Professional headshot of Mariah Cherniss

Mariah Cherniss

Principal and Organizational Effectiveness Practice Leader

Executive Summary

Mariah has nearly 20 years of consulting experience working closely with leaders and teams to improve organizational effectiveness for future business growth, strengthen leader and manager effectiveness, create high-performing teams and cultures, and executive large-scale company offsites.

Mariah is known for her ability to build strong, authentic client partnerships with senior leaders. She also excels at understanding what clients envision and turning that vision into action. Her counsel has helped organizations across for-profit and nonprofit sectors — including higher education, healthcare, and technology — align their teams, engage employees, navigate change, and achieve greater business results.

Mariah seeks to be both a thought partner around strategy development and a highly action-oriented implementer to turn strategies into reality. She has a highly adaptable style and always looks to authentically engage with her clients to understand their situation and approach. Her commitment to her clients is to build high-trust relationships, to create open dialogues, and to inform continual improvement over time through both qualitative and quantitative insights.

Prior to her consulting career, Mariah was a lead researcher at Melcrum Publishing, where she co-authored two global best practice research studies: Employee Engagement: How to build a high-performance workforce and Effective Communication From the Top: The definitive research report on how to improve senior leadership communication.

  • B.A., summa cum laude, Communications, minor in Leadership Studies, University of Southern California