Marian Madonia

Marian's business career started in banking and financial services. Her career grew quickly. She moved into management by the time she was 20, and by 22 had become the Director of Corporate Training for a large financial institution in Washington, DC. In addition to managing the training function, she had a few programs that she created and taught herself including: management, sales, customer service, communication, and time management.

The banking industry struggled in the late 80's and early 90's. After 2 layoffs in a row, in 1991, Marian joined a large trade association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). She had three roles with the association. In the first role, she was the project manager for 10 annual conferences on employee benefits (DC/DB plans and Health/Welfare plans). These were 3 day intensive programs for benefit administrators to educate them on the latest legislative and industry changes so they could stay current. In her second role, Marian was the project manager for a week-long training program for new benefit administrators that involved teaching them everything they would need to know in order to be effective administrators. In her third role, Marian taught 2 day long Financial Planning Seminars. These programs were designed to teach employees (and their life partners) how to plan for their respective retirements. This was a win/win program as employees became self-sufficient, it required them to participate more in company 401(k) plans so employee contributions increased. In order to be more effective in her role, Marian obtained securities licenses (Series 6 & 63) and dove into studying for the Certified Financial Planner designation.

In 1996, Marian had the opportunity to pursue an adventure. She moved to a 4000-acre farm in Saskatchewan, Canada. At first, she pursued another avenue of her financial career and became licensed to sell life and health insurance. In the end, the finance wasn't as important to her as was helping people. Within 3 months of moving to Canada, she was back to pursuing her passion of delivering training programs. She began a training and consulting company serving both US and Canadian clients. Her focus was people skills; management, communication skills, customer service, and her most often requested program "How to Deal with Difficult People." The project she is most fond of from this part of her career was a joint project with Deloitte & Touche and Human Resource Canada where a year long internship was created for people who wanted to start a business. Marian's roll was to handle teaching and coaching on the people side of business. Watching people pursue their dream and become successful at it is still one of the most rewarding experiences of her career.

In 1997, Marian returned to the United States and now locates her business, Madonia Communications International, in Kansas City, Missouri. Marian's services include consulting, training seminars, and keynote speeches. She is in the midst of several new writing projects, so stand by to see the latest.

Her clients have included The UPS Stores, T-Mobile, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Clairol. She helps businesses improve the bottom line while caring for its people. This combination of productivity improvement with relationship building builds staff loyalty; one of the best ways to improve the bottom line is with staff who care.

Areas:     Change, Communications, Leadership, Management, Performance Improvement

Speaking Topics and Products : 

Marian's topics are: How to Deal with Difficult People (Most requested and appreciated program), Change (a good dose of attitude/motivation as well), Communication Skills (basic to advanced), Customer Service (including a program on difficult and demanding customers), Conflict Resolution Skills (a great compliment to How to Deal with Difficult People and Difficult & Demanding Customers), Teamwork (aka How to Play well with Others), Management, and Leadership (these last two topics are highly customized and deal extensively with the research Marian has done on the Garbage Factor™ in the workplace. She identifies things that get in the way of motivation and performance in good and great workers. She also coaches on performance problems in poor workers.)

Marian is author of: "No More Garbage: How to Deal with Change, Challenges, and Chaos," "Fantastic Customer Service Inside & Out," and "It's Not About the Money: Real Life Solutions for Performance Issues." She has also produced an audio series called "Tell Me Something Good" and a live video production of "From Survivor to Thriver: Successfully Making it Through all the Change & Chaos.