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Mel Parker

President and Chief Executive Officer, Take The Limits Off, LLC

Mel Parker is the best-selling author of The Parker Principles: 10 Leadership Force Multipliers and is a highly sought after Educator and Motivational Speaker. Mel has conducted dozens of seminars, training sessions and keynotes in the areas of leadership, trust, culture, productivity and success.

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Bio

Mel Parker is an internationally recognized multi industry inspirational leader known for his ability to turnaround, transform and upgrade businesses while generating optimum value for shareholders, customers and employees.

He is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of Take The Limits Off, LLC, a leadership development, executive coaching and consulting firm based out of Austin, TX. As an international speaker and best-selling author, Mel has shared his leadership and success strategies with audiences from around the world.

His most popular and requested topics: Authentic Leadership, Leading with Trust and Courage, High Performance Teams, Transformational Change Leadership and Executive Presence.

He has been featured in Black Enterprise, Savoy and Vetrepreneur magazines. Along with various military and civilian awards, Mel was also named one of the Top 100 Most Influential Blacks in Corporate America in 2012 and then again in 2014.

Mel, graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served with distinction in the 82nd Airborne Division. During his service Mel graduated from Airborne School and Ranger School along with combat service during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Captain Parker transitioned from the military and embarked on 25-year journey in corporate America with senior leadership roles at some of the best organizations on the planet. PepsiCo, Corporate Express(Staples), Newell Rubbermaid, Dell Computers, and Brinks. In the roles as President, Managing Director or General Manager, Mel successfully led multiple high performance teams of up to 14,000 employees delivering billions of dollars in annual revenue.

Mel currently serves on the Board of Directors for Vectrus (NYSE: VEC) and the of the National Black MBA Association. Mel also served on the Executive Advisory Board of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Central Texas.

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Keynotes

Featured Keynote

21st Century Leadership Across Cultures and Generations

Today’s leaders can find themselves leading a workforce that spans four or five generations. This requires a different type of leader with a new and expanded mindset. Study approaches, frameworks, and tools for a better understanding and building your authentic leadership in reference to the generations and cultures you manage. Learn how do develop action plans to adapt your thinking, communication and understanding of the five generations that comprise today’s workforce.
Gain the skills needed to understand your own cultural biases with best practices on how to mitigate areas that may inhibit your multicultural leadership.

Building and Leading High Performance Teams

Building and Leading High Performance Teams

The world of business is built around teams. I provide a comprehensive view and understanding of High Performance Teams as both leader and member. You will learn approaches, frameworks, and tools for building and leading a High Performance Team. You will develop skills to be both an effective team leader and an effective team member. Learn communication strategies to improve team dynamics and outcomes while building the confidence and skills to deal effectively with challenging team situations and conflict. You will take away insights into your own strengths to help individualize a productive team management approach.
Effective Communication – Storytelling, Listening and Relationship Building

Effective Communication – Storytelling, Listening and Relationship Building

Great stories can move mountains. The best storytellers have the power to persuade people to engage, and take ownership of an idea and give it their support. Explore approaches, frameworks, and tools for communicating effectively along with best practices to build great relationships in your professional or personal lives.
Inspirational Leadership through Humility and Optimism

Inspirational Leadership through Humility and Optimism

We will teach leaders how to leverage humility and optimism to motivate, engage and energize your team to overcome obstacles and find success in failures. You will learn approaches, frameworks, and tools for understanding and building your Leadership Humility and Optimism.

Understand how do develop action plans to manage yourself and maximize your emotional intelligence to lead others to optimal performance. Hone the skills needed to develop quantitative and data driven intuition and business savvy to make timely, sound and fact based decisions.

Know how to recognize, manage and consciously use emotional behaviors that will positively impact your work relationships and situations.
Leader Transitions: The Critical First 100 Days

Leader Transitions: The Critical First 100 Days

Transitions into new leadership roles are nothing less than corner-office crucibles. They can be a tricky time for any new leader. Transitions test new leaders on every level from day one, with pressure to diagnose, strategize, delegate, and communicate effectively. Intense pressure to create change and deliver results can be untenable. Think that’s an overstatement? Just take a look at any of the myriad of survey results that show a 60 to 75% departure rate of senior management, a 40 to 60% departure rate for new leaders within their first three years.

Most HR professionals would agree that transitions into new leadership roles can be the most challenging times in a leaders’ professional life and that success or failure during the transition period (the first 100 days) is a strong predictor of overall success or failure in the job.

While every executive transition is unique – there are specific processes, procedures and best practices that a new leader can learn, adopt and implement to help avoid land mines and the dreaded “rookie mistakes”. In this course leaders will learn a variety of fundamental principles that will accelerate their immersion in to a new role, new company or new business situation.

Leaders in transition reflexively and often mistakenly rely on the skills, beliefs and strategies that worked for them in the past with the assumption/presumption that these directly contributed to their previous success and are the key to future success. That is a potential disastrous mistake that participants in this class will learn to avoid.
Leadership Is Learning. High Impact Leadership: Own Your Power

Leadership Is Learning. High Impact Leadership: Own Your Power

Deepen your understanding of your own power and transform the way you lead, manage people, your organization and your life. You will learn approaches, frameworks, and tools for understanding and building your Leadership Impact. You will develop action plans to manage yourself and lead others to improved performance. Understand the Art and Science of how to conduct self-evaluation through 360-degree feedback and develop a personal action plan to improve your leadership impact and personal productivity. Gain skills needed to develop the quantitative, data driven intuition and business savvy needed to make timely, sound and fact-based decisions.
Leadership Resiliency through Belief, Strength and Confidence

Leadership Resiliency through Belief, Strength and Confidence

Learn how to motivate and influence people by revealing your beliefs and vision with strength and confidence. Become the leader who creates change, results and makes a difference. Learn approaches, frameworks, and tools for building your Leadership belief and confidence.

Understand the importance of fitness and strength in building confidence and trust in your leadership.

Assess and engage your beliefs to create vision, inject passion and a sense of purpose in your organization to rise to the challenges of today. Learn how to speak and think with greater confidence, clarity and purpose. Learn how to make your performance skills, sense of humor and personality strengthen your executive presence and power of persuasion.
Leading a Culture of Innovation and Customer Focus

Leading a Culture of Innovation and Customer Focus

Disruption equips organizations with the ability to overcome external threats and thrive in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world. You must make innovation a habit. Learn approaches, frameworks, and tools for building and leading a culture of disruptive innovation and customer focus. Hone skills and best practices to successfully integrate innovation and business development. Understand best practices to create customer driven disruptive products and services. Engage all resources to formulate a corporate plan for invention and new product generation. Implement best practices for engaging the customer in value creation sessions as a catalyst for innovation.
Take the Limits Off Leadership

Take the Limits Off Leadership

This electrifying keynote is designed to help any leader unleash the power, performance and potential of any team. I will provide best practices and tools that will allow leaders to juggle competing demands and confidently motivate their teams to achieve optimum results.

This is a High Energy presentation with real combat/corporate world examples highlighting the implementation of these best practices and the results obtained.

Some specific topics of TTLO Leadership – (can tailor to cover only topics prioritized by the client): The Leader Learning Process, Authentic Leadership, Establish and Leverage Organizational Relationships, The Power of Listening, No Excuse Leadership, Strong, Fit and Confident Leadership and Lead with Optimism.
The Power of Courageous and Authentic Leadership

The Power of Courageous and Authentic Leadership

Unlock your power to lead with trust, authenticity and courage. You will learn approaches, frameworks, and tools for understanding and building trust. You will be able to amplify your strengths to successfully develop and deploy your Authentic Leadership style. Engage Leadership Courage to navigate through the “business fog” of Chaos and make relational transparency that inspires trust.
Transformation and Change Leadership

Transformation and Change Leadership

Today’s leaders serve as the catalyst for transformation and organizational change. All leadership is change leadership. What should you change and how? Learn how to examine your own leadership style and the skills that will help translate transformation ideas into organizational results.

Obtain strategies and tactics to overcome organizational inertia and individual resistance to change. Master the political and complex process of introducing change, extending change over time and sustaining it.

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Topics

The Book - The Parker Principles: 10 Leadership Force Multipliers

Cycle Theory by Mel Parker - Take The Limits Off Your Leadership

Discover And Harness Your Super Power - Take The Limits Off - Mel Parker

Lessons on Leadership with Mel Parker on Dr. Diane Hamilton's Take The Lead Radio

It is one thing to become a leader; it is another to teach others what you know. Finding opportunity in the convergence of leadership and education, Mel Parker became the President and CEO of Take The Limits Off—a leadership development executive coaching and consulting firm. Mel takes us to his own experiences that instilled in his lessons about leadership, from the wisdom he learned from his grandmother to moving from his military background and up the corporate ladder. Learn more from Mel as he talks about the importance of diversity, building trust, intellectual curiosity, and good coaching skills.

Badass Books : The Parker Principles – 10 Leadership Force Multipliers

I have to say that Mel Parker is an impressive man. The self-proclaimed ‘farm boy' from North Carolina is a West Point graduate and former Army Ranger. He has gone on to have a successful career in corporate America and is now working as a consultant, coach and public speaker. Mel smiles easily and is always eager to learn new things. He's a sponge. He's also one heck of a leader. Mel knows leadership and his book, the Parker Principles, will teach you a great deal about leadership in the 21st Century.

Here's Why Effective Leadership is Built on the Principle of Trust With Mel Parker

Mel Parker is internationally recognized and known for his business leadership as well as his ability to turn around, transform, and upgrade businesses while generating optimum value for shareholders, customers, and employees.

International Business Leader and Executive, Mel Parker

Mel Parker is an Army veteran, who transitioned from the military and spent 25 years in corporate America with senior leadership roles at some of the best organizations on the planet. PepsiCo, Corporate Express(Staples), Newell Rubbermaid, Dell Computers, and Brinks

2017 The Parker Principles: 10 Leadership Force Multipliers

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“I just returned from the 40th Conference and Exposition for the National Black MBA Association. It was my first conference as Chairman of the Board of the organization. We were fortunate to have Mel as the keynote presenter at the open plenary. He certainly set the bar for the remainder of the week. He is a phenomenal storyteller. He leveraged his personal leadership journey to delivery fantastic insights into core competences that help leaders develop from good to great. His book “The Parker Principles” is a must read for aspiring and seasoned leaders and the in-person experience is certainly time well invested. I'm appreciative that he set the stage of our best conference to date and allowed me to bask in the success of an outstanding event.

Donald Comer Chairman National Black MBA Assn.

“Mel Parker is one of the most well-rounded keynote speakers that I have ever had the privilege of working with. Mel's personal background, military accomplishments, and corporate leadership experience allows him to connect with a wide array of individuals in a way that is both challenging and inspirational.. Mel took the time to understand the theme of our conference and customized his material to get the most impact for the audience. The audience was impressed with Mel as an individual, challenged intellectually but most of all inspired to become the best version of themselves. Mel left an indelible impact on the audience from the “neck up” and from the “neck down.” I look forward to working with Mel on future opportunities.

Joe McClain Director Supplier Diversity Eaton

“Mel has the unique ability to authentically connect with an audience and weave his amazing personal and professional experiences into a compelling and impactful presentation. I worked with Mel when he was the keynote speaker at a LEO Pharma leadership offsite at West Point, NY. Not only did Mel take the time prior to the session to understand our unique business challenges, but he also created a custom keynote presentation that was the motivational spark for the three days that followed. I would recommend Mel to any organization thats looking for a partner to bring energy and practical business insights to their leadership development programs.”

John Tomasello Head of HR and Communications LEO Pharma Inc.

“It was OUR pleasure to have you! Without a doubt, you delivered one of the BEST keynotes I have heard. You were certainly one of the highlights of the conference! Thank you again!”

Kathey Porter Director Small Business & Vendor Diversity University of Florida

“I had the pleasure of engaging Mel and recommending him as the opening conference keynote speaker for the 2019 CBRE African American Network Group (AANG) NAtional Conference. As an opening conference keynote speaker there comes a lot of pressure to energize, excite and empower, and Mel delivered above and beyond. Immediately, Mel established a connection and credibility with the audience by being authentic and vulnerable by showing the audience who he is as a person and sharing his journey. His keynote message carried on throughout the remainder of the conference… Whether it was in other sessions or during networking time, you heard conference-goers often referencing the parts of Mel's message that personally resonated with them as it related to their career journey or key executives referencing points from Mel's keynote to support their business perspective. Even today, there are some conference-goers that have communicated that they have started journaling at Mel's recommendation and are now seeing that impact of doing so... ”

LaToya Everett, MBA Experienced Risk Management Professional CBRE

““It was great to have you last week. I was thrilled to see the level of attention and engagement during your session and the energy it created with the group was palpable. Feedback I heard from many afterwards was how great it was to have the business invest in bringing you in, how it set the management session apart from others they've attended and brought inspiration, motivation and energy to the two days. Many conveyed how they related to different pieces of your presentation based on your experiences and learning, and therefore had different takeaways unique to how they related. All in all, I believe you session will have impact for a long time to come..”

-Lindsay Connors Director Human Resources, Global Services Dell EMC

Mel came to speak at one of our annual JetBlue conferences, and he was absolutely fantastic. Mel has an energy that is contagious and he kept the audience 100% engaged. Mel's story is inspiring and his leadership principles are simple and elegant which makes it easy for the audience to connect. He also injects humor and fun into the session. We are already getting requests for Mel to come back to future conferences!

Margo Heller, General Manager Values Relations JetBlue Airways

“Mel has an inspiring story and a passion for developing leaders, which has made him a terrific partner for the Executive Leadership Program at Dell. He brings not only great energy, but also credibility as a leader throughout his military and corporate career. Mel also has the unique ability to connect with people, whether 1:1 or presenting to a large audience. He has been very easy to work with, and I especially appreciate that he is committed to the success of his clients. Thanks Mel!”

Melissa Roy Global Program Lead, Talent Management, Learning and Development, IT Leadership Programming Dell Technologies

“Mel Participated in our annual executive training as our keynote speaker. Not only did Mel take the time to really get to know our team, our objectives and desired outcomes, he truly made it a point to connect with us. His presentation was not only engaging, it was meaningful, personal and incredibly authentic. Our entire team walked away feeling energized and humbled by his many accomplishments. Leadership was epitomized through his story telling that evening and we are incredibly grateful to have met Mel!

Natasha Soobramanie Manager Organizational Development Insight

“Mel led a three-part Inclusive Leadership series for us that was extremely well received by our employees. His direct and engaging storytelling style captivated our audience, and his content was relevant and empowering. Those who will take the time to master Mel's leadership principles will unleash the potential to transform from managers into leaders who will have the tools needed to inspire and lead in a way that can transform organizations.”

Sharon Brogdon, C.C.D.P Head of Diversity and Inclusion Retail Me Not

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Mel Parker

Bio

Keynotes

21st Century Leadership Across Cultures and Generations

Topics

“It was OUR pleasure to have you! Without a doubt, you delivered one of the BEST keynotes I have heard. You were certainly one of the highlights of the conference! Thank you again!”

Similar Speakers

Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour

Carla Harris

Jessica Kriegel

Let's find your perfect speaker!

Explore

Quick Links

Keep Up To Date

Mel Parker

Bio

Keynotes

21st Century Leadership Across Cultures and Generations

Building and Leading High Performance Teams

Effective Communication – Storytelling, Listening and Relationship Building

Inspirational Leadership through Humility and Optimism

Leader Transitions: The Critical First 100 Days

Leadership Is Learning. High Impact Leadership: Own Your Power

Leadership Resiliency through Belief, Strength and Confidence

Leading a Culture of Innovation and Customer Focus

Take the Limits Off Leadership

The Power of Courageous and Authentic Leadership

Transformation and Change Leadership

Topics

“It was OUR pleasure to have you! Without a doubt, you delivered one of the BEST keynotes I have heard. You were certainly one of the highlights of the conference! Thank you again!”

Similar Speakers

Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour

Carla Harris

Jessica Kriegel

Let's find your perfect speaker!

Explore

Quick Links

Keep Up To Date