Our History

Founded in 1995, the Center for Advanced Emotional Intelligence was the first firm in the world to mine the neuroscience of emotional intelligence for its applications to business. The firm was founded by Dr. Paul Wieand and Dr. Jan Birchfield who both personally witnessed social capital breaking down when an organization didn't have role models across every level of the organization building trust.

For over thirty years, AEI has offered practical, results-oriented programs for leadership development and corporate culture change. Our executive coaching practice is designed for senior and high potential executives who are seeking to optimize their overall leadership effectiveness. Our process is designed to help leaders hone the skills they need to build and mobilize strong organizations.

Our Leadership Development Model

AEI's leadership development model is rooted in decades of research, our own and that of leading scholars, into how individuals shape the performance of the organizations they lead.

In today's rapidly changing and often turbulent business climate, we believe Advanced Emotional Intelligence is the single most distinguishing characteristic of truly exceptional leadership.

Advanced Emotional Intelligence builds on the foundational principles of traditional Emotional Intelligence while emphasizing deeper, more nuanced application in how leaders make decisions, navigate conflict, build trust, and inspire others to do their best work. Leaders who develop Advanced EI demonstrate greater self-awareness, communicate with authenticity, adapt under pressure, and create the conditions for innovation and meaningful collaboration.

To support that journey, AEI has developed a proprietary model that measures six conditions for Advanced Emotional Intelligence. These conditions are more than a framework, they are the tools that help leaders understand and tell their stories more effectively, connect more genuinely with their teams, and drive lasting organizational change.

6 Conditions: Minimum of Defensiveness and Arrogance · Accurate Empathy · Social Values · Appropriate Transparency · Emotional Courage · Tolerance for Paradox and Ambiguity

Our Founders

Dr. Paul Wieand and Dr. Jan Birchfield met in their doctorate program studying clinical psychology. What began as a shared intellectual pursuit became the foundation of AEI.

Paul came to that work through his own leadership crucible. After a decade-long rise through the banking industry, including a fast ascent to the presidency of Independence Bancorp, he found himself forced out at 37, just short of becoming one of the country's youngest big-company CEOs. That collapse sent him on a different kind of quest: not for power, but for understanding. He returned to banking as CEO of Sovereign Bank, leading a successful turnaround before deciding he was ready for a meaningful career change.

He returned to graduate school, earned his PhD in clinical psychology, and spent his residency working with high-IQ patients at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital where he discovered that everyone wants the same things: to be recognized, to be cared for, and to grow.

Jan and Paul met in their clinical psychology doctoral program and upon completion began a journey together. With Jan's incredible clinical rigor and insight they founded AEI. Together, they built AEI around a simple but demanding premise, that great leadership begins not with strategy, but with self-knowledge.

Thirty years later, that conviction still drives everything we do.

Read more about the founders' story in Fast Company Magazine.