Testimonials
Cynthia can design and deliver the perfect workshop
I have had the honour of knowing Cynthia for over 15 years initially through her professional roles in natural resource management, agriculture and community engagement and more recently I have worked with her closely in her role as a trusted and brilliant workshop facilitator.
Our government projects have benefited from Cynthia’s expertise, emotional intelligence and intuition as well as her skills in interpersonal communication, engaging facilitation techniques and her passion for truly connecting with people. Working with Cynthia is truly personally rewarding and inspiring.
A highly engaging, very competent facilitator
“Cynthia is a highly engaging, very competent facilitator whose uniquely positive style enriches the participant experience. Her contribution to the delivery of a selection of our leadership development programs is highly valued by the participants.”
“Solution Underwriting Agency has worked with Cynthia Mahoney on many levels of our business, her professionalism, candidness and communication style is outstanding. She is prepared to ask the ‘difficult’ questions to get the best outcome for our business.
As a result of Cynthia’s coaching our teams and leaders are performing at a much higher professional level – we now have a ‘new’ language to identify behaviour and team dynamics that will help us navigate our growing business. Cynthia has provided the tools we needed to establish our strategy, mission and vison for the future, we truly value her input to our organization and would recommend her services to any business that wants to take their business to the next level. Thank you Cynthia for always listening and providing guidance and support.”
“Cynthia’s Wellbeing workshops for women in our community, included as part of a series of mental health sessions, were a huge success. As a facilitator, Cynthia has an incredible ability to quickly connect with people, and her obvious empathy for others ensures her participants are always safe and comfortable as she takes them on a journey of self-discovery. The knowledge and techniques Cynthia shares, stay with you long after the workshop is completed allowing you to reap the benefits back in the real world and make lasting changes.”
“I attended the Cultivate Your Leadership keynote presentation hosted by the Wimmera Development Association. I liked that there were a large number of attendees from different backgrounds, businesses and professions. Cynthia Mahoney gave a refreshing grass roots explanation of intuitive leadership. Her experiences of rational authoritative leadership promoting the illusion of high performing teams was interesting. She spoke about the reality of “burnout”, poor mental and physical wellbeing and loss of direction leading to business and political collapse.”
Time spent with Cynthia was immensely challenging and rewarding
Came away feeling upbeat and empowered to be a better, more authentic leader
“Working with Cynthia was so rewarding! She created such a positive and safe environment for me to navigate some really hairy challenges, in both my work and personal life. Cynthia truly understands the dynamics of entrepreneurship and creating a values-based business. Her questions were enlightening and her empathy was astounding! I came away from our sessions always feeling upbeat and empowered with new perspectives and tools to be a better, more authentic leader.”
Helped me to really redefine who I was and where I wanted to go
”I asked Cynthia to coach me at a time when I was at the cross roads of my journey. It was the very best decision I could have made and without a doubt it helped me to really redefine who I was and where I wanted to go. It also helped me to see myself both through my own eyes and those of others. Her style is friendly and caring and her gentle prodding helps you get the most out of the sessions. Thanks Cynthia for helping me find authentic “me” again.”
“Women’s Health Grampians undertook a two-day Cultivating a Healthy Team Workshop which was particularly valuable in the context of emerging from Covid and having had 2 years of remote and interrupted working relationships. The session was very comprehensive and included great follow up to help embed the outcomes. We will carry many of the learnings and techniques forward with us.”
I was able to gain a fresh perspective on complex issues I was working through
”After taking on some exciting new challenges at work, I met Cynthia and entered the world of coaching. Over the last 7 months, our sessions have introduced me to new ways of thinking, as well as ways to re-frame some existing thoughts. Cynthia’s calm and friendly demeanour instills comfort and confidence to share freely and without reservation. Upon completion of each session, my personal toolkit has expanded with activities and learnings to support functioning as my best self. Thanks to Cynthia I was able to gain a fresh perspective on complex issues I was working through.“
“Leadership Wimmera engaged Cynthia and Dr Kristy Howard to host their Running Brilliant Meetings program for residents of the Wimmera Southern Mallee in October 2021.
As a past participant of an online workshop with Cynthia at the helm, I had confidence it would be a fantastic experience. What I hadn’t anticipated was the excitement, warmth and focus of the 20 participants in the program, despite the online learning environment, who were thrilled to level-up their skills for the betterment of themselves, their work and community groups – and this region. As Cynthia and Kristy reiterated throughout – sure, process and procedure is important; but ultimately, it’s about the people. That was the greatest focus of this program and in eight short hours gave participants insights into their and their peers’ behaviour to navigate board or team meetings with inclusiveness and effectiveness and take the meeting from good to great – and to brilliant.
Cynthia and Kristy expertly showed that online meetings can be engaging and fun and many of the engagement and learning tools they utilised have been adopted by the participants of this program. Their professionalism, realness and honesty, and their teamwork makes for a very positive experience in both a participant and host organisation capacity. My only regret is that we didn’t have more time together!
This program was an excellent addition and complement to our offering at Leadership Wimmera and Cynthia and Kristy are an absolute delight to work with.”
“The keynote was a refreshing approach from an extremely experienced presenter. Cynthia has a very engaging presentation style and she had a down to earth and no bull approach to the discussions.”
The benefit of having Cynthia sit with you is to unpack your personal barriers and realise that your own potential is truly within
Gets people engaged and on board with ideas
“I have had the opportunity to attend sessions expertly facilitated by Cynthia several times over the last few years. I am always in awe of Cynthia’s ability to command a room, big or small and get people engaged and on board with ideas—even people who were initially on completely different pages. No matter what, Cynthia always manages to balance the right amount of empathy with firmness which I think makes her a really great facilitator. As a facilitator, Cynthia earns my highest recommendation!”
“I recently attended a Running Brilliant Meetings workshop, and it is a ‘must’ for anyone involved in committees of any description! The finishing school for attention to detail, appreciating individual communication styles and understanding the various committee positions and roles. Irrelevant of your experience level, this workshop will improve your confidence and assist in the running of more Brilliant Meetings.”
“We were looking for someone who could help us take our team to new levels of thinking and to work with us to develop greater understanding and awareness. Ultimately we wanted to equip ourselves with tools and training to create a High Performance environment.
Cynthia has been an amazing person to work with. Her detailed planning, openness and honesty are some of her many amazing strengths and we couldn’t more highly and strongly recommend Cynthia to others.
Cynthia has always been available and willing to go the extra mile for us. Her content and resources are absolutely outstanding, every principal and skill is backed with science and research. Cynthia’s presentation style is honest and casual and she has an incredible ability to immediately build rapport and trust and to help people be their best. It takes a special person to be able to step into a new team and immediately create an environment of openness and honesty to then equip and upskill in such powerful ways.
Cynthia’s training is now an integral part of our culture and the learnings are not a quick fix, but are helping to grow and develop our organisation to be a better version of itself in a way that we could never have imagined.
We are so excited to have met Cynthia and the changes that we have seen in our organisation as a result of Cynthia’s training have been immediate and deep. Cynthia was able to connect with each person and really inspire them with technical and practical skills that are having significant positive ramifications for us.
Cynthia, thank you so much for your care and attention and for what you bring. We are so excited to be part of your journey and we really look forward to working with you in the future!”
“Great day that has given me a lot more confidence in the meeting process, but also how to deal with the difficult situations and personalities that you sometimes come across when involved with committees.”
“Cynthia we’ve had our delegate feedback collated and people are still telling us weeks later how much they enjoyed hearing your keynote on self-disruption. My favourite comment was someone who remarked that “I needed to leave but Cynthia’s keynote was so interesting that I couldn’t pull myself away! I realised that staying was more important than anything else I may have thought I needed to do before’. Thank you Cynthia for providing a keynote that engaged our audience and has created disruption and change in NSW Health. A joy to work with you!”
Helped me understand how personal barriers were impacting my professional development
“I recently worked with Cynthia to enhance my leadership skills and capacity. Cynthia was a delight to work with, and I looked forward to every one of our coaching sessions. Cynthia brought extensive knowledge, an effective ‘toolkit’, empathy and constructive advice to our meetings. More than that, her wisdom and curiosity led to profound and often illuminating conversations that helped me understand how personal barriers were impacting my professional development and, importantly, how to move beyond them in a constructive way. I completed our coaching sessions with a new sense of confidence and deeper insights into my leadership style and the opportunities that lie ahead.”