Empowering Inclusive Leadership Growth

International and National Speaker, Coach, Trainer

Leadership today requires more than technical skill or positional authority. It demands cultural awareness, ethical clarity, and the ability to lead across difference, power, and global contexts.

As a Latina leadership scholar, former university executive, and internationally engaged educator, I bring a deeply informed, research-based, and practice-tested approach to leadership development—one that prepares leaders to navigate complexity with competence, humility, and purpose.

Professor Emeritus, Soka University, Japan

Former Dean and Vice-President,

My research, teaching, and public speaking connect leadership development and global impact, with a focus on global leadership and value-creating education. My work in diversity, equity, and inclusion has taken me from Malaysia to Mumbai, from Singapore to South Africa.

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame

Harvard University, A.B.

University of Denver, Ph.D., Lifetime Achievement Award

Published Author

· Global Leadership for a Sustainable Future (Emerald Publishing)

· Global Leadership for Equity and Inclusion in Education (Routledge)

· Value-Creating Education: Teachers' Perceptions and Practions (Routledge)

Maria Guajardo, Ph.D. MG Leadership Design

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About

Impact Stories

Transforming leaders, one journey at a time.

Global Reach

Scholarship Meets Practice
My work bridges leadership theory and lived experience. As a university professor and former Vice President and Dean, I understand leadership from both the classroom and the executive table.

Culturally Relevant by Design
Culture is not an add-on to leadership—it is central to how leadership is understood, practiced, and experienced. My approach situates leadership within real social, cultural, and global contexts.

Global and Systems-Oriented
I work with leaders who operate across institutions, cultures, and borders, helping them lead with clarity amid uncertainty and change.

Tailored Solutions based on Trust

In an era of magical thinking where one’s unsubstantiated beliefs are applied to current and future events, let us choose to be wise. Let us step into the storm and brave the fierceness of the torrential rain and wind.

Let us trust, that when the storm passes, we will be better prepared to protect those we love, those we do not know, and ourselves.

· I trust that we can co-create a society that sustains human dignity.

· I trust that individuals, families, and communities have the capacity and wisdom to chart a new course.

· I trust that the accelerated disruption and loss can serve to reveal tremendous capacity for love and compassion, and the drive to do better, to be better.

· I trust we can design solutions for the co-creation of a better, sustainable world.

Excerpts from Guajardo, M. (2022). Global Wisdom: The Antidote to Magical Thinking. The Journal of Oriental Studies, 61(2), 185-211.

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