Named among the top 30 most influential Industrial-Organizational Psychologists and featured in Forbes, Dr. Rob McKenna is the founder of WiLD Leaders, Inc., The WiLD Foundation, and the creator of the WiLD Trust Platform. His recent TEDx talk, “Becoming a Whole Leader in a Broken World,” is a manifesto on why the future depends on leaders who are courageous enough to develop not just their skills, but their inner lives.

For more than three decades, Rob has devoted his career to understanding what it takes to develop whole and trusted leaders—leaders who are willing to be shaped, refined, and stretched for the sake of the people they serve. His work is rooted in a simple but disruptive conviction: people are not problems to manage; they are whole human beings to develop.

Rob’s passion for leadership formation began long before he became a researcher and founder. The son of a university president and author who writes into his nineties, Rob grew up watching leaders up close—their pressures, their breakthroughs, their private doubts, and their deep potential. Those early experiences planted in him a lifelong commitment: to support leaders not just in what they do, but in who they are becoming.

After earning his PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Rob spent years in academia and organizational consulting, often sitting with leaders shoulder to shoulder in moments of pressure and possibility. Those conversations revealed a pattern: leaders were hungry for real development—development that was honest, measurable, relational, and courageous. This insight led him to create the WiLD Toolkit and, ultimately, the WiLD Trust Index, a breakthrough platform that helps leaders and teams measure and build trust at scale.

Rob’s work now spans corporations, universities, nonprofits, faith communities, and global partnerships. Whether he is advising a CEO, mentoring emerging leaders, or speaking to thousands, his message remains consistent: trust is not abstract—it is built, repaired, and lived in real time. And whole leaders make it possible.

Beyond his work, Rob is known for his storytelling, his humor, and his willingness to name what is true about the human experience of leadership—our courage and our brokenness, our hope and our fear. He often says that leadership is the place “where human being meets human doing,” and he has dedicated his life to helping leaders show up whole, ready, and brave.

Rob and his wife Jackie have two sons and live in Kirkland, Washington, where their family remains central to his grounding and inspiration. Their life together—full of adventure, faith, and the everyday work of being human—continues to shape Rob’s belief that wholeness is possible and trust can be rebuilt, one leader at a time.