Maria Nicholas-Groves Email and Phone Number

Maria is the founder of Talent Growth Partners where she helps executive teams align their human capital strategy with their business strategy and goals. She believes having the right people in the right places drives superior business results and profits.With 40 cumulative years of experience, she and her team have successfully guided executives within fast growth industries as well as organizations that must transform to stay relevant and sustain into the future. They do this with values of trust, ferocious curiosity, objectivity, agility, and excellence.Maria brings a broad and global business view with bachelor degrees in Marketing and Human Resource Management and an International Executive MBA with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Maria has traveled to over 40 countries through her work and studies.She is driven to build business results with her clients; she is obsessed with watching them thrive, inevitably this leads to long-term partnerships. Talent Growth Partners is an advisory firm providing talent strategy, business process and HR technology assessment, human resources consulting, succession planning, workforce planning, and a suite of recruiting services. We strive to help our clients create best-in-class teams, enhancing their ROI through our people-focused advisory services. Maria is also the founder of Feeding Mouths, Filling Minds; a non-profit that is eliminating the challenge of finding safe, dependable food and water sources so that children can focus on their future. The team works throughout East and West Africa and the USA. She and her team have built collaborative partners globally and locally.

Feeding Mouths, Filling Minds is eliminating the challenge of finding safe, dependable water and food sources so that children can focus on their future. Learn about our current projects at http://www.feedingmouthsfillingminds.com/projects/

Organizations & Employers Turn to Maria for: - Consulting about best practices for hiring today- Education about the candidate market and what is important to them- Analysis on their current structure, process, tools, people related to talent acquisition- Exploring their options in the marketplace related to talent acquisition - Building out talent acquisition strategies and want guidance and insight on best practices- They have mixed or lousy experiences with contingent and/or retain firms- Balancing out hiring peaks and need extra support for their own internal recruiting teams- They have an appetite for more scalability in their recruiting function- Their team has tough to fill positions and are not finding the right candidates - Needing expertise in passive candidate recruiting when they realize the best candidate is probably working somewhere else - They are unaware of total recruitment spend or desire to drive down costs without sacrificing great quality

• Led recruitment team to hire 10 top interns for each summer program• Coached, inspired, mentored interns to achieve their activity finish lines and summer internship goals • Ran training for interns: Sales cycle overview, phoning language, fact-finding interview, case preparation, closing business, follow up, writing high lives, leveraging joint work with other representatives• 30% reached Power of 10 (company wide recognition)• As Field Director, attracted and mentored two full time Financial Representatives while personally managing robust client base• 50% of sales unit reached 39 lives in first six months (50% retained and producing at high levels through 2011 compared to 13% industry average)• Active member on executive leadership team, helping provide strategic direction throughout all years• Active member of Leadership Development Program (50 individuals hand-selected from corporate)• Achieved Pacesetter 40 individual sales goal (top 10% nationally)• Accomplished Second 60 individual sales goal (top 10% nationally)• Top 50 in new clients in first year in NM (out of 7,000 Financial Representatives)• #1 in new clients in agency (out of 100 Financial Representatives)• Financial Representative of the Year• Achieved 4% new client bonus (maximum attainable)• Earned fully paid trip to Mexico annually• Cornerstone Club (2 CLU exams, 90%+ persistency, 75+ lives, and 2.4% New Client Bonus); sole achiever in agency in 2009• Vacation program ($2,500 toward vacation of choice for exhibiting high activity in first year); only member whom achieved• Selected to attend Fastrack Academy 2010• Recruited key Advisor who became Forum producer ($1,000,000 revenues)• Conducted trainings to recruiters, emerging leaders group, and Managing Directors offering expertise on recruitment tools, process, language, and creative sourcing • Responsible for recruitment budget, reduced costs and reallocated spending more efficiently• Managed P/L

-Full cycle Recruitment Consultant-Managed clients and candidates through search cycle. -Worked with wide variety of clients in Manufacturing, Financial Services, and Professional Services.

Strategically networked to build long-lasting relationships to meet sales goals and build long-term business. - Built agency from ground up to current status of $120,000 in written premiums in 12 months.- Built financial services practice from $0 to over $200, 000 in annuities and life insurance.- Secured another $100,000 in mutual fund business.- Achieved Property & Casualty, Life & Health licenses.- Achieved security licenses 6, 63.- LUTCF classes.- Managed team of telemarketers and one full time sales producer.- Cold called on business owners and households.- Mentored new employee agents.- Developed and managed marketing campaigns successfully.- Tracked expenses and maintained cash flow goals.