DeMarcus Pegues

SENIOR CONSULTANT

Demarcus Pegues, Senior Consultant

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

DeMarcus is a senior executive coach, facilitator and consultant with a genuine passion for talent and leadership development as well as efforts geared towards diversity, inclusion, and belonging. With over a decade of advanced training and applied experience in the field of organizational development, DeMarcus is a skilled research-practitioner, trusted advisor, and effective collaborator. Devoted to the development and ultimate transformation of his clients, DeMarcus helps individuals, teams and organizations learn and develop so they can more readily identify, pursue and achieve the positive and sustainable changes they desire.

Background & INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

DeMarcus has served as a strategic thought partner and trusted advisor to frontline-, mid- and senior-level leaders at numerous organizations across the technology, higher education, government, consumer products and retail, not-for-profit, pharmaceutical, and financial services industries. Most notably, he has had the distinct privilege of supporting leaders at reputable organizations such as AbbVie Inc., the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), athenahealth, Bayer, Columbia University in the City of New York, Danone, Discovery Inc., Tiffany & Co., the United Nations, KPMG, the US Department of Labor, GlaxoSmithKline, OppenheimerFunds Inc., UCB, and the City University of New York (CUNY).

In addition to his various consulting and coaching engagements, DeMarcus also devotes a significant portion of his time supporting and nurturing the next generation of leadership and team coaches through his work as an Adjunct Professor in the Social-Organizational Psychology Program at Columbia University in the City of New York.

COACHING APPROACH

DeMarcus thrives when working with individuals and teams in global and diverse environments, including senior executives who are challenged by new transitions and change in our ever-evolving world. He takes a collaborative and systemic approach to his work that is underpinned by the core value of client empowerment through joint-diagnosis and -problem solving, with a particularly keen focus on coaching the whole person and the various “parts” contained and represented therein.

Facilitation & Teambuilding APPROACH

DeMarcus’s background in social-organizational psychology with a focus on systems theory, in addition to his formal training in diagnosing and understanding covert processes and group dynamics, converge to inform his practical approach to working with teams and groups within business settings. As a response to the increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world that we find ourselves in, DeMarcus’s work with teams is often focused on defying the prevailing idea of the “heroic leader” so that teams can better identify, and leverage, their collective strengths and intelligence to achieve goals and objectives that they otherwise would not be able to through their own individual efforts. This may include interventions regarding team formation and cohesion (e.g., purpose, mission, vision, strategy, norms, etc.) to team termination, as well as those aimed at establishing—and sustaining—effective performance and optimal engagement at various points throughout a team’s evolution and lifecycle (e.g., conflict resolution, process consultation, after-action review and reflection, etc.).

RELEVANT ASSIGNMENTS

  • Executive Coaching: Several Country Division Heads at a multi-national pharmaceutical and life sciences company as they transitioned—both geographically and positionally—into a new role with increased responsibility and scope as well as a new cultural and political landscape to navigate. Focus primarily revolved around focused learning (culturally, politically, and technically), appropriately diagnosing the situation, organizational (re-)alignment, and coalition building.
  • Team Coaching: Worked with countless mid- and senior-level teams at a mid-sized health technology organization on various coaching engagements ranging from team formation to team termination, and various checkpoints in between.
  • Leadership Development Programs: Has worked with numerous organizations across various industries to design and deliver globally- and culturally-relevant leadership development trainings and solutions for leaders at various stages of the leadership pipeline (i.e., first-time, mid-level, high-potential and enterprise leaders). Topics and interactive sessions primarily focused on influencing with and without power, self-awareness and emotional intelligence, change leadership, conflict management and resolution, leading teams, and cross-team collaboration.
  • Team Development Events: Worked with the CHRO and senior HR leadership team to design and facilitate and two-day offsite that focused on improving team morale and engagement following a recent leadership promotion and transition after an organizational restructuring. The most prominent themes to emerge involved a focus on, and sensemaking around, informal roles and group dynamics, collective grieving and healing, constructive debate and conflict (with mediation), and the establishment of—and agreement to—new ways of working and engaging.

Education & Professional Affiliations

  • Ph.D. in Social-Organizational Psychology, Columbia University in the City of New York
  • M.A. in Organizational Psychology, Columbia University in the City of New York
  • Certified First 90 Days® Leadership Transition Practitioner, Genesis Advisers
  • Certified Hogan Assessment Practitioner (HPI, HDS & MVPI), Hogan Assessment Systems Inc.
  • Certified International Systemic Team Coaching Practitioner, The Academy of Executive Coaching
  • Certified Agile and Adaptive Teams Practitioner, Lean Kanban University
  • Certified Covert and Unconscious Dynamics in Groups Practitioner, Group Relations International
  • Adjunct Faculty at Columbia University in the City of New York

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

  • Pegues, D. A. (2018). Professional and Petty: An Investigation Into the Social and Individual Conditions That Promote Instigated Acts of Workplace Incivility Between Black Professionals [Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
  • Johnson, C. D., & Pegues, D. A. (2013). The role of “who” in social capital formation: Linking who you are and who you know. In C. D. Johnson (Ed.), Social capital: Theory, measurement, and outcomes (pp. 41–64). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.
  • Pegues, D. A., & Cunningham, C. J. L. (2010). Diversity in leadership: Where’s the love for racioethnic minorities? The Business Journal of Hispanic Research, 4(1), 12-17.