Shannon Polly, MAPP is one of the first 150 people in the world who have received their Master in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) degree from the University of Pennsylvania under Dr. Martin Seligman.

She is a leadership development facilitator, coach, speaker, author and founder of Shannon Polly and Associates, a leadership development company in downtown D.C. Shannon works with Fortune 500 companies in two domain areas: executive presence/presentation skills and positive psychology. She is passionate about giving people the confidence to present themselves powerfully in front of a room and overcome the anxiety that often besieges public speakers. Shannon uses the empirical research from positive psychology with her organizational clients to foster positive and flourishing workplaces. She is equally as passionate about sharing the science of well-being and increasing the ‘tonnage of happiness’ in the world.

She has been an assistant instructor in the MAPP program at the University of Pennsylvania. She has developed curriculum for the higher education version of the movie, Happy, and has taught resilience to over 1,000 Army sergeants for the Master Resiliency Training (MRT) program for the U.S. Army. The Army is the largest consumer of positive psychology in the world today and has plans to train all 1.1 million soldiers in resilience.

She holds a graduate degree from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in classical acting and a B.A. with honors from Yale College. She is also a graduate of the Georgetown Leadership Coaching Program. She is a contributing author to Positive Psychology News Daily and is a contributor to the book Positive Psychology at Work (Wiley, March 2011) and a contributing author (along with Dr. Martin Seligman) to European Handbook of Positive Psychology (2013) and the co-editor of Character Strengths Matter: How to Live a Full Life (June 2015). Her work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Psychology Today, Live Happy magazine and the Toronto Star. She is a PCC coach certified by the International Coach Federation. She is also certified to deliver the MBTI, Leadership Circle 360, VIA character strengths survey and StrengthsFinder2.0 assessments. She is a co-founder of Positive Business DC whose mission is to increase productivity and profitability in the nation’s capital.

Her strengths are: Social intelligence, honesty, kindness, humor and perseverance.