My life’s work has centered on helping people recognize what is already within them, claim it, and bring it fully into how they live, lead, and show up.
What began with image became a lifelong exploration of presence, identity, and leadership—and the power of aligning who we are with how we live and lead.
I grew up in ʻAiea, Hawaiʻi.
My real education began beyond the classroom.
As a training consultant with Dale Carnegie Courses, I entered the world of human relations, public speaking, executive presence, and sales—and discovered how deeply the way we communicate, connect, and carry ourselves shapes what becomes possible.
That experience became the foundation for decades of work helping people strengthen not just how they present themselves, but how they lead.
In 1991, I moved to Las Vegas and founded The Winning Edge, an image consulting and corporate training firm.
I came of age professionally during the Dress for Success era, when image was often treated as a formula: wear the right suit, follow the rules, look the part.
I saw early that appearance alone was never enough. I became interested in image from the inside out—the connection between identity, values, confidence, and how we show up.
That work evolved into helping people express their personal best, then into personal branding, authentic presence, and leadership.
Over time, I realized they were all expressions of the same deeper work:
Personal Leadership
Learn MoreFrom how people looked to how organizations lived their brand.
Over the next three decades, my work took me into boardrooms, resorts, casinos, hotels, classrooms, and leadership programs across the United States and Asia.
I worked with thousands of professionals and leadership teams. I supported more than 50 organizations and over 20 openings, re-openings, acquisitions, and rebranding initiatives.
My clients have included Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Galaxy Entertainment, Bellagio, Harrah’s Entertainment, Ameristar Casinos, Mercy Healthcare, Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, and others.
But I was never interested in brand as a logo or a marketing exercise.
I was interested in the people behind it.
How do values become behavior?
How does a leader become the embodiment of what an organization promises?
How does a guest, customer, employee—or simply another human being—experience you?
That became the heart of my work.
Leadership came home.
But behind every professional chapter is a personal one.
Mine has included loss, caregiving, soul-searching, and starting over.
For years, I cared for my husband after illness left him paralyzed, non-verbal, and dependent on a wheelchair. More recently, caregiving became part of my life again with my aging parents.
I stepped back from much of my public work and into a quieter kind of leadership—the kind that doesn’t show up on LinkedIn.
Those years changed me.
They taught me what it means to carry responsibility, keep going, and care deeply for others.
They also taught me how easy it is to disappear from your own life while doing it.
That became one of the most important lessons of my life:
Leadership is not only about how we show up for others.
It is also about how we stay present to ourselves.
In that quieter season, everything I had taught for decades became more personal.
Less about performance.
More about presence.
Less about proving.
More about alignment.
And slowly, I began finding my way back to myself.
Personal Leadership.
After more than 34 years, I’ve come to believe that almost everything begins here.
There is the person leading herself.
That is what I mean by Presence Before Performance™.
How we show up in the moments that matter is shaped long before anyone sees us—by the clarity, choices, practices, and alignment underneath.
Today, I work with people navigating a reset, pivot, or expansion—helping them get clear about who they are now, what matters now, and what deserves their energy next.
Not necessarily more achievement.
What I carry into the work.
Envision
See possibility.
I help people see beyond present circumstances and clarify what they want to create, become or move toward.
Embolden
Strengthen courage.
I help people trust themselves enough to decide, speak, claim, lead, create and act.
Energize
Create vitality and movement.
I help people redirect energy from uncertainty and misalignment toward meaningful action.
You don’t have to haveit all figured out.
Bring the question.
The idea.
The transition.
The opportunity.
The pieces that haven’t quite come together yet.
We’ll start there.
Reimi Marden
Personal Leadership Strategist | Speaker
Founder, Your Winning Edge
Where Personal Leadership Elevates Your Impact.