Maria Gonzalez

Maria Gonzalez (BCom, MBA) is an award winning and best-selling author and a 30-year business veteran as a corporate executive and entrepreneur. She believes that Mindfulness transforms lives and organizations, and that it has the potential to transform society. She has been meditating regularly since 1991 and teaching Mindfulness since 2002. She applies Mindfulness to all aspects of her life, both personally and professionally. As founder and president of Argonauta Strategic Alliances Consulting Inc., she ensures that mindfulness is indistinguishable from her business, whether negotiating complex strategic alliances, doing strategy consulting, or coaching business leaders, professionals, entire teams, organizations or individuals in mindful leadership.

Maria teaches Mindful Leadership at the University of Toronto and has taught strategy and organization development at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management in the MBA and BCom Programs and the Executive Institute.

Over the last two decades she has served on numerous boards and has been a member of the Corporate Advisory Board for the Harvard Medical School—MacArthur Foundation’s study on depression and workplace performance. Having served as a founding member and vice-chair of the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addictions and Mental Health, she knows the toll stress can take on individuals, organizations, and society.

In 2012 she participated in a landmark Harvard Medical School research study testing the effects of Mindfulness techniques on the brains of experienced meditators, using functional MRIs.

Maria holds MBA and B.Com. Degrees from McGill University and is an Alma Mater Fellow.

Maria is an award winning and best selling author. Mindful Leadership: The 9 Ways to Self-Awareness, Transforming Yourself, and Inspiring Others (Jossey-Bass / John Wiley & Sons 2012)is Maria’s second best-selling book. She is also coauthor of The Mindful Investor (John Wiley & Sons, 2010).

She has launched the Mindful Leadership App available for Smartphones, Androids and Tablets. The App has 12 Categories and over 70 Guided Meditations.