ACOG CEFALO National Leadership Institute
Faculty
Claudia S. P. Fernandez, DrPH, MS, RD, LDN
Director, ACOG Cefalo National Leadership Institute, Executive Coach,
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Maternal and Child Health,
School of Public Health
Claudia Fernandez is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and currently serving as the Associate Chair for Inclusive Excellence in the department of Maternal and Child Health at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, the top-ranked public school of public health in the country. She specializes in helping leaders meet the challenges of running complex organizations, communicating to public and media audiences, and engaging employees. She is the co-author of It-Factor Leadership: Become a Better Leader in 13 Steps.
Dr. Fernandez has extensive experience developing custom executive education programs that focus on personal leadership development, innovation, and business skills for senior, middle, and front-line managers and leaders. For the past 19 years she has served as the Director of the Leadership Core for the Food Systems Leadership Institute (www.FSLI.org), the flagship leadership program of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU) and higher leadership and administration in academia, industry, and government. For the past 18 years she has directed the ACOG Robert C. Cefalo International Leadership Institute for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and for the past eight years she has served as C0-PI and Co-Director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded Clinical Scholars National Leadership Institute (ClinicalScholarsNLI.org). Her work now extends to working with the least resourced counties in the state as well as engaging with community-based organizations and tribal organizations in her home state.
She is an executive coach and certified in a wide range of leadership and psychological assessment tools, including 360 assessments, the EQi-2.0 Emotional Intelligence Instrument, the FIRO-B, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Change Style Indicator, the Decision Style Profile, the Paper Planes, Inc. simulation, the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Instrument, the Dennison Organizational Culture Survey, The FourSight tool, The Influence Style Indicator, the Poverty Simulation, and the CPI 260 and the Coaching Report for Leaders among others.
Dr. Fernandez is also a licensed and Registered Dietitian, and as such has a particular interest in leadership in healthcare systems and high-performing healthcare and public health teams. She earned her doctorate in public health leadership and health policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.