Maya Bernstein

Maya Bernstein believes in the power of individuals and groups to adapt and to creatively respond to challenges and opportunities they face in their work and lives.

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 She draws on her expertise in Adaptive Leadership, Design Thinking, improv theater tools, and story-telling to create unique environments in which participants become willing to take risks, and experiment with new ways of thinking and behaving. She is the founding co-director of Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership’s Certificate in Facilitation and is on faculty at Yeshivat Maharat, a womens Rabbinical school in NY. Maya is a founder of UpStart Labs, which supports innovation in the nonprofit sector, and consults on leadership and change processes. Her writings have been published widely, including in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and the Harvard Business Review. She has lived and worked in Belarus, China, Israel, and Germany. Mayas first collection of poetry, "There Is No Place Without You," was released in 2022 from Ben Yehuda Press, and she serves on the board of Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry. Maya graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude from Columbia College, and has a Master’s Degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Yonkers, NY with her family.