Dr. Marilyn Buckner is President of National Training Systems, Inc. (NTS), where she designs Human Resource Systems and innovative interventions to help organizations increase their effectiveness. She provides consulting and training on leadership, performance management, organizational communications, and career development as well as workshops on creating, managing and implementing large-scale change.

She also offers a wide-range of consulting services for organizations in change which include strategic planning, organizational design, vision/mission development and team building. She is the distributor of e-learning programs for supervisors, sales and customer service. She also has several well researched and valid assessment tools that can be used for selection, development, and executive coaching.

Before starting NTS, she was the Director of Human Resources Development for National Data Corporation - a provider of information systems to retail, medical, telecommunications and financial industries. She was responsible for executive and management development, strategic planning, sales and quality training.

Previously, she was the Manager of Corporate and International Human Resources Development for The Coca-Cola Company where she was responsible for the development of several Human Resource Systems including: succession planning, staffing, career development and performance management. Her experience in a corporate environment as well as international and domestic divisions has given her a broad perspective regarding the issues and problems in implementing change in various types of organizational structures.

In the beginning of her career, she held the positions of: Director of Training and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Floyd Junior College, Instructor of Counseling at Georgia State University in the graduate counseling department, and owned her own business as a trainer and consultant.

Dr. Buckner has her Ph.D. in Counseling and Management from Georgia State University, where she wrote her dissertation on assessment centers. She has co-authored three books, one on interviewing skills, one on career development, and her latest is on change strategies. She has also co-authored two publications for ASTD on the topics of simulations and successful succession planning.

She is the President of the Human Resource Planning Society. She has also co-chaired the Education Committee that offers innovative seminars to its members. She has received awards for the Outstanding Doctoral Alumnus from Georgia State University, The Human Resource Development Award from the Atlanta ASTD chapter in 1992, and an award from ASTD for Best Presentation in 1997.