Melissa Furman

Dr. Furman is not your typical “academic”. She served as the Assistant Dean and Professor at the Hull College of Business at Augusta University for 10+ years, but her passion for career, leadership, and organizational development inspired her to launch Career Potential, a consulting, training, and coaching organization. Her expertise include generational diversity, unconscious bias, leadership success, and emotional intelligence. She brings her background in higher education—particularly business, counseling, and psychology—to the conversation to help individuals and organizations achieve success.

Formal Bio

Dr. Melissa Furman’s passion for guiding individuals with career, professional, and leadership development inspired her to launch Career Potential to help individuals achieve and organizations succeed. As the owner of Career Potential, Dr. Furman delivers highly engaging and interactive training and presentations.

Dr. Furman previously served as the assistant dean and currently serves as a faculty member at the James M. Hull College of Business at Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia. She also serves as an affiliate faculty member for UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Executive Education division and for GA Tech’s Professional Education division. Prior to her current faculty roles, she served in a variety of roles at universities such as Emory University, The University of Georgia, and Johns Hopkins University.

Her research includes generational diversity, unconscious bias, career and leadership development, emotional intelligence, and assisting technical professionals transition into management roles.

With 20 years of academic training and experience, Dr. Furman is known as a subject matter expert and provides a knowledge of diverse learning styles. Using modern techniques and technology she delivers engaging, relatable content. Dr. Furman is a Certified Virtual Facilitator and can design and deliver highly engaging training sessions in both virtual and face-to-face environments. Dr. Furman also applies her knowledge of virtual environments to train professionals with virtual facilitation and managing and leading virtual teams.

In addition to training, Dr. Furman offers individual coaching and organizational consulting services to corporate, non-profit, and government organizations, as well as serves as a speaker at state, national, and international conferences.

Dr. Furman obtained her Doctorate of Business degree and Masters of Science degree in Professional Counseling from Georgia State University and her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Susquehanna University. She is a National Certified Counselor (NCC) and has obtained multiple certifications to be able to administer assessment tools that measure behavioral styles, emotional intelligence, leadership development, and career development to name a few.