Ilene M.
CEO & Founder at Aligned Workplace
Program Development
Education: Columbia University (MSW) (MPA)
Pittsfield, MA, USA
Biography
Ilene Marcus is not only a quirky, charismatic, dynamic speaker – she is a MOTIVATOR. She speaks to CEOs and corporate teams because she can relate to them; she has 32 years of executive experience managing high-stakes teams and multi-million-dollar organizations. Ilene has been featured in Glamour, Fast Company, Readers Digest, Huffpost, Yahoo, Entrepreneur, and is a contributing author for Sixty and Me. She is also the boss lady behind Aligned Workplace and works with groups of CEOs at Vistage and helps early-stage entrepreneurs scale their efforts at Techstars.
Team leaders: ever wonder why you’re so busy and yet still nothing is getting done? Something is going on under the surface. Something is not aligned.
The author of Managing Annoying People: 7 Proven Tactics to Maximize Team Performance, Ilene works with CEOs and other leaders to show them why their teams are not being productive or efficient. Sometimes, it’s the team leaders who need a shift in perspective, a good look in the mirror, to understand that they need to contribute more or communicate differently. The leaders aren’t working in sync with their teams because they aren’t bringing in their best selves.
Ilene coaches the higher-ups to get them motivated, moving, and out of their own way by facilitating conversations for action. She inspires audiences through keynotes and workshops, showing them how to use pragmatic strategies and emotional intelligence to overcome obstacles in the workplace (and in life). She also enables all-hands-on-deck team collaboration from product launches to scaling and growth to attracting and keeping talent and beyond.
Ilene’s mission is to transform negative environments with laughter and grace. No toxic positivity here – she shows audiences how they can face pain, hardship, and obstacles and come out on the other side smiling.
Biography (shortened)
Ilene Marcus is not only a quirky, charismatic, dynamic speaker – she is a MOTIVATOR. CEOs and corporate teams love her talks because, with 32 years of executive experience managing high-stakes teams and multi-million-dollar organizations, she can relate to them. Ilene has been featured in Glamour, Fast Company, Readers Digest, Huffpost, Yahoo, Entrepreneur, and is a contributing author for Sixty and Me. She is also the boss lady behind Aligned Workplace and works with groups of CEOs at Vistage and helps early-stage entrepreneurs scale their efforts at Techstars.
The author of Managing Annoying People: 7 Proven Tactics to Maximize Team Performance, Ilene works with higher-ups to show them why their teams are not being productive or efficient.
Ilene facilitates conversations for action to get leaders motivated, moving, and out of their own way. Her keynotes and workshops inspire audiences, teaching them pragmatic strategies and emotional intelligence to overcome obstacles and come out on the other side smiling.
Passion
It’s my calling to help others find joy. I grew up in a serious household, where life’s challenges often stifled my potential. I've dedicated my life to uncovering joy in every situation and helping others do the same. Having lived through more than six decades of experiences, I’ve learned that my purpose is to lift people up. By sharing my own hard-won lessons and fresh perspectives, I aim to help you see yourself as others do—giving you a powerful tool to transform your outlook, no matter where you are in life. Let's find the laughter, the silver lining, and the joy together.
Featured Video
I am willing to travel
More than 100 miles
When it comes to payments
I generally get paid for speaking but make exceptions
Topics
Best Story
At Vistage, working side-by-side with experienced mentors, I coached CEOs on their approach and mindset with their staff, boards and customers. They needed to align their time, money, and actions to get their business humming. This was my wheelhouse. And that is how the book “Managing Annoying People” was born.
Across all verticals, types of bosses and teams, I found the common thread: when you focus on getting your time, money and messaging properly lined up it fuels growth and success. The core message, the most consistent learning I found myself saying over and over to maintain focus is always about managing ourselves.
It was then that I saw what I had not seen in myself. I cringed.
Professionally, I was aware of my patterns, my mindset, my impact on others. Yet in my personal life, I was a tyrant. Of course, I wanted to be my best self, and treat others with kindness and empathy. And day by day, and in my case year by year, I missed the mark, with my family, loved ones, romantic relationships, friends, peers, neighbors, and strangers.
I couldn’t let go of wanting it the way I wanted it. I overreacted to the slightest provocation. My unintended, unplanned reactions were much louder than my purposeful decisive actions.
Why couldn’t I show up in my best form? I looked for external validation with fancy degrees, furs, cars, and houses. I looked at my bank account to determine my worth.
I started seeing how I treated others from a new perspective. I saw my role and my actions. As if a larger than life-size mirror followed me around and reflected back to me my impact on others.
I couldn’t blame them, even if they were annoying or out of line or acting poorly. I had to look at my role in the situation, or more accurately, my lack of role. I had to take responsibility for what wasn’t working in my life.
In my personal life, I put myself in the exact position I was trying to avoid. I blamed everyone else for placing me in situations to be hurt, criticized, and used. I finally found the hardcore, indigestible fact. The reality I had to accept. I did it to myself.
Origin Story
Two weeks before my fifty-fourth birthday, I was fired. Yes, my name appeared on A-1 of the NY Times, the post and the Daily News. My boss, the CEO of an influential NYC non-profit, was caught embezzling and eventually sent to prison.
After thirty-two years of successfully managing high-stakes teams, I was collateral damage.
I had a daughter with another year of college expenses, a second home, and car payments. I was inching closer to retirement without enough savings. After facing cancer in my late thirties, I thought I was bulletproof. Now faced with the loss of my professional persona, my income, my daughter’s respect, facing cancer at 39 seemed docile. I had to dig down deep and think about who I was and what I had been through, and if there were any lessons or silver linings that I could cling to.
Then something unexpected happened. I was targeted by a social media advertisement and was introduced to Vistage, the world’s largest CEO coaching and Peer Advisory group. This was a new path.
I was chosen. Brought on to work with CEOs to improve their leadership and motivate their teams. To use my experience to help them, not for my work product, but for showing others how to work. Looking back on it now, this was the beginning of me believing in myself. Finally, outside validation from a highly respected and sought after group.
I belonged.
Example talks
Being Right About Difficult People
Difficult people all have one thing in common. They make your day more complicated. They take you away from your focus and impact your role at work and at home.
In this talk, Ilene helps audiences identify difficult people – including times they themselves are being difficult – and create strategies to react to them with maturity and grace.
Takeaways include how to:
• Make holistically informed leadership decisions about difficult people
• Identify and gain insight into difficult behaviors
• Empathize with difficult people
• Build a toolbox of responses to situations with difficult people
• Safeguard your calm and productivity in the face of irritation
This talk is suitable for corporate leaders, team development/training, and any audience that wants to be motivated and master advanced interpersonal skills.
5 Immediate Actions to Take About Misunderstood Habits, or How to Be Less Annoying
It hurts to be misunderstood – doubly so when we can tell people are forming negative opinions of us. Rather than live in fear that we might be annoying, we can face our behaviors head-on and turn annoying situations into amazing experiences.
In this talk, Ilene guides audiences through the habits underlying annoying workplace behavior and strategies to prevent and mitigate annoyance and misunderstanding.
Attendees will learn how to:
• Identify anxious, controlling, and insecure behavioral patterns in themselves
• Gain insight into their coworkers’ and managers’ perception of them
• Ground themselves and act thoughtfully
• Take responsibility for their behaviors without drowning in shame
• Ask for help
• Replace annoying behaviors with constructive ones
This talk is suitable for corporate leaders, team development/training, and any audience that wants to be motivated and master advanced interpersonal skills.
Aligning Your Purpose with Your Organization’s Mission
If you don’t feel connected to your job or understand how it contributes to your organization’s mission, you can’t perform to your full potential. Lack of alignment with your job stifles your career, irritates your coworkers, limits your organization’s growth, and stresses you out.
In this talk, Ilene guides participants through understanding their organization’s mission, connecting their job roles to it, and developing an entrepreneurial mindset in the workplace.
Attendees will use Ilene's proprietary Pie Chart Alignment Tool™ to:
• Find what’s taking them out of alignment with their organizational and personal goals
• Identify what puts them in alignment to be a real contributor
• Brainstorm new tools and ideas to level up their contribution
This talk helps audiences start on the road to advance their individual motivation, team productivity and growth, and long-term success. Get aligned today!
Why Laugh Out Loud?
Admit it. We all LOL, even though we hate the term. When we find ourselves actually laughing out loud, it feels good. Laughter produces an immediate, majorly positive impact on our entire well-being. And the effect lasts. In times of stress, emotional duress and uncertainty, laughter really is the best medicine.
In this talk, Ilene will make the audience laugh – and she’ll also cover the scientifically proven benefits of laughter, the value of memes (yes, really!), and the power of using humor to connect with others and gain perspective on complex problems.
This talk is suitable for any audience seeking motivation, resilience, and a good chuckle.