Asset Publisher
Maria Valdes
Lecturer
Center for Executive Education
mvaldes@nps.edu

Dr. Maria Valdes earned her Bachelor in Psychology and Master of Arts and Ph.D. in counseling from the University of Florida. Dr. Valdes is also a certified mediator. She has been an adjunct professor with the Naval Postgraduate School since 2011 and works in the Admiral and Captain Transition Support program.

Courses Dr. Valdes teaches include Success and Derailment Factors, Emotional Intelligence, Goal setting and Action Planning. She has conducted individual coaching sessions with NFLEK and delivered over fifty feedback sessions and debriefs while at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Dr. Valdes specializes in executive assessments, climate surveys, and group facilitation with senior leadership teams, and other intact teams. She also designs and delivers customized leadership development programs. She trains on topics that include feedback and coaching skills, driving high performance, diversity, managing differences, creating supportive work environments, team building, and utilizing group resources.

In the course of her 25 years as a coach, she has provided over 4,500 individual feedback sessions to executives from a variety of Fortune 500 companies and organizations in public sectors. She has taught training sessions on a variety of executive assessment and leadership development assessment instruments. Additionally, Dr. Valdes trains and develops new feedback specialists. She is fluent in Spanish and conducts executive feedback sessions in both English and Spanish.

Dr. Valdes is familiar with Center for Creative Leadership’s (CCL) research on executive success and derailment factors and has trained classes on these issues as they apply to women and minorities. She facilitates diversity classes including promotional and development issues of women and minority employees. She also trains classes on gender differences and gender communication in the workplace. In her practices she has conducted workshops on retention issues, mentoring programs, and feedback skills as they apply to non-traditional employees. She has advised the New York Bar Association on retention issues of senior associates.

Prior to her organizational practice, Dr. Valdes taught graduate and undergraduate courses in psychology, counseling, and testing. She was the Director of Human Resources for the Denver Department of Human Services for 10 years and previously was appointed to the Civil Service Commission to supervise all testing for entry-level personnel and candidates for promotion in the Police and Fire Departments within the City and County of Denver. She has worked in Western Europe, South and Central America, Puerto Rico, Turkey and the Far East. She has visited Africa, Eastern Europe, India, Nepal, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.