Kiki Cahn, MBA
Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Kiki is a thought partner to Dr. Pam Manfredo Curtis, ensuring that quality is at the highest possible level across all areas of the business, including customizing client work to meet the unique needs of each and every client. She also challenges Pam to evolve business content in new and exciting ways. As Kiki’s eclectic resume reveals, she has held senior management positions in international business, customer service, and leadership development. The skills acquired from those roles, as well as her natural ability to make everyone feel seen and heard, have culminated in finding her life’s purpose and passion at MCA—helping people transform their lives by building deep self-awareness, and becoming better leaders and more fulfilled human beings.
"Working with Kiki has been life-changing. She truly demonstrates great care for an individual's whole self. She has been instrumental in helping me uncover my fullest potential as a leader."
—Christina M. Baldwin, Executive Director, CTT and Components HR, Cummins
Kiki graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in social studies. Her first foray in business was a one-week assignment at Duferco Ltd. (USA), an international steel-trading company, which quickly led to a job offer. In the ten years that followed, Kiki held a variety of increasingly senior positions managing purchasing, foreign exchange, operations, and the Japanese import business—and then was named Duferco’s treasurer based in Lugano, Switzerland financing a billion dollars of annual purchases and managing relationships with international banks. Ever the globally-inquisitive student, Kiki took a sabbatical from Duferco to attend the London Business School. In 1995, she graduated with her MBA in International Business.
"Kiki is a warm and kind person, which is obvious from the moment you meet her. She is a true professional and she has changed me for the better—both professionally and personally."
—Con O'Sullivan, Executive Director, PSBU Supply Chain & Operations, Cummins
Kiki’s next corporate chapter was all about delivering exceptional customer service. For nine years, she was the Customer Service Manager of The Danbury Mint, a direct marketing collectibles company. She managed a department of 60 people and two telemarketing companies that handled over one million calls per year. As a result of her customer-focused responsibilities, Kiki’s natural emotional intelligence became even more fine-tuned during her tenure at The Danbury Mint.
In 2007, and driven by the desire to make the world a better place, Kiki was named the COO of Surviving Bullies Charity, Inc. She developed innovative anti-bullying programs with the charity’s founder, the Yale Department of Psychology, mental health professionals, and school districts. Kiki helped schools identify children who were being bullied and then provided resources to support them. She also taught students leadership skills, empowering them to change their schools’ culture by organizing bystanders to intervene in bullying situations. This work proved pivotal for Kiki. She realized the impact it could have on executives, and she was eager to apply her learning to the corporate sector.
"Kiki has been coach, counselor, and friend all rolled into one. Her firm, yet gentle, approach to guiding me to new insights has allowed me to grow as both a professional and a person. I am a very different—and more effective—leader and father today because of work done with Kiki."
—Tony Cervone, Senior Vice President, Global Communications, General Motors, 2014-2020
Kiki joined MCA in 2012, and shortly thereafter, earned her Executive Coaching Certificate from Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business. Clients say Kiki’s approach–caring, compassionate, and culturally-attuned–helps them transform their lives. Kiki’s deep expertise in business adds another level of connection and understanding. As part of the MCA process, each client is encouraged to write down their leadership purpose. Kiki specializes in helping leaders get to the heart of why they were put on this earth, and guides them to express their leadership purpose with clarity and meaning. Kiki also continually explores new areas of content to enhance clients’ lives and the companies they lead. These include ways to cultivate gratitude, deal with fear and anxiety, and apply practical applications of mindfulness at work.
Kiki and her husband, Simon, call Connecticut home. Their son, Daniel, has flown the nest to pursue a career in air traffic control. Music is a shared love, so when he is home, Kiki and Daniel often play together, she on piano, he on bassoon. Kiki is also an avid cook, a committed volunteer, and an enthusiastic globetrotter. She spent her six years in Switzerland traveling to a new destination every weekend, and was soon advising her Italian colleagues on all the best places to visit in Italy. But perhaps her most memorable adventure was as her mother’s companion on Pan Am Flight 001 in 1980, an around-the-world journey that included stops in Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, India, and Europe. “This was an amazing opportunity at a young age to experience all of those cultures,” shared Kiki. “It fostered my love of travel and my fascination with international business that has continued to play out throughout my life.”
Pam Manfredo Curtis, Ph.D. Founder and President
Allen Hammer, Ph.D. Senior Advisor and Assessment Expert
Sarita Bhakuni, Psy.D. Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Rob Devine, M.A. Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Eugene R. (Geno) Schnell, Ph.D. Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Eva Margot Kant, LCSW-R Executive Coach and Senior Consultant
Lola Intagliata Executive Image Consultant
Stacey Petzold Graphic Design Consultant
Dayna Macari Administrative Support and Organizational Consultant