Meet the Team
Rich Leadership is a small, boutique firm that serves our clients in a highly specialized way. We have a limited client base, restricted by the constraints of time, the needs of existing clients and ultimately determined by whether we can together create an effective, results-oriented relationship.
Gary Rich
As founder and president of Rich Leadership since 2007, Gary provides counsel to CEO’s and their Boards on issues of leadership development and organization performance management.
Clients range in size from Fortune 10 companies to small, family-owned businesses and include Financial Services, Media and Publishing, Biotech, Consumer Packaged Goods, E-Commerce, Professional Services, Technology, Entertainment, Fashion, Manufacturing, Retail, and Hospitality Services companies.
Prior to founding Rich Leadership, Gary spent five years as Chief Executive Officer of QSP, a subsidiary of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., where he was responsible for the company’s $800M school and youth fundraising business in the U.S. and Canada. Prior to his general management role, Gary held Chief Human Resource Officer positions at Readers Digest and ACNielsen. At American Express, he concluded his ten year tenure as Senior Vice President, Human Resources for American Express Europe, the Middle East and Africa, a business with 16,000 employees in 26 countries. He was based in Europe for four years during that period.
Gary is a member of the Board of Directors of Stingray Digital (RAY.A TSE) and the Mercon Coffee Group (International Coffee Producers and Traders) and serves as head of the Compensation Committee for both organizations. He holds a master’s degree from Columbia University in Organizational Psychology.
Melinda Stephenson
Melinda designs and implements strategies that help executives and the organizations they lead realize their potential. She is a certified executive coach and organization effectiveness consultant supporting clients in technology, pharmaceutical, retail and other industries since 2005. Melinda has designed and facilitated several leadership development and management training programs across industries.
During her corporate career, Melinda held senior HR positions at Gap, American Express, and Macy’s Northeast. At Gap, she led the Organization Development function and consulted directly to the CEO and executive team in building long-range strategic plans, formulating change management strategies, designing leadership training programs, creating governance structures and culture change. As the senior HR business partner to the Gap Brand, Melinda built and executed human capital strategies for an organization of more than 30,000 employees.
Jyl Danaceau Camhi
Jyl coaches CEOs and executives, and she designs and facilitates leadership development programs for senior leadership teams. Her clients range from Fortune 100 to venture-backed startups in a wide range of industries including biotech, retail, technology, consulting, construction, luxury brands, and financial services.
She draws from her own 25+ years of experience as a corporate and entrepreneurial business leader. She began her career as a sales and marketing leader in Fortune 500 technology companies, including Microsoft where she went on to run an explosive-growth $350M line of business and was named Top Manager in North America. She later founded a tech startup in the children’s education industry and led it to reach the Entrepreneur 500.
Jyl graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Maryland with a B.S. in Computer Science and received an M.S. from George Washington University. She is a Georgetown University trained Certified Leadership Coach, Certified Facilitator, and Certified Organizational Consultant.
Julie Rappoport
Julie coaches in high-change environments where she supports executives through role transitions, company mergers, market repositioning, and organizational redesigns. As VP, Rich Leadership, she is also responsible for operations and helps drive new business opportunities.
Julie is passionate about working with leadership to identify, define, and implement strategies that are aligned with future-focused KPIs, and has significant experience executing complex organizational change in highly disrupted industries.
Her focus on implementation helps leaders clarify and define vision, leading to communicable and executable strategies aligned across functions and levels within an organization.
Most recently, Julie served as HR Director for Fullscreen Media’s Brand Group and prior to that led the HR Business Partner function for SapientRazorfish’s national Media practice.
She holds a degree in Psychology from Barnard College of Columbia University and in Philosophy from List College of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Glenn Kaufman
With over 30 years of global organizational effectiveness experience, Glenn has helped numerous organizations and thousands of individuals attain business performance goals.
During a 15-year career as an executive with American Express, Glenn instituted their Organization Effectiveness function and directed Global Leadership Development.
At LexisNexis, a $4B global legal information services company and subsidiary of Reed Elsevier, Glenn was Senior Vice President of Global Organization Planning & Development and also served as the Head of Customer Support.
For the past decade Glenn has been an independent consultant providing executive coaching and cross-cultural organization development to clients including GE, Pfizer, NXP Semiconductors and BP, while facilitating The Leadership Room programs around the globe with Rich Leadership.
After attending medical school, Glenn completed his graduate studies at Antioch and Columbia Universities.
Maria Garrett
Maria is a seasoned Talent Development Leader and Leadership Coach with more than 25 years of experience designing and delivering HR strategies, talent development programs, change initiatives, OD and team interventions. While much of her experience comes from corporate work in the high-tech sector with companies like NXP, AMD, Freescale and Motorola, she’s also worked with IT orgs, Legal & Finance teams, e-commerce, and the commercial truck tire industry in company environments ranging from the very small to large, global and complex.
Maria is experienced in customizing and scaling interventions & solutions to meet the needs of a given situation. When coaching leaders, Maria is both results-focused and pragmatic. Her style is known to be candid and direct but also personable and compassionate. Blending a strong mix of theory and practice, she helps leaders and teams identify and move past the obstacles that can sometimes stand in the way of continued success.
In her most recent role, she led the Corporate Learning function and top-tier Leadership Development programs at NXP. She is certified in the use of various personality instruments & leadership assessments and is a certified change practitioner. Maria holds a graduate degree in Organizational Behavior & Communication Studies and undergraduate degrees in Business Management and Organizational Communications.