Diana Thomas - Executive Coach, Advisor, and Author, MBA

As an executive coach, Diana partners with great people and helps them be better leaders and find more happiness in their lives.  As a proven successful executive, Diana brings decades of experience, expertise and education to her coaching with business executives, teams and learning/talent leaders to increase their impact, inspire committed followership and engagement, and build strong diverse teams that pull together to achieve Winning Results.

In addition to coaching, Diana is the host of the Talent Champions podcast, a bi-weekly discussion of issues facing HR and talent development. She is the co-author of the 2018 strategic leadership book, Be More Strategic in Business: How to win through Stronger Leadership and Smarter Decisions.

Diana began her career as a McDonald’s restaurant crew member in 1979, and rose to become Vice President of Training, Learning & Development for McDonald’s USA.  In this role, she led all aspects of training and development including the restaurant training curriculum at Hamburger University, McDonald’s global training center of excellence.  Her mission was helping to build the pride, culture and business results of McDonald’s USA by focusing on successful, consistent operations training systems and standards for all restaurant managers and crew employees.

Under her leadership, McDonald’s USA was recognized as a Learning Elite Organization, ranked #2 by Chief Learning Officer magazine. Diana received the magazine’s Norman B. Kamikow Lifetime Achievement Learning Leadership Award in 2014. She is a past recipient of the prestigious McDonald’s President’s Award, representing the top 1% of McDonald’s employees; the Golden Arch Partner Award, which honors staff who have committed 25 or more continuous years of service to the company; and numerous regional and team awards.

Diana is an Editorial Advisory Board member for Chief Learning Officer magazine, a faculty member for Media Tech’s CLO Accelerator Class, a Board Member for the National Diversity Council, and a past member of Tri-City Family Services’ Board of Directors and an Advisory Board Member for the American Council on Education.  She is a Certified Marshall Goldsmith’s stakeholder Executive & Team Coach and an Associate Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation (ICF). She holds an MBA, a master’s degree in Human Resources Development and Business Management, and a BA in Education and Economics.  

Diana is married with two daughters, and enjoys spending time with family, focusing on health and wellness, teaching yoga, and lifelong learning.