Thank you for making the 92nd Commencement at Coker College a successful and inspiring occasion. Harris DeLoach, Chief Operating Officer of SONOCO, told me that all the commencement speeches he has heard, your speech is at the very top of the list!"
Stedman Graham is chairman and CEO of S. Graham & Associates (SGA), a management and marketing consulting company that specializes in the corporate and educational markets. Clients include Merrill Lynch, The Apollo Group, DutchVersity, Monster.com, Manpower, Harvard and Wharton Business Schools, the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor and many more.
As a businessman, educator and speaker, he presents, consults and conducts training with corporations, organizations and nonprofits on the topics of identity development, maximizing leadership, achieving success, and personal and professional branding. His corporate seminars are driven by the Nine-Step Success Process , a life and learning management system designed to organize your life around your identity.
Graham has authored eleven books, including two New York Times bestsellers, You Can Make It Happen: A Nine-Step Plan for Success and Teens Can Make It Happen: Nine Steps to Success. His latest release, Identity: Your Passport to Success, reached number six on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list for Hardcover Business books.
Actively involved in education, he is a former adjunct professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago where he taught a leadership course based on his Nine-Step Process. At the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, he taught a management strategy course entitled "The Dynamics of Leadership." He also founded and directed George Washington University's Forum for Sport and Event Management and Marketing - the first of its kind in the country. Graham is a current adjunct professor for several universities around the country.
Graham holds a bachelor's degree in Social Work from Hardin-Simmons University. He received a master's degree in Education from Ball State University and an honorary doctorate in Humanities from Coker College.
Stedman Graham works with business leadership and executives to help them align business strategies. Moreover, he offers them a process for developing and performing in business that is congruent to their own Life Brand. Once leaders have a personal vision and know who they are, they can act on where they want to be personally and professionally. With this knowledge, they are better equipped to work authentically and ethically toward business objectives. Leaders who participate in the Competitive Advantage in Business Leadership program will be able to consciously articulate not only what needs to be done, but why it needs to be done. This collective knowledge is then the catalyst for serving up and rallying around the action plan regarding "how" to create, share and achieve business objectives. This source of personal and business transformation is intended to create an environment that works better for the leader, the company and those impacted in the surroundings.
You can start to maximize your potential once you know exactly who you are and what is important to you. Once you know who you are and what drives you, only then can you begin the process of branding yourself into the market. Stedman Graham champions messages on how to polish your brand - "your promise." His messages are tailored to the individual and/or the overall organization (including how to garner recognition, appreciation and response for your corporate brand and value).