Taryn Marie Stejskal, PhD

Dr. Stejskal is the No. 1 international expert on resilience, in both leadership and life, whose mission is to positively impact the lives of 1 billion people, through the concepts of resilience, by 2030. She is recognized as a leading global authority on resilience, wellbeing, and mental health.  

Dr. Stejskal is the founder and chief resilience officer of Resilience Leadership Institute (RLI) and believes resilience is the key to individual and organizational actualization and acceleration across the globe. By leveraging more than 15 years of original research on resilience, she developed the empirically based framework, “The Five Practices of Particularly Resilient People,” to make resilience accessible to all, for executive coaching, top-team effectiveness, high potential leadership programs and workshops, and inspirational keynote addresses.   

Prior to founding RLI, she served as head of executive leadership development and talent strategy at Nike and in global leadership development at Cigna. 

Dr. Stejskal is a sought-after, trusted advisor for executives, athletes, leaders, musicians, and actors, as well as individuals from all industries who are looking for an edge by way of understanding and harnessing their inherent resilience. 

Her groundbreaking research on resilience has been showcased in Forbes, Ariana Huffington’s Thrive Global, Ladders, LA Progressive, and Welum Magazine, as well as mobile applications Happify, eMindful, and Powerful Universe. Stejskal is the author of Flourish or Fold: The Five Practices of Particularly Resilient People. 

She is a co-founder of Resilience Element 75 (RE75), focused on making resilience accessible internationally through film and wearable technology, and is a global Marshall Goldsmith Top 100 Coach. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Michigan, a master’s in marriage and family therapy, and a doctorate degree from the University of Maryland, College Park. She completed pre- and post-doctoral fellowships in neuropsychology at Virginia Commonwealth Medical University.  

She serves as an ambassador for The African Community and Conservation Foundation (ACCF), as well as multiple non- and for-profit boards.