Mary Rapaport

mary rapaport

Mary Rapaport is on a mission to democratize strategic thinking. She believes it's not just for the elite few, but for everyone in an organization. When everyone channels a strategic mindset, the business culture thrives, teams become more creative, and employees lean in and engage more. Cultivating this mindset helps leaders create a better (and more fun) place to work, fostering a stronger culture of creativity and innovation.

As a strategic thinking architect, Mary empowers leaders and teams across all functions and levels to think, act, and lead more strategically. As the founder of Xcelerate, she builds learning strategy, designing and delivering immersive learning experiences that ignite "aha moments" and drive tangible business results.

Mary's signature program, the Strategic Playground Workshop, is a unique blend of immersion, play, and practical application. Participants engage in reflection, peer learning, and scenario learning to awaken and channel their strategic mindset, helping them solve complex challenges and have a greater impact.

As a trusted strategic thinking coach, Mary partners with individuals and teams at leading brands to develop customized learning and development strategies. She works closely with clients to identify blind spots, refine critical thinking skills, and translate strategic insights into actionable plans for tangible ROI.

Mary's passion extends beyond individual development. She champions inclusive growth through the Minority Business Growth Alliance, a non-profit providing invaluable coaching and support to BIPOC entrepreneurs. She holds an MBA, a BA in International Business and French, and is a certified leadership and sales trainer. Mary has extensive experience in marketing, transformation, and strategic initiatives. She also serves as the current president of the Minnesota Association for Talent Development (ATD), helping colleagues in the field connect with the joy of learning.

Mary lives in Minneapolis and leads the Minority Business Growth Alliance (MBGA), a non-profit she founded in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. MBGA connects minority  entrepreneurs with pro bono consulting support and connections to business resources. She helps entrepreneurs acquire new skills and capabilities, while also helping the broader consulting and business community develop a more expansive view of inclusion.

Before founding Xcelerate, Mary led B2B Marketing, Sales Enablement and Product Training for many well-known companies. She has held Marketing and Training positions at Eaton, GN Resound, Universal Hospital Services, Minco, Emerson Process Management, and IBM/Catapult.

Xcelerate Can Help:

Build Learning Strategies for Growth

For organizations that are rolling out a critical company initiative, retooling their go to market strategies or making major changes that impact their sales teams and the customers they serve, a Learning strategy will help you reinforce critical adoption behaviors, beliefs, attitudes and actions that will drive revenue growth.

Build strategic thinking with The Strategic Playground workshop or 1:1 coaching

Cultivate key executive, leadership and strategic skills through a mentorship that will prepare you to step into a more senior role, or receive personalized coaching support as you roll out a new training program to help you and the org achieve the vision sooner.

Create custom trainings & workshops

Increase revenue with high-impact workshops and immersive learning experiences that will help your staff think more strategically about their accounts, teach non-sales professionals to sell and better motivate the client to take action.

What Clients Are Saying

  • "Mary thinks about the connection between behavior change and business results. Not just training on the widget but also human behavior and how you influence that and change. She can look at the whole ecosystem that surrounds the organization and deliver a plan that works within it and makes it better."

    — Senior L&D Leader

  • "Mary gets the bigger picture of everything she does. She helped us by looking at our training strategy from a broad perspective to make sure we were developing content that really had an impact. Everything we do is about impact and Mary has helped us increase our impact through a collaborative approach that allowed us to retain our voice, while leveling up our approach and delivering content that provided more value for our participants. Her insight is invaluable."

    — Jaime Taets, CEO Keystone International

  • "Mary's real world experience in sales and marketing was so helpful. She’s helping us think strategically about how to leverage education to achieve business goals, and that’s a critical component."

    — Major Home Improvement Manufacturer

  • "Xcelerate's approach to sales training and coaching transformed Inprela. Now we have an entirely new, and more effective approach to presenting and talking about our business and can now focus on organically growing existing clients. Hands down the best money I’ve ever spent at Inprela for an outside resource!"

    — Stephani Simon, President, Inprela

  • "Mary asks hard questions that make people think - often questions other consultants don't ask."

    — Marketing Leader at an international Medical Device Manufacturer

  • "Mary is more than a training person, she is a Performance Consultant. If you’re looking to drive change or increase performance in your organization, partner with her to develop a strategy that improves performance and drives change in your organization."

    — Attribute Needed

  • “Mary’s not just plugging training tactics into a calendar. She approaches learning plans like marketing plans – winning hearts and minds to ultimately influence behavior and drive adoption.”

    — Marketing Leader at an international Medical Device Manufacturer

Ready to Reach Out?