About Distilled LEadership
Find Your Spirit – For Business, For Pleasure, For Both
At Distilled Leadership, we do things distinctly differently. And, we have a lot to offer. As both an executive/team building coach and a Bourbon Historian, Michael Kutner is like a fine blended bourbon. He draws upon different strengths to create a whole host of experiences from purely business to purely pleasure, and most often something in between.
Top Shelf Personal Coaching and Team Building for the Corporate World
In the corporate world, Distilled Leadership’s Michael Kutner is a sought-after executive leadership coach and team building trainer including among Fortune 100 companies. He believes the best approach is to provide leadership and team building together. That’s because no leader can lead without a good team, and no team can be productive without a good leader. Using the Whole Brain Thinking assessment tool, Michael evaluates teams and their leaders to literally find their way of thinking, and then uses those insights to improve team dynamics and performance.
Along the way, Michael draws upon lessons learned along the Kentucky bourbon trail. This 150-year-old industry should have folded many times in its history. Yet the ingenuity and resilience of its builders kept bourbon alive, leaving us a lot to learn about leadership, teamwork, and stick-to-it-iveness.
Engaging Bourbon Tasting Events for Business and Pleasure
On the entertainment side, Michael’s natural storytelling ability creates engaging bourbon tasting activities for pleasure, for team bonding, and for event planners looking for something a little different. Michael delves into the fascinating – and sometimes controversial – stories from Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail. He also explains the nuanced differences between some of the country’s top shelf bourbons and helps participants find “their” bourbon.
Distilled Leadership also offers virtual bourbon tasting events for those with far-flung friends and colleagues as well as those looking for a fun, socially distanced event. It promises to be a Zoom event like no other you’ve attended.
Based in Philadelphia, But Serving the Country
Distilled Leadership is based near Philadelphia, and we provide in-person training, coaching and tasting events throughout the Philadelphia area. We can also provide all of our services virtually using Zoom and similar technologies. Michael is also available to travel to your location anywhere in the U.S. – and perhaps beyond. Contact Distilled Leadership to find out more.
Distilled Leadership in the Media
About Michael Kutner
Certified Change Management Professional | Bourbon Historian | Engaging Raconteur
Michael Kutner, Founder & President Distilled Leadership, has a gift for connecting with almost everyone he meets. His affable personality and broad expertise allows him to work in two distinct spaces: the corporate coaching world and the corporate event world. The two are more related than you might think. After discovering Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail on vacation in 2013, Michael realized that the lessons learned during bourbon’s 150-year history could – and should – be applied to business leadership principles today.
Michael began his corporate career working at global companies including Cigna, GE, Johnson & Johnson, and Kepner-Tregoe for 20 years. He took his expertise and talents and launched his consultancy company, Distilled Leadership, in 2018. Michael developed and refined a training strategy that could be used to help other companies develop their teams and leaders. Michael earned his Change Management Professional certification, among others (please see below), and trained in the HBDI/Whole Brain Thinking assessment model.
Today, Michael works with Fortune 100 companies and Fortune 500 companies as well as on-the-rise businesses throughout the U.S. He distills the lessons learned from the bourbon industry and blends them with his own brand of training programs for a unique and effective approach. Although based in the Philadelphia area, Michael works with dozens of multinational clients and hundreds of corporate leaders across the United States, both in person and virtually. He brings his talents to a wide range of industries including manufacturing, insurance, education, and healthcare.
As a Bourbon Historian, Michael offers private bourbon tastings in the Philadelphia area as well as virtual bourbon tasting and whiskey education across the country via Zoom. He customizes events to the needs of the client from purely pleasure events to business events such as client appreciation, employee appreciation, and team bonding. He also works closely with event planners who are looking for something a little different for their clients.
Michael Kutner Certifications
Certified Change Management Professional, The Acuity Institute
Certified HBDI/Whole Brain Practitioner, Herrmann International
Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, General Electric Six Sigma Quality
Certified Bourbon Steward, and Executive Bourbon Steward, Kentucky Distillers Association
Whisky Ambassador, Certified, BIIAB (British Institute of Innkeeping Awarding Body)
“From Jim Beam to Makers Mark to Pappy Van Winkle and more, I’ve distilled the stories of leadership practices from the bourbon industry and incorporated them into the leadership and team building workshops that are distinctly different – and uniquely successful.”