Pursuing your dreams requires you to leave your established comfort zone and to push into areas where at first you may feel that you have less control. When you set out on your journey along the Success Process, you have to be willing to grow, to push your talents to the outer limits. That means pushing beyond what is known to you, taking risks, and learning to view failure as merely a step, rather than a defeat.

- Stedman Graham

Stedman Graham is chairman and CEO of S. Graham & Associates (SGA), a management and marketing consulting company that specializes in the corporate and educational markets. As a businessman and educator, Graham lectures and conducts seminars for businesses and organizations around the country. Content is driven by his proprietary Nine-Step Success Process™. Clients have included Wells Fargo, Merrill Lynch, CVS Pharmacy, Georgia Pacific, PRO-LINE International, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Manpower, CNN and GlaxoSmithKline among many others.

Graham has authored ten books, including two New York Times bestsellers, You Can Make It Happen: A Nine-Step Plan for Success and Teens Can Make It Happen: Nine Steps to Success. Build Your Own Life Brand! explores the concept of personal and professional branding. Move Without the Ball is a collection of principles that teaches students that sports are a part of life, not life itself. Who Are You? A Success Process for Building Your Life’s Foundation focuses on success through self-discovery. His latest release, Diversity: Leaders not Labels – A New Plan for the 21st Century, shares his unique approach to eliminate barriers to success.

Actively involved in education, Graham is a former adjunct professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago where he taught a leadership course based on his Nine-Step Process. At the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, he taught a management strategy course entitled “The Dynamics of Leadership.” He also founded and directed George Washington University’s Forum for Sport and Event Management and Marketing – the first of its kind in the country.

Graham has a lifelong commitment to youth and community. In 1985, he founded AAD Education, Health and Sports (formerly, Athletes Against Drugs), a nonprofit organization with over 500 professional athletes and other civic leaders committed to developing leadership in underserved youth. AAD has served over 15,000 students through scholarships and education. Graham is also actively involved in leadership efforts and programs in South Africa and is Founder of Concerned Citizens of Whitesboro, NJ, and Concerned Citizens of Lake Waccamaw, NC. He serves on several boards, including the national board of Junior Achievement (JA) and the 7-Eleven Education Is Freedom Foundation, and is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Hardin-Simmons University. He received a master’s degree in Education from Ball State University and an honorary doctorate in Humanities from Coker College, where he is also a distinguished visiting professor.

• Franklin Covey Humanitarian Service Award
• National Urban League Community Service Award
• Drum Major for Justice Award
• American Advertising Federation Industry Influential
• H. Naylor Fitzhugh Award of Relevance

"I want to take this opportunity to thank you for presenting the "You Can Make It Happen" session at our Peoria Marketing Conference. The information you presented was well received by all in attendance. You supplied your audience with comments they can take back to their office and implement into their day-to-day lives. Your presentation was very motivational and right on target. Thank you for a dynamic presentation!"

- Cheryl Sowash, Vice President, State Farm Insurance Agencies