Marla Sheiner is a Phoenix-based author, communications executive, and storyteller whose work centers on leadership as it is lived, practiced, and passed on.
Throughout her writing, Sheiner has been drawn to individuals whose lives reflect enduring leadership principles—not in abstraction, but in action. Her work brings forward the voices and experiences of those who have led in different arenas, revealing the common threads that connect them.
Her first book, McCain’s Navy: A Leadership Field Guide from John McCain’s First Congressional Campaign, draws on her experience as McCain’s first press secretary in 1982 and captures the formative leadership lessons that would define his public life.
She later brought to publication her grandfather’s memoir, The Mingenback Chronicles: The Romance and Tragedy of Winning a Home in the West, preserving the legacy of Carl F. Mingenback—a pioneer in the mutual insurance movement and a leader whose work helped shape cooperative enterprise in America.
Her forthcoming co-authored work, Keeping the Beat: What Count Basie Taught Me About Music, Mentorship, and Leadership, written with jazz vocalist Dennis Rowland, explores leadership through the lens of music—discipline, timing, mentorship, and the responsibility of carrying a tradition forward.
Across these works, Sheiner has come to see these figures—McCain, Mingenback, and Basie through Rowland—not simply as subjects, but as three distinct schools of leadership, each offering enduring lessons shaped by their time, their craft, and their character.
Her work reflects a lifelong interest in understanding how leadership develops, how it is tested, and how it endures.