Today, as one of the People Development Partners at The Trade Desk, Mariana Rai helps leaders deepen their emotional, cognitive, and relational capacities.
Rai didn’t start her career with a formal language for emotional intelligence. What she had instead were hundreds of interactions in property development and consulting — many of them painful or challenging — that kept pointing her toward the same question: Why do some people and teams flourish while others flounder, even with the same strategy?
“I initially believed success hinged on sharp analysis and technical expertise,” she explained. “But over time, what struck me most wasn’t the brilliance of the strategies, it was how often people and teams failed when the human side was overlooked.”
Her interest in EQ broadened when she joined The Trade Desk, where she was introduced to the field of adult/constructive development, an area of research focused not only on how leaders behave but on how they make meaning. It takes into account the filters, assumptions, and mental models that silently drive every decision a leader makes.