Susan Tardanico

Executive in Residence, The Center for Creative Leadership
Founding Partner and CEO, The Authentic Leadership Alliance

Susan Tardanico is a leadership expert, motivational speaker, former corporate senior executive and former television news reporter and anchor.

She is Executive in Residence at the Center for Creative Leadership, a preeminent independent leadership development organization.  She is also Founding Partner and CEO of the Authentic Leadership Alliance LLC., a leadership and communications consultancy that advises and coaches CEOs, executives and emerging leaders at major corporations, in the political arena, at nonprofit organizations and entrepreneurial ventures.  She is an adjunct professor and Capstone speaker at Georgetown University and New York University, where she runs honors leadership seminars for graduate students and has formed a mentee network for emerging women leaders.

Tardanico previously served as Vice President and Corporate Officer of Textron Inc., a $14 billion multinational corporation.  She was one of the top four female senior executives in a company of 44,000 employees.  Her 20-year tenure with Textron began in a business unit where she worked her way up to become the first female and youngest executive to report to a division President, and then was recruited to the company’s corporate headquarters.  During her Textron career, she ran global communications from Textron’s London office, orchestrated the company’s sponsorship of the Atlanta Olympic Games, and was selected for several key initiatives such as the development of a globalization strategy, the creation and implementation of a brand strategy, and the transformation of Textron’s business model from a hands-off conglomerate to an integrated operating company.

Prior to joining Textron, Tardanico led corporate PR and Marketing Communications at EMC Corporation and was a television news assignment editor, reporter and weekend anchor in Boston.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and top of her class at Boston College, delivering the Commencement address.  Her name is inscribed on the wall of Gasson Hall – the first female since the college’s founding.  She has completed graduate work at Harvard University and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.