into influence.

That’s where many get stuck.

A Practical Framework to Become a Thought Leader

This is the same framework I use personally—and with clients—because it works in boardrooms, on LinkedIn, and in long-form content like blogs, podcasts, and books.

1. Define the Problem You Are Willing to Be Known For

Thought leaders don’t talk about everything. They talk about one problem exceptionally well.

Ask yourself:

  • What leadership issue do I keep seeing misunderstood?
  • Where do I disagree with conventional wisdom?
  • What problem do people come to me for—without realizing it?

Thought leadership begins when you claim intellectual territory, not when you chase attention.

2. Build a Point of View, Not a Resume

Executives often default to credentials:

  • Titles
  • Years of experience
  • Past roles

But people follow thought leaders for perspective, not pedigree.

To become a thought leader, articulate:

  • What you believe
  • Why you believe it
  • What happens when leaders get it wrong

Your point of view should feel earned, not academic.

3. Translate Experience Into Teachable Insight

Experience alone does not create thought leadership. Reflection does.

Ask:

  • What did this situation teach me?
  • What pattern do I see repeating across organizations?
  • What should leaders stop doing—even if it’s comfortable?

This is where your thought leadership strategy gains depth and credibility.

4. Choose Consistency Over Virality

One viral post won’t make you a thought leader.

Consistency will.

Thought leadership compounds when you:

  • Share insights regularly
  • Reinforce your core message
  • Allow your audience to “learn how you think”

LinkedIn rewards clarity. AI search rewards structure. Humans reward trust.

5. Speak With Your Audience, Not At Them

True thought leadership invites dialogue.

That means:

  • Asking thoughtful questions
  • Acknowledging uncertainty
  • Admitting when the answer isn’t simple

The strongest thought leaders don’t pretend to have all the answers—they help others ask better questions.

Why Thought Leadership Matters More Than Ever

In an era of automation, AI, and endless content, judgment is the new differentiator.

Organizations don’t just need leaders who can execute. They need leaders who can:

  • Interpret complexity
  • Navigate ambiguity
  • Influence without authority

That’s why learning how to become a thought leader is no longer optional for executives—it’s strategic.

Final Thoughts…If you’ve gotten this far, you’re 80% on your way to Thought Leadership!

Thought leadership isn’t about building a brand.

It’s about standing for something clearly enough that others can trust your thinking.

If you want to become a thought leader:

  • Stop trying to sound impressive
  • Start trying to be useful
  • Share what you’ve learned the hard way

Your voice matters—not because of your title, but because of the insight you’ve earned.

— Deb Coviello The Drop In CEO

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Deb Coviello, The Drop In CEO

Known as The Drop In CEO™, Deb’s superpower is lowering the temperature and elevating conversations with empathy and patience. As a speaker, author, podcaster, and consultant, she teaches C-Suite leaders how to establish a “Lift, Light, Lead” environment and create calm amidst chaos or crisis. She is the author of “The CEO’s Compass: Your Guide to Get Back on Track,” and, “The NEW CEO Playbook: Stop Chasing Results and Start Pursuing Peace of Mind.” Her long-running podcast, The Drop-In CEO, is in the top 1.5% globally among Apple podcasts.

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Guest Writer: JL Heather

The Innovation Toolkit: Key Strategies Every CEO Should Know

Media3L is the media arm of The Drop In CEO Brand which stands for Lift, Light and Lead. I like to shine a “Light” on valued partners in my network for which I have the pleasure of knowing JL Heather, Managing Partner and Principle Executive Coach at Centered. Enjoy his through leadership on Innovation and I encourage you to reach out to him and add him as a valuable resource to your network!

Innovation is the lifeblood of long-term success. Yet for many organizations, it remains elusive—a buzzword that sounds great in strategy meetings but struggles to deliver tangible results. Why? Because innovation isn’t a single initiative or a job title. It’s a system—a series of deliberate, interconnected actions that foster creativity, collaboration, and execution.

As a CEO, your role is to ensure that system works. It’s not about micromanaging ideas or dictating solutions; it’s about creating the conditions for innovation to thrive. Based on what we’ve seen at Centered, here are three key strategies to drive real impact from your innovation programs.

1. Understand Your Organization’s Innovation Readiness

Before you can foster innovation, you need to know where your organization stands. Are your teams aligned around shared goals? Do they have the resources, autonomy, and psychological safety to explore new ideas? Understanding these dynamics is critical, yet many leaders skip this step and dive straight into initiatives without assessing their starting point.

Take the time to evaluate your organization’s innovation readiness. Look at the alignment of your culture, processes, and leadership behaviors. Ask tough questions: Are teams encouraged to experiment, or is failure quietly punished? Do your systems and structures make collaboration seamless or stifle it? Knowing these answers helps you identify where to focus and how to unlock your teams’ potential.

2. Embrace Agile Problem-Solving Frameworks

Innovation isn’t a linear process. It’s iterative, messy, and often requires rapid adaptation. To move fast without breaking the wrong things, CEOs should champion frameworks that encourage structured experimentation, such as design thinking or agile methodologies.

These approaches allow teams to prototype, test, and refine ideas quickly, reducing the risk of overinvesting in solutions that don’t work. By embedding agile problem-solving into your organization, you create a culture of progress over perfection—a mindset that helps teams focus on outcomes rather than bureaucracy. Encourage experimentation, celebrate learning from failure, and model the value of adaptability.

A great way to dive in is with a Design Sprint!

3. Build a Leadership Culture That Enables Innovation

Innovation thrives when leadership inspires it. As a CEO, your behavior sets the tone for how teams approach risk, collaboration, and creativity. Are you creating space for exploration, or are your priorities sending a message that execution always outweighs experimentation?

Focus on building a leadership culture that balances vision and trust. Ensure your leaders know how to foster collaboration across silos, encourage open dialogue, and provide psychological safety for teams to take smart risks. Invest in developing leaders who can empower their teams and remove barriers, rather than micromanaging outcomes.

Your Role as the Innovation Enabler

As a CEO, you don’t have to be the source of the best ideas—but you do need to create the conditions for those ideas to emerge. This means understanding where your organization is today, equipping teams with the right frameworks to move forward, and setting a leadership example that prioritizes growth, experimentation, and adaptability.

Innovation isn’t just about big, flashy ideas; it’s about building the systems and practices that make creativity a repeatable, scalable process.  By focusing on readiness, agility, and leadership, you can build a system that delivers innovation not as a one-time win but as a repeatable, scalable process.

The question isn’t whether your organization can innovate—it’s whether you’re building the system to make it inevitable.

About Centered

At Centered, we empower your organization to innovate boldly.

By fostering a culture of experimentation, inspiring leadership, and building high-performing teams, we ensure your business continually adapts and thrives in a changing world.

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Ban Two-Way Communication and Adopt Two-Way Understanding

When my husband announced we would have new hardwood floors & carpeting on the 2nd floor in our home, I was elated with the change. When my entire world was disrupted that Monday and had to re-arrange all my plans, I did not respond well. What happened? My husband communicated the change. He gave me the details of what to expect. He was frustrated we did not appreciate the process for which I felt really bad. The breakdown came because communication fails when we don’t have two-way understanding of the impact. Let me share more so you don’t make the same mistake in business.

Leaders cascade initiatives and deploy change agents so communications happen throughout the organization. The presentation is polished, videos are recorded and townhalls arranged in hopes that the organization understands the impact. The key word is “Hope”. Where leaders fall short is they invest the communication and not on the outcome of understanding.

A few ideas that can help a leader though this issue to avoid conflict, irritation and dissention among the rank and file.

Invest in Understanding as the outcome of what you’re trying to achieve. The communication is simply the vehicle towards understanding.

  • Ensure you cascade in detail the change and the expected impact
  • Ask people if they can articulate the impact to their work; confirming understanding.
  • Ask people to raise issues associated with the event that were not considered and with open discussion, you can ease the tension.

It’s not rocket science, but when we ask people to think in terms of outcomes and impacts from the end user perspective, we realize we have a lot to learn about communication. Remember the telephone game where what starts out as one message is degraded by the time it gets to the last person.

As leaders we have a responsibility to assure that what we communicate is understood; else we fail to be leaders.

Getting back to my situation; I was banned from my office for two days and could not function in a noisy home that transcended all three floors. There was no escape, so I needed to adapt. I found work arounds, including my basement for which I was able to continue doing business. I later recorded a video thinking I had a virtual background that later failed and I was recording my basement background! How embarrassing, but it added to the humor of the situation and I might say a fun recording!

The next time you have to communicate, change your mindset that you’re in the business of effecting understanding for a better outcome!

If you’d like to discuss how we can build this competency into your team, let’s talk!

Until then, wishing you better Two-Way Understanding!

-Deb

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When “It must have gone to my spam folder” is no longer acceptable in business

I was a bit upset when I facilitated an introduction that would be beneficial to both parties and one person did not respond. I gently reached out to them wishing them well and asked if they had received the introduction. They responded quickly saying it must have gone to their spam folder for which they quickly retrieved and did the follow up. I’m grateful my intervention may help in the conversation, but how often is this the ‘excuse’ that we give to others?

While SPAM folders provide a purpose to protect us from unwanted messages; given we know there are things in there that may not belong, why do we not manage that? In the end, when we don’t mitigate the risk of potentially missing a communication and blame it on the SPAM folder, what does that do to the relationships we do want to nurture? Quite frankly, it sends a bad signal when we give that as an excuse.

As leaders, we need to put in place systems that assure us that we reduce risks in missing transactions or communications. Customers don’t accept communications going to SPAM. Then why do we think it’s acceptable to use this as an excuse for our other interactions? I simply want you to think about your lack of managing your systems reflects poorly to those who are impacted by them.

Instead, I recommend the following:

  • You or designee review the SPAM folder daily and any missed communications, send your apologies for the delay and take ownership of it.
  • Create additional rules in your mail system that “if” and “from” important people or entities, to send them to another folder or mark them for follow up.
  • Unsubscribe from all mailing lists that you don’t want so your name / email is not shared with other mailing lists; causing more SPAM to go to that folder and possibly missing something important.

While technology has become a life savor for us from an efficiency perspective, over utilization and dependency can be our demise and ruin relationships.

So, the next time you find an important communication in your SPAM folder, what will you do? Blame the system or will YOU take accountability for the relationship?

For more opinions from The Drop In CEO, consider reaching out to me for a conversation and maybe I can provide content value for you and your platform or organization!

I offer panel discussion, speaking, content writing and internal podcasting for your organization. Let’s talk about the offers that provide you or your organization value!

-Deb Coviello, The Drop In CEO

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CLARITY AMIDST CHAOS HELPS US AVERT CRISIS

When a CEO calls me to discuss a potential challenge, I run towards that opportunity with all the energy I can. You see, I can see that CEO in ways they cannot imagine. All I want to do is rush into the chaos to gain the clarity they are seeking to avoid the crisis that is looming.

In full transparency, let me share with you how I operate and if you’re my CEO who is in the same place, read on to see if you want to work with me!

Step 1: Listen to the CEO, but dig deeper

The CEO provides much insight into their world and often advices where they think the problem is. This is very helpful, but please know you commission me to see what you cannot see. I’ll validate your concerns, but I’m going to give you the systemic conditions that need to be addressed as well.

Step 2: Give you more than what you asked for

You see, I believe in providing tremendous value and see the world from the CEO perspective. Yes, we will “whack-a-mole” in what is obvious. I will also look at your landscape with lenses in Quality, Operational Efficiency & Waste, Environmental Health & Safety, Food Safety and Leadership. Be ready for a systemic implementation approach whether you hire me or not

Step 3: Distill the information into consumable and actionable chunks.

Life is complex, but feedback should not be. I will give it to you straight leveraging the SWOT approach and reveal or confirm what are your organizational Strengths and Opportunities. You can accomplish so much more by leveraging these insights than the Weaknesses and Threats. When it comes to the bad stuff (sad face), I position it so it focuses on Conditions & Management Practices. Fix those deeper issues and you fix it through-out the organization. You may not like what I say or become defensive, but you, the CEO hired me to show you the way, not what you want to hear

Step 4: Deliver with Gratitude

Maybe this should have been Step 2 or 3, but just know throughout the process, I am in deep gratitude to you for giving me the opportunity to see your world and help you navigate the challenges. I will use my 35 years experience to provide my best insights, but I will never give you my 5 step approach because it simply will not work. You and your organization are unique and like a surgeon, will apply the specific cure for your situation.

Step5: It’s a partnership

I care about you as a person and your organization that you take so much pride in. We collaborate on the insights and prioritize together; walking arm in arm. I’m in it for the long game as are you and I simply want to see you succeed.

So, this piece today was inspired by an amazing conversation I had with a CEO and VP yesterday and validate to me the work I’m best suited to do as The Drop In CEO.

If you are having a feeling in your gut that the near term chaos may manifest into a crisis without your leadership, act now and trust yourself. A partner such as The Drop In CEO may be who and what you need to elevate your leadership, shine a light on the people in your organization and solidify your Legacy.

Let’s talk!

-Deb

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Media Matters: When the Audible Word is More Powerful Than the Written Word

I wrote “The CEO’s Compass: Your Guide to Get Back on Track” to lift up CEO’s by exploring their Hero’s Journey through the unknown, guiding them to their own Peace of Mind in 2021.

I was so grateful when it came out to share autographed copies and seeing the book sales in Amazon and other outlets. I thought I had hit the big times and then someone said to me, ‘is it available on audio?’ and then I realized I fell short of meeting my audiences needs.

The same thing goes for business; when leaders think the presentation or the email is enough to cascade a proclamation; I would say they miss the mark in communication and truly influencing an outcome. When a leader shows up with their voice and intonation, we connect with humanity on a different level. Know your market and communicate accordingly!

That is why I’m announcing that starting tomorrow, I am recording the audiobook for The CEO’s Compass and can’t wait to get it to my audience who prefers my voice. Yes, Deb’s voice will read the book in a way that I hope connects with you intellectually and emotionally; ultimately leading to Peace of Mind.

I’m excited to partner with David Wolf and his team at Audivita Studios | Audiobooks | Podcasts for this new media offer.

Anyone wishing to advocate for this offer, please DM me and I’ll share with you the marketing details.

Many thanks for everyone who has supported me along the way and for those who come knocking on my door in the future, I thank you in advance as well.

-Deb

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How to Get Off The Hamster Wheel of Life

I am pleased to share my platform with Erin McCullough as this week’s Guest Writer

Erin McCullough, Executive Coach and Drop In CEO Guest Writer

Erin Mac is an Executive coach that specializes in helping entrepreneurs and leaders in discovering the unique impact that they want to make and bringing that gift to the world.  She has been an entrepreneur for 24 years, a business consultant for 16 years and a coach for 6 years.

This week with my 4th graders (if you’re new to this blog I work with kiddos to teach them strategies for stress and anxiety) we talked about this amazing workbook, that I highly recommend, “My Happiness Journal.” While this is geared for kiddos, and I highly recommend it for them, I also love this for “adults”. I put adults in quotes because I believe deep inside there is still a child who has great imagination, wonder, curiosity and FUN! And, I am still riding off the high of all the fun making we have been discussing over the past month, and my encouragement to get out there and have a lot of it! Well, this is no different. This journal makes me smile just looking at it, and it couldn’t be any more appropriate than to channel that inner child and all of their creativity for us adults!

Why I think this journal is a must have is that it asks the all important questions of: “My Birthday was great this year because”, and “This dessert is happiness” (and it asks you to draw the dessert!) I kid, these things are fun, but some of the other things it asks are: “What are the 5 things I couldn’t do without in my happiness bag?”, “Five things to do if I’m having a bad day” (with 5 suggestions: read a book, text a friend, take a walk, draw, play a game and 5 blanks to fill in), and “Happy to Help Coupons” (fill in the blank on how you are willing to help others).

Now, you know this is right up my alley in terms of positivity and present moment awareness, but what really struck me were my daughter’s and the 4th graders answers to these questions. It wasn’t what they said, or talked about, it was the simplicity in it all. There weren’t a lot of fluff in the answers or justification as to why they felt this way or that. In fact, most everything they answered from the book was one or two word answers. Most of these kids know exactly what makes them feel good, no hesitation. Can you say the same? Could you rattle off the 5 things in your happiness bag (no fair just rattling off the people you love, dig deeper) and 5 strategies to turning your day around?

I know prior to beginning my personal journey to understanding why I was so unhappy and unfulfilled I would not only be hard pressed to come up with 5 things in my happiness bag that had meaning, I definitely did not have 5 strategies for coping with stress, anxiety and overwhelm, that weren’t some form of distraction or numbing (think alcohol, TV/movies, social media, food, etc.). And, these three emotions, at that time, were my primary emotions. Nor did I know that it was possible to overcome these emotions and heal from them so I didn’t have to keep experiencing them on repeat. See, I didn’t realize that I did not have to have the life experience that we are here to be challenged and our job is to seek solutions to these challenges. That is what I thought life was, a “challenge-solution” game. I thought is was my job to avoid pain (challenge) by finding solutions. I thought that I would find enough solutions one day that all the challenges would go away. Well, by definition that is not possible because I was playing the game of “challenge-solution”, thus challenge was part of the deal.

I don’t know about you, but I got really good at coming up with solutions to all the challenges in my life, personally and professionally. I would pride myself on coming up with creative solutions, and quick. But, if life is a “challenge-solutions” game and I was coming up with good solutions, quickly, how come I wasn’t satisfied? How come if life was supposed to be a “challenge-solution” game there was only short-lived satisfaction and a lot of stress and overwhelm? The reason is that you can’t win that game because not every situation is going to be exactly the same, so the solutions will need to be varied and nuanced and likely not usable for the next challenge. Also, the people involved in each situation are complex. And lastly, you have set up a hamster wheel or treadmill scenario in which there must be a challenge in order to find a solution for the game of life to continue.

So, what to do? If life is not “challenge-solution” then what is it? It just is. Life itself is neutral. All the scenarios that we are in reaction to are neutral. We are the ones that bring the challenge, the bad feelings, and the stories to every scenario. We are the ones that create the drama, the stress, the expectations and the bad feelings. Life is actually simply a “cause-effect” game. And, if we played it as such there would be not only less feeling bad, we would be able to course correct quicker and continue moving forward. This is my work, helping people to identify what is tripping them up from enjoying this life right now. Helping them get out of the “challenge-solution” game and into the “cause and effect” game so that they can find purpose and meaning and be present and participating in their lives right now! It is possible, and I believe our birthright, to feel good almost exclusively and I want to help you get there. If you can relate let’s schedule a time to chat.

Peace,

Erin “off the wheel” Mac

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https://scottroberts.org/a-kick-in-the-pants/

Getting Your A@$ Kicked Is Not A Bad Thing

You might actually wear the bruise with honor! So often we wait for recognition or feedback to know how we are doing in our career or personal pursuits. The key word is “wait” as if you’ll be struck by lightening and have clarity in your direction going forward. Those who wait for external validation are destined to be disappointed. For those that get kicked in the A@$, you have received a blessing and are better for it.

How many of you (show of hands) have had this happen to you; either kicked out of the nest or had your head handed to you and were blindsided? If you’re not raising your hand, you’re in a very small club of people who are missing out on the best thing that could have happened to you. Let me get to the point as I know you are very busy…

  • Enjoy your pity party because we have to grieve when we have lost something or we feel regret. Honor the feeling so it does not linger -Grieve It
  • Ask yourself why you were not prepared for what just happened and what could you have done differently-Reflect On It
  • If you did see it coming, why did you not act before becoming a casualty – Own It
  • If you felt it was out of your control, what now is in your control, you decide-Decide it
  • And once you Decide what you will own and take action on, how will you prevent yourself from falling into old patterns that lead you back to where you came from. Create the future you want-Create IT

So enough of the pep talk. This is not an easy process. Following the steps of Grief, Reflection, Owning, Deciding and Creating a new path forward is not just a political slogan, but an intentional choice in how you lead your life whether in your career or your external pursuits.

Getting your A@$ kicked is something that only once happens to CEO’s and C-Suite leaders because they learn from these opportunities. They seek support, new ways of thinking and are intentional about self management. Is this you? I may have the solution you need to manage through or preventing your next A@$ kicking!

Until then, be well-Deb

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Guest Writers Wanted! We’re Growing!

To all my followers over the years, I sincerely want to thank you for your support and engagement with my content. It fuels me to continue this work which lead me to form Media3L, the media component of The Drop In CEO brand. With that stake in the ground, I need to scale and I’m in search of creatives who want to share their insights on my platform. I will continue to create, but periodically I need to recharge or spend my energy in further growing this part of my business.

Full transparency, this is an uncompensated role at this time as we’re piloting growth of The Drop In CEO brand into more copy and potentially a digital magazine. There is a name for it, but keeping it close to the vest until the concept is fully vetted. Based on the response to the article, it may lead to guest appearances on the podcast or joining me on my weekly show; Deb Coviello-Live Talk Media.

Benefits of this offer is access to 9600 followers on LI and 1300 people on my mailing list and publication on my website indefinitely. As we grow, so does your access to my audience.

If you are interested , please DM on Linkedin or email me at deborah@coviellocm.com.

I’m excited to meet you and grow this brand together!

-Deb

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Photo by Tim Mossholder: https://www.pexels.com/photo/help-wanted-sign-on-glass-5737622/

Help Wanted: Ideal Clients, all others need not apply…

Job Title: Ideal Client

Job Description: You must be a highly aware leader who is open to new ideas and responds to your gut when you know you need some help. The perfect client is one that sees the landscape changing and realizes that unless you course correct now, you will sink the ship and everyone in it. With this important responsibility, you must also be people centric; knowing that with any improvements, you must also improve the capability and capacity of your team. If you don’t move fast, they will sink the ship for you. Finally, you are keenly customer focused and everything you do is in service to them and everyone has their back whether it is quality, service or safety. Cost is secondary.

Additional Qualities: You’ve come to a cross road where you know you can only see the trees and that’s okay. You realize you need an external view to give you the perspective of the long term strategy needed to not only fix your concerns, but manage them sustainably. That takes a trusted partner whether you call them a Consultant, Advisor, Fractional Leader or a new category, a Drop In CEO who will partner with you during this time.

Desired Skills: An open mind, agility, strategic thinker, good listener, good communicator, steadfastness for the greater good and always seeking to improve themselves and the people in their care.

Fine print: This is not a pitch for services, but a humorous attempt to get you to think differently about yourself and how you lead. I do of course want to work with my ideal client and have those tremendous feelings of vibrating off their energy and achieving amazing results. But it’s also a message to CEO’s/Presidents/CxO’s to assess if you would be an ideal client for someone who might be able to support you during a challenging time.

How to apply: We are an equal opportunity employer of The Ideal Client and seek diversity in all aspects of your thinking, background, culture and leadership. We do not discern with physical attributes, but for those who are diverse in all other aspects. Reach out to us at deborah@coviellocm.com or DM me on Linkedin or my website; I’m here 24/7 and ready to take your call!

And until we meet and discuss how we can partner, I wish you well and much success in applying for your next opportunity!

-Deb

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