Dr. Eric Mayes is an award-winning, transformational speaker, leadership coach, and educator who helps individuals and organizations strengthen mindset, clarify purpose, and lead with intention. His work sits at the intersection of education, athletics, psychology, and leadership development, grounded in the belief that mental strength, disciplined habits, and a clear sense of purpose are the foundations of sustained success.
Dr. Mayes draws from a life shaped by education and sport, not as separate paths, but as complementary systems for developing resilience, focus, and leadership capacity. Trained as an educational psychologist, his work emphasizes how culture, cognition, and belief systems shape performance, decision-making, and long-term outcomes. Whether working with students, athletes, educators, or executives, he helps people understand how mindset and environment interact and how intentional leadership can change trajectories.
As the Chief Executive Officer of the Umoja Community Education Foundation, Dr. Mayes leads a nationally recognized organization dedicated to student success and institutional transformation. Under his leadership, Umoja has expanded to more than 80 campus programs and nearly doubled the number of students served to more than 16,000 annually across California and Washington.
Both the classroom and the field have shaped Dr. Mayes’s leadership philosophy. As a former Division I student athlete at the University of Michigan, he advanced from walk on status to team captain on a national championship football team. That experience taught him how discipline, preparation, and belief translate into leadership under pressure. He later returned to the game as a college football coach at Johns Hopkins University, where he helped lead teams to conference championships during back-to-back undefeated regular seasons. Coaching deepened his commitment to developing the whole person and reinforced the importance of accountability, emotional regulation, and culture in high-performing teams. These lessons now inform his work as a leadership and mental strength coach.
A lifelong educator, Dr. Mayes has served on faculty at the University of Arkansas, Wayne State University, University of Detroit Mercy, Howard University, and Johns Hopkins University. His professional experiences span the United States, Europe, Africa, and Brazil, contributing to a global perspective on leadership learning and human development.
Dr. Mayes earned his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from the University of Michigan, his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Howard University, and a master’s degree in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His academic training informs a practical psychology of leadership that blends research lived experience and real world application.
As a speaker, Dr. Mayes has delivered keynotes and workshops at colleges and universities, high schools, athletic teams, corporate organizations, and governmental agencies. Known for his ability to connect across sectors, he combines research informed insight with lived experience to deliver messages that resonate and endure.
Today, Dr. Mayes travels nationally and internationally sharing a message that blends leadership psychology mental strength and lived experience. His talks challenge audiences to rethink how they approach pressure adversity and growth and to lead themselves before leading others. Participants leave with practical insight renewed clarity and a deeper understanding of how education sport and mindset can be leveraged to build lives of purpose and impact.
Dr. Mayes’s work and leadership have been featured in The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, The Los Angeles Times, The Detroit Free Press, and ESPN. Whether speaking to students athletes educators executives or community leaders, he delivers a message that is grounded compelling and transformative.