Dan Freehling
Founder & Executive Coach
Dan Freehling is the founder of Contempus Leadership and an ICF-certified executive coach. He is the host of the Forward-Looking Leadership podcast, a Harvard Business Review contributor, and a member of the PRIME Coaching Academy board of advisors. Dan has been featured in Forbes and invited to speak to groups worldwide on leadership and career strategy.
Dan has coached hundreds of leaders at the executive and director levels across industries, with a focus on education, government, healthcare, life sciences, philanthropy, social enterprise, and purpose-driven nonprofits and businesses of all kinds.
Prior to founding Contempus, Dan led $25-50M organizational development portfolios for global clients. He continues to partner with leading orgs to reimagine how they strengthen their leaders and teams.
Dan holds Professional Certified Coach (PCC) certification through the International Coaching Federation (ICF), an MA in Organizational Leadership & Learning from the George Washington University, an MBA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a BA from Boston University.
Now residing in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, he has called Boston, DC, and NYC home in recent years. In addition to his obsession with all things leadership, Dan enjoys cooking for friends and family, taking long walks with an iced coffee in hand, and exploring Boston’s dining scene with his wife, Heather.
Mariya Chetyrkina
Sr. Leadership & Strategy Advisor
Mariya Chetyrkina is Contempus Leadership’s Senior Leadership & Strategy Advisor. She brings over 20 years of experience helping executives and organizations navigate complexity, design adaptive systems, and embrace new ways of working.
Mariya partners with senior leaders across the social impact and corporate sectors as they move through pivotal transitions, identity shifts, and the complexities that accompany meaningful change. She helps them surface hidden patterns, make sense of what's unfolding, and build grounded, practical pathways forward.
Mariya brings a global career that spans the full arc of social sector and strategic advisory. She has directed the $30M Fulbright education portfolio for the US Department of State, shaped employee experience transformation for 700k+ staff at Accenture, led Devex's executive search practice, and designed programs at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Foundation reaching more than 362 million workers and their families.
Mariya earned her BA from Wittenberg University. After nearly two decades of worldwide travel and a long stint in the DC area, she is now based in Cleveland, Ohio.
Mariya believes expertise has a shelf life unless you keep evolving, and she finds genuine joy in the pursuit of mastery. When she is not working with leaders, you'll find her on a hike, deep in a good book, or surrounded by lifelong friends and family.
Our Global Team
Contempus has assembled a worldwide network of trusted advisors, strategists, coaches, designers, recruiters, and project managers. We bring together customized, high-caliber teams to deliver engagements at any scale with excellence.