Sharon A. McDade heads Greenwood Asher & Associates' (GA&A) leadership and strategic services. She facilitates searches for higher education leaders and provides consulting on organizational development including environmental scanning, strategic planning, problem-solving focusing on organizational diagnosis, leadership development and presidential assessment and facilitation of meetings and retreats for leaders and boards.
At the American Council on Education, Sharon directed the Emerging Leaders Group and ACE Fellows Program, and created the Leadership Academy for Department Chairs. Previously she directed Harvard University's Institute for Educational Management, founded and directed the Management Development Program and co-founded the Harvard Seminar for New Presidents. She has created or directed major leadership programs for organizations as diverse as the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, New England Center for Research on Higher Education, National Association for Women in Education and Midlantic National Bank. She was a founding board member, external evaluator and contributor to many research articles for the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women. She worked with leadership development internationally with the Fulbright Commission, United States Information Agency, Latin American Scholars Program of American Universities, Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundations, U.S. Freedom Support Act Graduate Fellowship Program, Universia Foundation of Mexico, Higher Education South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. She has keynoted and presented on leadership development at conferences in Kazakhstan, British Columbia, England and many U.S. events.
Sharon taught higher education graduate programs at George Washington University, Columbia University and University of Massachusetts. Her scholarship and chairship of 60+ doctoral dissertations focus on leadership relating to development, administration, assessment, the presidency, women, planning and faculty and career development.
Sharon has an Ed.D. in administration, planning and social policy from Harvard University, an M.F.A. in theater design from Ohio State University and a B.S. from Miami University.