Rhiannon Surrenda

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

As a trainer and 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 various 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 appreciate her high energy, expertise, relatability, and listening skills, and her genuine love to help people, and organizations grow and succeed.

Rhiannon provides training 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 Academies for the cities of Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Roseville. She works with Contra Costa County delivering Building a High-Trust Workplace to support their ongoing organizational culture shift. In her work with Silicon Valley Clean Energy, she helps address challenges as well as leverage opportunities to develop an optimized high-performing team.

She has provided strategic planning for divisions at Google, as well as Executive and Change Resilience training, and 360° Executive team evaluations.  She has traveled the state delivering instructor training for many colleges and organizations.  She has led results-driven solutions for agencies and organizations to ensure high-quality, consistent training 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 training serving Government (City, County, NetComm(911), Police, Education), Healthcare organizations, NGOs/nonprofits, and for-profit organizations. She also helped develop the Supervisory and Leadership Academy at Cabrillo College. 

Rhiannon has a master’s 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.