Tom Kaney
Senior Executive Coach • Trusted Leadership Advisor
"It's what you learn after you know it all that matters."
- John Wooden, Winningest UCLA Basketball Coach
Coaching for Results
Tom’s coaching work is distinguished by an integration of his experience as a senior executive, his background in developing leaders and his expertise in organizational behavior. His core belief is that a leader can only lead others as far as they have developed themselves—what Tom calls “inside out leadership.” His focus is on deepening and enriching self awareness. Tom believes that, at senior executive levels, success depends more on who you are than what you know. Tom also emphasizes that effective development must combine improved leadership capabilities, positive behavioral change, and enhanced business acumen. The depth and breadth of Tom’s senior executive experience, consulting and coaching background enables him to quickly understand and support executives across a wide range of leadership challenges including: improving performance in current roles, developing leaders for larger or new roles, successor and high potential development, new leader on-boarding and accelerated development, leadership assessment and facilitating career transition. Tom also specializes in executive team development and team coaching. Tom’s clients range across a wide variety of organizations, both for-profit and non-profit, including Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, Engineering and Construction, Government, Education, Financial Services, Energy, Chemicals, and Human Services. He is certified in the application of a suite of psychological and leadership assessment protocols and instruments.
Past Experience
Tom has held Senior HR Executive positions in Pharmaceuticals, Biotech, Healthcare, Automotive and Consulting Services. As SmithKline Beecham’s Sr. VP, Human Resources and Organization Development, And GlaxoSmithKline’s Sr. VP, HR N. America, Tom led several global and U.S. merger integrations that have been hailed as benchmarks for merger success. Tom was instrumental in developing and delivering GlaxoSmithKline’s Strategic Planning, Leadership Development, Succession, Executive Assessment and internal and external Coaching and Mentoring programs for global leaders. These foundation programs later led to GSK being awarded the prestigious International Coach Federation Prism Award for excellence and innovation in leadership coaching on a global scale within GSK as a primary leadership development strategy and process.
Professional Activities
Tom is co-author of the book ‘Leading Strategy Execution’ with Rick McKnight, Ph.D. and Shannon Breuer and numerous articles on leadership development, business psychology and executive coaching. Tom is also a member of the Board of Advisors and International Directors Forum for INSEAD University’s Executive Education and MBA programs and a member of the Executive Coaching staff at University of Pennsylvania Wharton School MBA, Executive MBA and Advanced Management programs.
Education
Tom holds a B.A. in Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University and an M.A. in Organization Behavior from Antioch University where he graduated Summa cum Laude and valedictorian.