Michelle Hoover is a leadership development strategist, advisor, and executive coach. A trusted thought partner to CEOs and business visionaries, she has designed, delivered, and facilitated leadership-development programs for more than 75,000 learners across five continents in her 19 years in leadership development.

Michelle is the founder of Baem Leadership, a strategic consultancy that advises global corporations, mid-stage startups, and purpose-driven organizations on empowering and emboldening their leaders — especially First-Generation Professionals — to lead themselves and their teams more effectively. Prior to founding Baem, Michelle established the Leadership and Learning function at Audible, an Amazon company, launching the company’s first suite of management-development learning initiatives. Before that, she led two years of 100 percent year-over-year growth at venture-backed educational startup General Assembly, leading the organization’s global expansion and building the core strategic asset upon which The Adecco Group’s $400M acquisition was based. Michelle also spent eight years holding several roles at Duke Corporate Education, then ranked by the Financial Times and BusinessWeek as the No. 1-ranked provider of customized executive education.

A First-Generation Professional herself, Michelle is a former newspaper reporter and editor and earned her B.A. in journalism from Penn State University and her Ed.M. in higher education from Harvard University, where she focused on organizational and leadership theory. She lives with her partner and his 8,000-piece vinyl collection in Fairfield County, Connecticut, where she is adapting to life in the suburbs after 17 years in Manhattan.