LeahGrace Kayler
Founding Principal
Nikki Kagan
Principal
Karen Nell Smith
Senior Consultant
Nikki Kagan
Principal
Nikki brings to Kagan Associates more than 20 years of experience as a creative planner, corporate facilitator, coach and consultant. She has traveled worldwide facilitating, coaching, and conducting programs on leadership, employee motivation and development, conflict management, and interpersonal relations. Her Israeli-based “sister” company, Kagan Management Resources, has a long and successful track record for helping individuals and teams develop their leadership and interpersonal skills.
Nikki is especially adept at quickly determining a group's unique needs and expectations, and then custom-designing an appropriate program for them. Balancing theory and practice in her program design, she offers a refreshingly creative, 'no-gimmicks' approach to training and development that captures the attention of her audiences and allows them to learn in an engaged, energized, and relaxed way.
Nikki is best known as the founder of HorseSense, our unique and powerful program in Equine-Assisted Education, in which participants develop greater self-awareness, collaboration and communication skills through working with horses. She and her sister, Leslie, share a passion for horses as facilitators of growth and learning, and are frequent writers about Equine-Assisted Education in the corporate world. Nikki is a licensed, certified trainer and partner of HorseDream International in Germany and of HorsePower Productions' EAPD Program. A NARHA certified therapeutic riding instructor, she is a graduate of Linda Kohanov’s Equine Pioneering Leadership Program, has earned additional certifications from AIA Equine Guided Education Internship, EAGALA Level I and "Intuitive Horsemanship" – Strozzi Ranch, and has studied Carolyn Resnick's Liberty Method.
Nikki is a certified focus group moderator, facilitator and creative planner, with certifications from the Burke Research Institute, the McNellis Group, and "The Great Facilitation Training Program." Nikki is also certified in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) and the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory. She holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from the University of Maine's College of Business, graduating first in her class.