Rhiannon Surrenda

Rhiannon Surrenda, M.A., is a dynamic trainer who brings her enthusiasm and passion for empowering others to all her training and consultations. Rhiannon works with executives, teams, individuals, and entrepreneurs from a wide range of industries to help them become high performers and succeed in their professional and personal development goals.

As a trainer and business consultant for the past 18 years, Rhiannon excels at leadership development, developing high-trust workplaces, building emotional intelligence, essential communication skills, change management/resilience, working across generations, process improvement, strategic planning and development and delivery of train-the-trainer programs. She has extensive experience working with a variety of organizational structures represented in differing industries: Government (hierarchal/paramilitary), private and public companies, non-profit/NGO, education, venture capital firms and community-based organizations.  Rhiannon’s clients consistently mention her high energy, expertise, relatability, listening skills and appreciate her genuine love for her work to help people and organizations grow and succeed.

Rhiannon is a senior consultant and training affiliate for MRG and provides trainings on a variety of topics while integrating personal, professional and leadership development, with an emphasis on the practical application of new tools and knowledge on the job. She delivers Leadership and Supervisory Academy’s for the City of Santa Cruz, City of Monterey and the City of Roseville. She is also working with Contra Costa County delivering trainings on building a High-Trust Workplace to support their on-going organizational culture shift. In her work with Silicon Valley Clean Energy, she delivers trainings to address challenges as well as leverage opportunities with a goal of developing an optimized high-performing team.

In addition, Rhiannon has provided strategic planning for multiple divisions at Google, as well as Executive and Change Resilience trainings, and 360° Executive team evaluations for many organizations.  She has traveled the state delivering instructor trainings for many colleges and organizations.  She has led results-driven training solutions for corporations, government agencies and not-for-profit organizations to ensure high-quality, consistent trainings at all locations. Rhiannon provided workforce development solutions to local businesses in Santa Cruz County and has created and delivered a wide range of customized trainings serving Government (City, County, NetComm(911), Police, Education), Healthcare organizations, NGOs/nonprofit and for profit organizations. She also helped develop the Supervisory and Leadership Academy at Cabrillo College.

Rhiannon has a master’s degree in Organizational Psychology and a Graduate Certificate in Organizational Conflict Management from John F. Kennedy University. She is a certified trainer for Development Dimensions International, Inc., True Colors®, New World of Work 21st Century Employability Skills, Culture Works What Motivates Me and is a CCCAOE Leadership Academy Master trainer. In addition, she has completed and been certified in the AchieveGlobal Inc. Leadership Training, Compression Planning®, Interaction Associates Facilitative Leadership® Training, Interaction Associates Facilitating Change® Training, Technology of Participation Training (ToP)®. She is a certified facilitator of Being in Action, delivering empowerment and stress management training.