Eric Pliner

Chief Executive Officer

With more than twenty years’ experience in leadership development, organizational culture, and strategic diversity and inclusion initiatives, Eric Pliner was appointed Chief Executive Officer of YSC in 2019. In a decade with YSC, he has designed and implemented leadership strategy in partnership with some of the world’s best-known leaders, companies and organizations. Eric’s expertise includes onboarding and executive coaching for CEOs, supporting first-time corporate and private equity-backed CEOs, leading incoming/outgoing CEO transitions, fostering high-performing executive teams, building inclusion and diversity skills among senior leaders, and cultivating successful management team and Board relationships.

Eric’s writing on leadership has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, and a host of other business and industry publications. He is a Board Director with Hip Hop Public Health, co-founded by Doug E. Fresh and Dr. Olajide Williams. A member of the Dramatists’ Guild of America, Eric is the author/co-author of a wide variety of published academic, creative, and professional works, including award-winning case studies on leadership; the U.S. National Standards for Health Education; and an Off-Broadway theatrical parody of television cartoons (for adults).

Eric has coached and developed leaders and teams throughout the FTSE 100, Fortune 500 and beyond, across such fields as advertising, media, entertainment, and sport; fashion and luxury; private equity; life sciences; financial services; FMCG; energy and utilities; government, non-profit social change and more.

Eric holds an MBA in Management & Organizational Behavior from the City University of New York and a BA in American Studies and Peace & Justice Studies from Tufts University. Prior to joining YSC, he spent seven years across multiple agencies in the Bloomberg administration of the City of New York, where he closed out his career in public service as Director of Organizational Talent Management and Development with the Department of Education. Eric lives in Brooklyn, New York, where years of teaching at universities throughout the north-eastern U.S. have nonetheless left him largely unprepared for his role as a dad of three.

“Eric provided an incredibly safe environment in which I could explore my strengths and challenges more deeply than I ever could have imagined. He is direct and uses humor well. He also expresses empathy in a way that feels authentic. Eric’s combination of probing questions, professing suggestions and providing validation were of most personal use to me. [He] helped me reach my own conclusions through skillful questioning, but also knew when it was appropriate to add value by proffering his own thoughts. As a result, the coaching relationship felt mutual and relaxed.”

Chief Risk Officer,

FTSE 100 Bank

“[Working with] Eric Pliner was one of the absolute highlights of my development. I found him genuine, insightful, [and] forthright. Eric focused on and held me accountable to implementing ways in which I worked to drive performance out of my team. He is highly apt at reading responses, body language and demeanor during [coaching] sessions and provides focused feedback and on-point recommendations on a holistic level. I am sincerely appreciative of Eric Pliner's genuine efforts to develop me as an individual; he has been one of the biggest contributors to my development as a leader.”

EVP,

Global Fortune 300 Pharmaceutical Company