Who are the more than 5,000 talent development professionals who have earned the APTD or CPTD credential? Get to know the talented and diverse community:

Aya Medhat is an Independent Consultant. She earned the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD®) credential in 2020.

Why did you pursue the APTD/CPTD? I can confidently say it made me a much stronger talent development professional and left me eager to learn more. After finishing the test, I realized I had not been preparing for 10 weeks—I had been preparing for the past 13 years of working in the talent development field. I am honored to be a
certified professional in talent development.

How have you benefited from the credential—professionally and/or personally? Being part of a community of practice is one of the amazing benefits of CPTD. Feeling like my
decisions are backed up by strong research and best practices really helped to boost my self-
confidence.

What advice would you share with others considering certification?
Creating multi-model summaries helped a lot to make the learning stick, especially with the
knowledge-based bits, where we need to familiarize ourselves with models, steps, and names. Mind maps are my favorite way of summarizing content. They are visual and easy to grasp, which makes them ideal for a final round of reversion. I also tried the summarizing into 32/16/8 words way, which requires deeper understanding in order to identify the key words.

How do you think certification helps the talent development field?
Unifying the language is the biggest asset. Meeting a fellow TD professional for the first time and sharing ATD certifications that we have in common. Discussions are immediately much more interesting.

What does having your credential mean to you?
It is a core part of my professional identity. I mention it to build rapport and gain credibility, which helps a lot when talking to clients.

How did you get into the talent development field?
Studied architecture as I like to “develop and build” stuff. A year into my first job as an architect, I realized I am more interested in developing people and building great experiences.

What is a great book you’ve read recently? Facilitation in Action

Have you earned the APTD or CPTD? Share your story with the community.