For more than a decade, Michael Hepperlen has combined his interests in leadership and organizational effectiveness to help clients select and develop high potential leaders. Michael enjoys partnering with clients to better understand their leadership and development needs and create tailored talent management solutions. While Michael is a self-professed education junkie with two masters degrees and a Ph.D., his clients and colleagues appreciate his inquisitive, perceptive, and down-to-earth nature.

Michael joined MDA’s Talent Assessment practice in 2005 with a focus on leadership selection, development, and high-potential identification. In addition to his extensive assessment experience, he also specializes in using research to address real-world client needs. He has partnered with numerous clients to develop competency models, conduct job analyses, create customized selection tools, and leverage surveys to understand workforce trends. Clients appreciate Michael’s commitment to understanding the uniqueness of their organization, his ability to find creative solutions to problems, and his leadership and assessment insights.

Prior to coming to MDA, Michael worked as a senior consultant for PreVisor (formerly known as ePredix), where he helped design and implement selection systems for more than 40 Fortune 500 companies. Michael began his career with the City of Omaha Personnel Department, where he helped develop and administer assessment centers and testing tools for police and fire department selection and promotion decisions.

Michael has a broad background in psychology and counseling. He graduated with honors from Gustavus Adolphus College with a B.A. in psychology and a minor in music. He went on to receive an M.A. in counseling from the University of North Dakota, an M.A. in industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and a Ph.D. in I/O psychology from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Away from the office, Michael enjoys spending time with his wife and two children. He is actively involved with his church and helps lead his son’s Cub Scout Den. He loves to travel, swim, and fish. He has ridden in RAGBRAI (a 600-mile bike ride across Iowa) twice and hopes to experience other bike tours around the country when his kids get older. He can frequently be found spending his vacation time at his family’s cabin on Rainy Lake near International Falls, Minnesota, where he helped build a traditional Finnish wood-burning Sow-Na.  

Favorite Work:

Helping business leaders make smart hiring decisions