Silicon Valley

Featured Speaker(s)

Rayona founded IWL in 1991, an organization renowned for its groundbreaking work throughout the US, Australia and Canada. Drawing from her successful careers in education, professional sports and business, Rayona has become an inspirational coach and mentor for executives in Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, emerging businesses and non-profit organizations. Her masterful approach as a coach and educator helps her take very complex theoretical concepts and distill them down to relevant, accessible learning distinctions, resulting in dramatically more effective leadership skills for her clients. More than 5,000 professionals have relied on IWL to produce breakthrough results both at work and in their personal lives. Her groundbreaking work has earned her an appointment on the Women's Leadership Board at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University

She is currently co-authoring a book on Contextual Leadership for publication in 2006 and is one of several featured authors for Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2005).

She has presented to prestigious institutions and associations such as Stanford University Graduate School of Business, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, Mills College, State of the World Forum, the Federal Government of Canada, the Australian Federal Government and Leadership America. National publications such as Fast Company, Working Mother and the New York Times have showcased Rayona's coaching model. She has delivered scores of keynote speeches and designed large conferences around the topic of developing extraordinary women leaders.

Rayona spends much of her free time playing sports. As shortstop for the California Express women's senior softball team, Rayona helped the team claim the runner-up position in the 2002 softball world championships. The crown jewel of her life is her daughter, Chelsea, age 19, who inspires, challenges, coaches and generally keeps her Mom in a continuous learning mode regarding the power of negotiating win-win solutions.