Maria Blair

Maria Blair is a Partner at ghSMART. She serves leaders of high performing organizations across all sectors in the areas of leadership development and coaching, management assessment, top team effectiveness, and organizational change initiatives and advises their boards, executives, and investors on their most important leadership challenges.

Prior to joining ghSMART, Maria was national vice president of the American Cancer Society, leading strategy and global operations. Previously, Maria was Deputy Associate Director at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She led an interagency effort to develop Federal recommendations for reducing and mitigating climate risks both domestically and internationally. Prior to the White House, Maria was Associate Vice President and Managing Director at The Rockefeller Foundation. Maria began her career as an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company, serving financial institutions, nonprofit and multilateral organizations. Maria was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University’s Balliol College, earning a master’s degree in politics, economics and philosophy, and has her BA degree from Harvard University.

Maria leads executive leadership seminars for the Aspen Institute, is the past chair of the board of directors for the Nonprofit Finance Fund, and an Aspen Institute Catto Fellow. She has worked in 15 different countries, and traveled in an additional 45 countries. She lives in London with her husband and two daughters.