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.
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; she is also on faculty of the Masa Leadership Center in Jerusalem and Yeshivat Maharat, a womens Rabbinical school in NY. Maya is a founder of UpStart Labs, which supports innovation in the nonprofit sector, and has consulted widely 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. Maya graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude from Columbia College, and has a Master’s Degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education; she is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. She is a 2012 recipient of the Covenant Foundation’s Pomegranate Prize for emerging leaders in the Jewish community. Maya recently released her debut album, “Shiviti,” with Noah Solomon, and her first collection of poetry, "There Is No Place Without You," is available from Ben Yehuda Press. Maya lives in Yonkers, NY with her family.