Meryle Mahrer Kaplan, PhD, leads Global Member Services (GMS), the Catalyst team charged with fostering member impact through an array of activities, including Consulting Services, Vital Signs, the Speakers Bureau, and the design and development of new member communities. GMS draws from Catalyst’s full knowledge base and works closely with colleagues in Membership, Events, and Research to engage with and provide members with an impactful experience.
Dr. Kaplan has more than 20 years of experience working with organizations. She serves as a trusted advisor and thought partner to many organizations, working closely with highly sophisticated members and those seeking to jumpstart diversity and inclusion efforts. She is an architect of Catalyst’s signature consulting services—treating members as partners in diagnosing their strengths and issues and designing strategies that advance women and business, and creating dialogues that engage senior executives within and across companies. Dr. Kaplan is an expert on the process of making change and is experienced in leading initiatives with multiple stakeholders. She and her team distill insights from research and from work with individual members and contribute these to Catalyst’s knowledge base and to the shaping of services for members.
Dr. Kaplan is an author of The Catalyst Guide to Employee Resource Groups and the Making Change: Beyond Flexibility series. She has played a leadership role in several Catalyst activities, including the CEO Summit and the design of the member engagement strategy. Dr. Kaplan is also an active participant in Catalyst’s global activities and diverse women initiatives. She is a frequent speaker and workshop leader in the United States, Europe, and Japan on the benefits of diversity and inclusion, strategy development, work life effectiveness, and building networks and alliances across groups. Dr. Kaplan serves on a number of Catalyst member stakeholder advisory groups many of which are focused on sustainability, and she is on the Boards of Advisors of Springboard Consulting LLC and Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work and the Rutgers University School of Arts and Sciences Advisory Council.
Dr. Kaplan received her BA in Psychology from Douglass College, her MA in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut, and her PhD in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University, where she focused on adult development and taught graduate classes in the psychology of women. She is the recipient of a Woodrow Wilson Research Grant in Women’s Studies, author of Mothers’ Images of Motherhood, published by Routledge, and co-editor of Representations of Motherhood, an anthology published by Yale University Press. Earlier in her career, Dr. Kaplan led Corporate Consultations for RCCM (now merged with Bright Horizons) and was the Founding Director of the Women’s Center at William Paterson University. Dr. Kaplan is married and the mother of a grown son.