About The Comportment Group
Training in executive presence, protocol, and the professional standards that build trust. The missing link in a complete professional education.
The Comportment Group is built on a single conviction. Precision and care, applied without exception, are the quiet engines of trust. We are not a traditional firm that processes thousands of people a year. We provide a focused experience that begins by getting to know each client individually, then meets the standard of the rooms they intend to walk into.
How you carry yourself is the one skill that lasts a lifetime. It works in every room, at every age, in business and in private life, anywhere in the world. Our focus is simple: give people the judgment, technique, and confidence to feel at ease and in command in any situation, at home, in the community, and at work.
maury "MACK" mcfadden
Founder and Principal
Maury “Mack” McFadden is the Founder and Principal of The Comportment Group. His work spans strategic advisory, restaurant consulting, project management and construction, in-home pet care, and two foundations devoted to community enrichment and animal welfare. He builds quietly, leads visibly, and measures the work by the standard of the rooms he walks into.
Trained Protocol Officer
A retired United States Coast Guard Commander with more than three decades of combined leadership service, Mack carries the formal training of a Protocol, Customs, Courtesies, and Etiquette Officer. The work taught him that the small, codified gestures of public life are not decoration. They are how respect becomes visible across rank, culture, institution, and nation. At a head table, a flag ceremony, an interfaith service, or a state reception, he applies the same discipline. The room is read. The standard is met. The dignity of every person in it is honored without exception.
Scholar and Practitioner of Leadership
Mack is a proud Double Don of the University of San Francisco, with a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Behavior in 1993 and a Master of Public Administration in 1998. He is pursuing a Doctor of Education in Organization and Leadership Studies at the University of San Francisco, where his dissertation focuses on comportment, governance, leadership and transformation, and the institutional habits that sustain organizations across generations.
The Bespoke Line
Mack’s bespoke clothing line is the practical extension of a philosophy he has lived for years. Fit is judgment expressed through form. Through that work he has helped men and women dress for the rooms they intend to be taken seriously in, from boardroom presentations and donor dinners to weddings, galas, and graduations. The clothing is never the message. It is what allows the message to be heard.
Mentor to the Next Generation
Mack has mentored hundreds of young people and their families through the college search and admissions process, from the first campus visit to the first day of orientation. On campus, he has worked with hundreds more on the disciplines that decide outcomes: how to write a resume that reads as a record rather than a wish, how to walk into an interview with the room already on your side, and how to win an internship and earn the conversion to a first job. He treats each engagement as a relationship, not a transaction. The students he has guided now build careers across finance, technology, public service, hospitality, the arts, the trades, and the nonprofit sector. Many return to mentor the next cohort.
Author and Subject-Matter Expert
Mack is the author of The Dignity of Detail: Why Precision Is the Quietest Form of Respect, a working reference for leaders on the small decisions through which trust is built. It draws together the disciplines he was trained in and has lived for more than three decades: executive presence and personal standard; protocol, ceremony, and the customs of public life; bespoke dress and the language of dress codes; hosting, business meals, and the conventions of professional gatherings; the discipline of follow-through; and the mechanics of client engagement from first contact to final handoff.
The book carries a working field manual on style, service, and social customs in twenty-one parts, a complete protocol handbook covering precedence, flags, official gifts, military ceremony, seating, and event management, and a client engagement guide that addresses conflict and disagreement. Mack writes from inside the practice, not above it. That is what makes him a sought-after voice in boardrooms, ballrooms, classrooms, and the rooms where the next generation of leaders is being shaped.
Civic Leader
Mack serves as a Commissioner on the Alameda County Consumer Affairs Commission, on the AC-OCAP Board, and on the Alumni Board of Directors at the University of San Francisco. He is an active member of Oakland Rotary #3 and a Life Member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated, through the Berkeley Alumni Chapter. He is a sustaining patron of San Francisco Ballet and Oakland Ballet, a supporter of the Oakland Museum of California, and a participating member of the Bay Area Council, including its Global AI Impact series.
Personal
Mack lives in Oakland with his wife and business partner, Drea M. Finch. They are the parents of Cameron, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, and share their home with Mya, their service dog, and Laika, their cat. The standard he asks of others is the standard he wrote a book about. Detail is not decoration. Precision is respect. Follow-through is a moral act.
Our Promise
We make one promise, and we keep it. We bring precision and care to every engagement, without exception. Every engagement begins with a complimentary conversation, no pitch and no pressure, focused on understanding what brought you here and determining the best path forward.
Who We Serve
- Corporations and professional service firms
- Colleges, universities, and career services offices
- Civic and nonprofit organizations
- Hospitality, retail, country club, and resort teams
- Sales teams and client-facing staff
- Emerging leaders and executives
- Students and early-career professionals
- Adults in transition and outreach program participants
- Youth and at-risk youth in outreach programs
How We Deliver
Programs are delivered at your office, conference room, retreat location, campus, or another venue of your choice. Each session is designed to feel practical, approachable, and engaging. Group training, individual coaching, and faculty or staff sessions are all available. Every curriculum below is customizable and can be combined into a single seminar or a multi-session series.
Our Approach
We do not lecture at people. We change how they show up. Every Comportment Group program is built on four principles.
Practice over theory. Participants learn by doing. Live role-play, real scenarios, and hands-on drills replace slides and lectures, so skills stick.
Tailored, never generic. We study your industry, audience, and culture before we teach. Examples and exercises reflect the rooms your people actually work in.
Immediate application. Participants leave with specific behaviors they can use the same day, not abstract ideas they will forget by Monday.
Measurable polish. Where it fits, we use pre and post assessment, mock interviews, and recorded practice so growth is visible to the participant and the organization.