Pamela Manfredo Curtis, Ph.D.
Founder and President, Manfredo Curtis Associates, LLC.
Author of an upcoming book to be published by Simon & Schuster/Atria
Host, “Corner Office Confidential” on SiriusXM
For over 30 years, Pam has partnered with C-level executives and their teams to transform organizations and achieve benchmark results, first within IBM, PepsiCo, and Unilever, and then as the Founder and President of Manfredo Curtis Associates, LLC. (MCA). MCA’s blue-chip portfolio includes AlixPartners, Cummins, Diageo, General Motors, Harley-Davidson, Seventh Generation, and The Walt Disney Company. In the exclusive world of global leaders, Pam is regarded as an elite executive coach and a corporate game changer, one who CEOs enthusiastically recommend to one another. Her approach has proved so life-changing that she is also being asked to partner with leaders in the entertainment and sports industries.
"Pam's like that one trusted life friend who knows me in ways maybe only one or two others might and who is always there just to help me."
—Matt Levatich, President and CEO, Harley-Davidson, 2015–2020
Emotional intelligence (EQ) has always come naturally to Pam. She is able to read the interpersonal dynamics in a room within minutes, and intuitively, and positively, shift the group’s energy. Pam laughs as she recalls the time she sang at her grammar school graduation, a solo of “Let There Be Peace on Earth” while there was a storm raging outside. “Try to sing high during thunder!” she grins, as she remembers her determination to hit the soaring notes despite the lightning strikes and thunderclaps. She kept singing, the assembled students and their families stayed focused on her performance, and the ceremony went off without a hitch. Pam understood, even as a girl, that emotional balance, empathy, and engaging hearts and minds can keep a group on task during a turbulent time.
Pam graduated magna cum laude from Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and business. She then attended Tulane University on a full scholarship where she earned her master’s and Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology in four years while working for IBM.
"Pam is wonderfully authentic and authoritative—there is nothing formulaic about her. She is incredibly engaging and direct. She is a spectacular listener. She possesses a broad gauge and a formidable intelligence. And she commands an extensive subject matter, both academically and as a practitioner."
— Curt Welling, President and CEO, Americares Foundation, 2002–2014
At PepsiCo in 1992, Pam pioneered a company-wide Organizational Health Survey to measure employee satisfaction and engagement. PepsiCo still uses her survey today. While at Unilever, Pam designed and implemented a change management and communication process leading up to the merger of Lever Brothers, Helene Curtis, and Chesebrough-Pond's. In 1998, shortly after the launch, Pam was named one of Unilever’s Top 25 contributors worldwide for her merger work and received a top HR Innovator’s award in China.
In 1999, Pam founded MCA, a firm dedicated to unlocking human potential and releasing the power of organizations. Pam’s first client was Guinness, which led to ongoing work with Guinness’s parent company, Diageo. She has long-term and deep personal relationships with her clients. Typically, she embarks on change work for a minimum of two years, and has partnered with select clients for more than 15 years, including one leader for 25 years. Pam has honed an integrated approach to executive coaching, senior team development, and organization-wide change processes that is data-driven and customizable. She has carefully selected a team of experts, including global masters in the field of psychometrics, to help guide clients through the difficult process of change work. Pam and her team are licensed to use a wide range of personality inventories, as well as implement MCA proprietary processes – MCA Authentic Leadership (MCA AL™) and MCA High Performance Team (MCA HPT™).
“Well, I've worked with Pam as long as I have because quite simply she's the best at what she does."
— John Replogle, CEO, Seventh Generation, 2011–2017 | Founding Partner, One Better Ventures
Pam’s approach is so successful that she has spoken about authentic leadership at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, been featured in Harvard Business Review, and was awarded the Medal of Outstanding Leadership Performance by a four-star general for research conducted on behalf of the U.S. Army. Pam created and hosted SiriusXM’s “Corner Office Confidential,” a series on leadership where she teams with her C-suite clients for intimate, exclusive conversations revealing their journeys and sharing with SiriusXM listeners the profound leadership lessons learned along the way. She is currently writing her first book, to be published by Simon & Schuster/Atria.
Pam’s EQ efforts go beyond the corporate sector. MCA joined forces with buildOn to break ground on two primary schools in Senegal, one in 2016 and the second in 2018, with a charter that ensures that 50 percent of the students will be girls.
Pam and her husband, John, live in Connecticut. They have three grown children, now adults, who they adore. She loves adventure travel and beach vacations with her family, theatre and music in NYC, and entertaining. And Pam still loves to sing. After a meeting, you can find this soprano and her clients gathered around a hotel piano belting out Broadway standards.
Allen Hammer, Ph.D. Senior Advisor and Assessment Expert
Sarita Bhakuni, Psy.D. Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Kiki Cahn, MBA Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Rob Devine, M.A. Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Eugene R. (Geno) Schnell, Ph.D. Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Eva Margot Kant, LCSW-R Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Lola Intagliata Executive Image Consultant
Stacey Petzold Graphic Design Consultant
Dayna Macari Administrative Support and Organizational Consultant