Michael McDermott, Founder & CEO
Michael has spent the past 30 years designing and delivering a wide range of global development solutions to increase company value through leadership and organizational excellence. With 20 years senior executive experience at JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch, followed by 10 years consulting experience at Blackstone, S.A.C. Capital Advisors, and other organizations, Michael enhances company performance through strategic solutions that help leaders achieve their aspirational goals and develop aligned organizations with high-performing cultures.
Beginning his career in Fixed Income Sales at J.P. Morgan during a period of significant growth, Michael became the training manager for the company’s flagship Global Financial Markets Program, and ultimately the Co-Head of Leadership and Organizational Development at JP Morgan Asia. Subsequently, Michael accepted an offer from Goldman Sachs to become their Global Head of Learning and Professional Development, providing end-to-end development for the company's officers with an integrated curriculum of leadership, culture and professional skills. He also developed programs for strategic vision setting and team effectiveness, and worked with Steve Kerr to learn the GE models of leadership development and change management. Michael was then recruited by Merrill Lynch to become Chief Learning Officer for the firm and Global Head of Development for the Global Markets Businesses, where he created an integrated development program with a leadership model, talent review process and performance management process for the top 200 leaders.
Since that time, Michael has founded Arcadia Group to deliver consulting, coaching and other strategic development services to Blackstone, Novo Nordisk, The White House - The Office of the First Lady, Hilton Worldwide, S.A.C. Capital Advisors, Barclays Capital, Cornell Medical Center, Spring Lake Ranch, Summit Materials, OMG, Cisco, George W. Bush Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Department of Defense, Beazley and Verisign, as well as individuals from other Fortune 500 companies and beyond. This breadth of experience has informed Arcadia Group’s integrative yet practical approach to its services: linking talent development to value generation, strategically employing different interventions based on need, and addressing mindsets - the deeper drivers of human behavior - to generate powerful and sustainable change. His range of experience with diverse leaders has also deepened an appreciation for how awareness, mastery and transformation of the mind shape and determine multiple dimensions of professional success and personal fulfillment.
Michael is a certified ICF coach, a graduate of the Georgetown Leadership Coaching Program, and is certified in Meyers Briggs and Compass. In addition, he is a Reiki Master Teacher, meditation instructor, NLP Master Coach and martial artist, and has facilitated and designed corporate and spiritual retreats. He is an instructor with the Global Leaders Academy, a co-founder of The Program in Sustainable Living for Leaders, a trustee of the Edge of Emergence for Sustainable Leadership, former Vice Chair of the Board for The Cancer Support Community of Southern Connecticut, and current Chairman of the Board for Ray of Light.
Beau Higgins
As a former Senior Manager on Amazon’s Military Affairs team, Beau was the leader of an organization tasked with elevating the cross-company strategic impact, both internally and externally, stewarding the considerable investment Amazon has made in the US Military community. During his 7 years at Amazon, Beau was responsible for creating scalable veteran programs, developing policies and strategic planning for military recruiting and outreach efforts. He and his team focused on effective strategies for hiring, developing and retaining the best and the brightest military talent available for positions within Amazon. His role developed over time as the Military team was incorporated into Amazon’s larger Global Diversity Equity and Inclusion team which increased the focus on developing Amazon’s efforts to hire diverse Veteran talent, military spouses, and wounded warriors, as well as engaging with multiple Military Support Organizations (MSO’s) to develop pipelines of Veteran talent. His initial focus was on developing and implementing Amazon’s Military Pathways program which was created to find and develop elite Veteran candidates for roles where they could promote quickly into senior positions. Beau is now dedicated to supporting leaders, businesses and organizations in developing and executing comprehensive talent acquisition strategies, executives searches and services using an integrative, relationship-centered and strategic lens.
Prior to joining Amazon in 2016, Beau served for 25 years as an intelligence officer with the Marines. This included deployments to Somalia, Bosnia, 3 tours to Iraq, and 3 tours to Afghanistan. He had the privilege to command 1st Reconnaissance Battalion and Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division. Following his retirement in 2014 he ran operations for a fiber optic cable assembler for 2 years.
Beau has a Masters in Business Administration from George Mason University and a Masters in Military Strategy from the Air War College. He is married to the former Elizabeth McKee of Green Bay, Wisconsin. They have one daughter and four sons. His personal awards include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with one gold star and the Combat Action Ribbon. Col Higgins was chosen as the Marine Corps Intelligence Officer of the year in 2002 and received the Marine Corps award for Intelligence writing in 2006.