Who We Are
We are a premier executive coaching and business advisory firm dedicated to maximizing leadership potential, strengthening teams, and shaping strategies that drive meaningful and sustained success.
We blend industry expertise with a human-centered approach, ensuring our clients are equipped to lead with confidence in an ever-changing world. When working with the Verdant Leadership Group, you gain more than a consulting service; you gain a partner dedicated to your growth.
Our People
Our team is composed of seasoned executive coaches, strategic advisors, and leadership development experts, each bringing a wealth of experience across industries. Rather than a traditional firm structure, we operate as a collaborative network of independent professionals, allowing us to assemble the right expertise for each client’s unique needs. This model ensures that every engagement is led by highly skilled practitioners with deep business acumen, emotional intelligence, and a shared commitment to transformative leadership. While we may not all sit under the same roof, we are united by a common purpose: to help leaders, teams, and organizations flourish.
Values
Collaboration & Co-Creation
We work side by side with our clients, designing solutions that are customized, practical, and actionable.
Transformation Beyond Productivity
We foster continuous development, helping leaders and teams purposefully flourish.
Integrity
Our clients rely on us as a steadfast partner, offering confidentiality, honesty, and strategic counsel with their best interests in mind.
Excellence
We are committed to delivering insights that drive performance, innovation, and long-term success.
Meet the Founder: Rick DeJarnette
The driving force behind Verdant Leadership Group, Rick works with senior executives and leadership teams navigating complex decisions, organizational transformation, and high-stakes leadership challenges. He partners with leaders at pivotal moments, including stepping into larger roles, driving organizational change, aligning senior teams, or managing the pressures of growth and scale. His clients value him as a trusted thinking partner who helps them navigate complex decisions, challenge assumptions, and lead with greater clarity and discipline in demanding environments.
Before becoming an executive coach, Rick spent more than a decade advising Fortune 500 companies, high-growth organizations, and complex government agencies as a strategy and operations consultant with Deloitte Consulting, ICF International, and CapTech Ventures. That foundation gives him a practitioner's understanding of the real pressures senior leaders face and allows him to move beyond insight into genuine partnership on complex organizational challenges. He brings that same grounded, practical orientation to his coaching work with executives and leadership teams across industries, including life sciences, pharmaceuticals, health and human services, financial services, legal, technology, government, and founder-led businesses.
Rick's perspective on leadership is also shaped by his experience as a mountaineer. After surviving a serious climbing accident in 2018, he developed a deeper appreciation for the qualities that matter most when the margin for error is thin: clear communication, sound judgment, and the discipline to stay grounded under pressure. That experience continues to inform how he helps leaders remain thoughtful and effective when the stakes are consequential.
Rick holds a coaching certification from Georgetown University's Institute for Transformational Leadership and is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation. He also serves as Executive-in-Residence and Adjunct Faculty at the University of Richmond's Robins School of Business, where he teaches leadership and decision-making in the MBA program. He holds an MBA from the University of Colorado and a BA in History from Grove City College, and he publishes The Greenhouse, a weekly newsletter on leadership and growth. Rick lives in Richmond, Virginia with his two sons.
Let’s work together.
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