Susan Bender Phelps

Susan Bender Phelps, Lead Trainer, Coach, and CEO of Odyssey Mentoring & Leadership delivers engaging and inspiring training programs and "playshops."

Susan demonstrates the principles of mentorship, leadership, and effective communication that powerfully shifts workplace culture so that organizations are more productive and staff willingly uses every opportunity to grow, develop, and cause breakthroughs. As an Executive and Management Coach, Susan's work transforms lives and careers.

Susan got her start in mentoring and leadership training when she co-founded a mentoring program for at-risk middle school students in the early 1990s. This work is her passion. Every day, it gives her the opportunity to pay forward the gift that had once been given to her. As Executive Director of the New Mexico Youth at Risk Foundation, Susan worked with a mentor to help her grow her organization, hone her leadership skills and master non-profit fundraising and grant writing. To this day, she takes advantage of opportunities to be a mentor and to have a mentor.

Susan brings her first-hand knowledge and experience of the power of effective mentoring to her work as a trainer, speaker, and coach. She has learned that just because a person is really good at what they do, has years of experience and the best of intentions, most do not come naturally to the mentoring skills they need. Those skills can be easily learned and mastered. Mentoring benefits both mentees and their mentors. Mentees learn faster than experience alone can teach them. Mentors earn more and rise faster than their colleagues who don’t. Even more important their passion for their own work gets re-ignited. At the end of the day… everyone wins.

Susan speaks nationally on mentorship, leadership, and communication. She is the author of Aspire Higher, a collection of true success stories of career and business mentoring. She has a bachelor’s degree in Communication and a master’s in Management & Organizational Leadership.