Linda Fisher Thornton is CEO of Leading in Context LLC, a strategic leadership development consulting firm in Richmond, Virginia. Linda has taken on the mission of “clarifying what it means to lead ethically in a complex world” and her work is striking a chord with leaders across industries. Since its launch in 2009, her Leading in Context® Blog has attracted followers from 160 countries.
In January, 2013 she was named one of the 2013 Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior by Trust Across America.

Linda has over 25 years of leadership, training design, consulting, and organizational development experience. Her client list includes Fortune 500 companies, small to medium size businesses and professional practices, and non-profit organizations in a wide variety of industries. In addition to providing visioning retreats and leadership development, she publishes leadership learning tools through her website at LeadinginContext.com.

Linda is former Senior Vice President and Training Division Manager at Central Fidelity Bank, a Virginia bank that was headquartered in Richmond. When she led the Central Fidelity Training Division, she and her team were awarded the National Training Director’s Forum Newsletter Award for Outstanding Performance in Training for Matching Training and Consulting Services to Business Imperatives. Linda was honored as an Outstanding Young Virginian by the Virginia Jaycees in recognition of her professional and volunteer contributions within Virginia communities.

Linda holds a Master’s degree in Human Resource Development from George Washington
University and a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and Linguistics from the University of Virginia.

Selected Publications and Presentations Include:

• Interview by The Human Factor, a human resource publication in India about trends in ethical leadership. Interview appears in the January 2013 HR & Business Trends Issue.
• Presentation on The Future of Ethics and Leadership at the 2012 Richmond Society of Human Resource Management Strategic Leadership Conference
• Article “Leadership Ethics Training: Why is it So Hard to Get it Right?” published in ASTD’s Training and Development Magazine in 2009, and reprinted in 2010 in T&D’s Best of Leadership Development 2006-2009.

In addition to consulting, blogging and publishing, Linda also teaches leadership as an Adjunct Assistant Professor for the University of Richmond School of Professional and Continuing Studies.