Valerie Cunningham Gilford
Senior Consultant Executive Coaching and Development
Valerie Cunningham Gilford specializes in Leadership and Organization Development, Executive Coaching, Management Development. With over twenty years of external and internal management consulting experience in several large corporations within a variety of industries, Valerie has delivered insightful solutions to a myriad of organizational problems using a systemic problem solving approach. Her clients have included Ernst & Young, The Raytheon Company, The Thomson Corporation, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Fletcher Thompson, West LB, Prudential, the City of Hartford and the Society for Biomolecular Screening.
Valerie began her career in a variety of academic and corporate roles in career counseling, operations and quality management. She was one of the first female District Operations Managers for the Eastern Region of AT&T.
While serving as the Director of Executive and Management Learning of the Learning Institute of Rensselaer University at Hartford, Valerie directed the training of a variety of leadership and management development programs for profit and not-for-profit organizations. As Director of Employee Development for Carrier Corporation, a division of United Technologies, Valerie developed and implemented Carrier’s Global Competency Model and associated MBA Assessment Center and also managed the corporate succession planning process. As a recognized leader in Human Resource Development, Valerie most recently served as the National Director of Leadership Development and Research for Girl Scouts of the USA where she developed and implemented a leadership development process to develop skills and reduce turnover among paid staff and volunteers.
Valerie is also currently on the adjunct staff of the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she serves as a certified Adjunct Feedback Coach. In this role, Valerie has successfully coached and counseled several hundred executive and middle managers who participate in the Center’s contract and public leadership development programs. In 2006, Valerie joined the adjunct staff of the Duke Corporate Education Center.
Valerie holds ED.M and MA degrees in Counseling and Applied Human Development from Teachers College, Columbia University; an MS degree in Industrial Engineering from New York Polytechnic University, and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education from the University of Connecticut. She has won several leadership awards including the Women in Leadership Award given by the Greater New Haven, Connecticut YWCA and the Salute to Women Achievement Award of the Greater Bridgeport, Connecticut YWCA. In 1998, she was inducted into the Academy of Women Achievers of the Greater New York YWCA.
