Susan Tardanico, Founding Partner and CEO 

Susan Tardanico is founding partner and CEO of the Authentic Leadership Alliance LLC. In this capacity, she advises and coaches CEOs and executive teams at major corporations, nonprofits and entrepreneurial ventures.  She also focuses on women and emerging leaders.

Concurrently, Tardanico is Executive in Residence at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), ranked one of the top five leadership development organizations in the world, where she serves as an advisor to various CCL functions, programs and clients.

Tardanico is published regularly in Forbes and is a member of the adjunct faculties of Georgetown and New York universities, where she runs graduate-level honors leadership seminars.  Additionally, as a keynote and motivational speaker, she engages groups throughout the country about leadership, communication, authenticity, and reinvention. 

Tardanico previously served as Vice President and Corporate Officer of Textron (NYSE: TXT), a $14 billion multinational corporation. She was one of the top four female senior executives in a company of 44,000 employees.  As chief communications officer, she oversaw all internal, external, executive leadership and crisis communications across the corporate entity and business units.  Tardanico was one of seven leaders selected as change agents to architect and manage the transformation of Textron from a hands-off conglomerate to an integrated operating company, requiring a complete reorientation and realignment of the organization.  This large-scale change management effort spanned company culture, leadership and employee engagement, process reengineering, talent realignment and business/portfolio restructuring activities. 

Tardanico’s 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 corporate headquarters.  During her Textron career, she ran global communications from London, 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 and the creation and implementation of a brand strategy.

Prior to joining Textron, Tardanico led corporate PR and Marketing Communications at EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), where she formed its first public relations function and helped take the company public. 

Before that, she worked at two Boston-area television stations as a news reporter and weekend anchor.

Tardanico graduated Phi Beta Kappa and top of her class at Boston College.  She has completed graduate work at Harvard University and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  She is a certified facilitator and is certified to administer the entire suite of CCL leadership and 360-degree assessment tools.  Additionally, she is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt and Executive Champion.

Tardanico is a member of the National Speakers’ Association.  She was a charter member of the Communications Executive Council and is currently a member of the Arthur W. Page Society, comprised of chief communications officers from around the world, where she’s part of a team to develop next-generation leaders in the Communications field.