DR. DENNIS O'NEILL
Dennis O’Neill has been enhancing individual and organizational performance through the application of the behavioral sciences for more than thirty years. He is currently in private practice as an Executive Coach.
His success as a C-Suite coach has evolved through years of experience and is based on the breadth and expertise of his earlier preparation as a leadership trainer, business researcher, psychometrician, organizational development practitioner, and as a senior executive himself.
Dr. O’Neill has assessed and coached hundreds of senior executives in many industries and corporations. He has led the assessment, selection, coaching, and retention initiatives for senior managers in succession planning, acquisitions, and reorganizations on four continents.
Dennis’ credentials, qualifications, and experience are specific to coaching business executives; he is not a psychotherapist. His coaching clients appreciate this difference as they benefit from his focus on accurate assessment followed by well-defined action steps designed to quickly and positively impact how they are perceived by others. He understands the importance of working within the sensitivities of his client’s company culture.
He pinpoints risk factors for ‘career derailers’ based on executive-level scenarios and psychometrics. Many clients have remarked that he has quickly been able to present them with meaningful feedback in fresh ways that were frank, quantified, optimistic, future-focused, and behavioral.
For Dennis, the executive coaching process is not about changing personalities. Because others form their assumptions about our personalities based on their observations of our behaviors, changing a few strategically selected behaviors will often begin to enhance how others experience us. He is known for helping his clients target those few and significant behaviors that both a) the individual can personally change, and b) which are likely to be the most effective when perceived by others.
From 2001 to 2014, Dennis served as the Executive Director of Leadership and Organization Development for Purdue Pharma, a family-owned pharmaceutical company in Stamford, CT with annual sales exceeding $2.5 billion. All human resources development functions reported to him. Dennis has held similar positions at New York Life, IBM, ITT, Warner-Lambert, and Champion International.
Columbia University awarded him his doctoral degree in 1992. His dissertation research on organizational development and learning in a global corporation was awarded top honors for business-applied doctoral-level research by the International Consulting Society. He earned his M.A. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of New Haven in 1980.