AEGEAN ASSOCIATES
Tolga Vural
Tolga is a corporate strategist who helps organizations develop growth strategies and drive them for results. Throughout his career, Tolga has been building and advising growth-focused organizations, assisting them to achieve superior performance through new ventures and by realigning existing ones for growth. Tolga’s work has enabled clients to grow successfully in new ways, leveraging innovation, customer centricity, branding and marketing initiatives as well as strategic partnerships, alliances and acquisitions.
“I work collaboratively with my client teams to generate actionable insights that guide the development of a fact-based, data-driven growth strategy. Along the way, of paramount importance, is the ability to successfully implement the strategy and drive to results. I engage early on with my client teams to identify critical gaps in organizational capabilities and build new ones required for the successful implementation of the strategy.”
As one of his former colleagues explains, “Tolga is a hands-on leader who transforms ideas into strategies and strategies into successful ventures.” Through his consulting work that spans 25+ years, Tolga has helped a wide variety of organizations with their growth challenges, including health sector providers, payers and pharmaceuticals such as GSK, Merck, and Novartis, financial services organizations including Swiss re, American Express and Bank of America, retailers such as Starbucks, LL Bean and Ahold, telecom service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, British Telecom, T-Mobile, media conglomerates such as Reed Elsevier and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and other leading technology (Microsoft, Qualtrics), data (Dun & Bradstreet), hospitality (Intercontinental Hotels Group),
energy, consumer products, consulting services (Korn Ferry) and non-profit organizations (AARP).
Prior to Aegean Associates, as a Principal in the Strategy practice of Booz Allen Hamilton, Tolga led the launch and growth of new commercial markets in the U.S. and internationally. Previously, he was VP of Strategy at AARP, where he led new strategic market initiatives. As Strategy & Analytics VP at Digitas, a subsidiary of Publicis, Tolga worked with C-suite at Fortune 500 clients. As VP of Strategy & Marketing at Reed Elsevier, Tolga transformed several business units of LexisNexis from commoditized information aggregator to value added solution provider. Earlier in his career, Tolga held positions of increasing responsibility leading strategy engagements at Deloitte Consulting’s Braxton Global Strategy practice, CSC Index and Oliver Wyman.
Tolga has taught at Georgetown Business School’s CMAP program, George Washington University’s MBA program and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He serves on the World Economic Forum’s Technology Empowerment Network and on the Board of Advisors of RES Partners and has been quoted in notable publications such as Wall Street Journal, Financial Post and Boston Business Journal.
Tolga received a BA with honors from Harvard College and an MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from the Wharton School of Business.
Tolga Vural
Tolga is a corporate strategist who helps organizations develop growth strategies and drive them for results. Throughout his career, Tolga has been building and advising growth-focused organizations, assisting them to achieve superior performance through new ventures and by realigning existing ones for growth. Tolga’s work has enabled clients to grow successfully in new ways, leveraging innovation, customer centricity, branding and marketing initiatives as well as strategic partnerships, alliances and acquisitions.
“I work collaboratively with my client teams to generate actionable insights that guide the development of a fact-based, data-driven growth strategy. Along the way, of paramount importance, is the ability to successfully implement the strategy and drive to results. I engage early on with my client teams to identify critical gaps in organizational capabilities and build new ones required for the successful implementation of the strategy.”
As one of his former colleagues explains, “Tolga is a hands-on leader who transforms ideas into strategies and strategies into successful ventures.” Through his consulting work that spans 25+ years, Tolga has helped a wide variety of organizations with their growth challenges, including health sector providers, payers and pharmaceuticals such as GSK, Merck, and Novartis, financial services organizations including Swiss re, American Express and Bank of America, retailers such as Starbucks, LL Bean and Ahold, telecom service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, British Telecom, T-Mobile, media conglomerates such as Reed Elsevier and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and other leading technology (Microsoft, Qualtrics), data (Dun & Bradstreet), hospitality (Intercontinental Hotels Group),
energy, consumer products, consulting services (Korn Ferry) and non-profit organizations (AARP).
Prior to Aegean Associates, as a Principal in the Strategy practice of Booz Allen Hamilton, Tolga led the launch and growth of new commercial markets in the U.S. and internationally. Previously, he was VP of Strategy at AARP, where he led new strategic market initiatives. As Strategy & Analytics VP at Digitas, a subsidiary of Publicis, Tolga worked with C-suite at Fortune 500 clients. As VP of Strategy & Marketing at Reed Elsevier, Tolga transformed several business units of LexisNexis from commoditized information aggregator to value added solution provider. Earlier in his career, Tolga held positions of increasing responsibility leading strategy engagements at Deloitte Consulting’s Braxton Global Strategy practice, CSC Index and Oliver Wyman.
Tolga has taught at Georgetown Business School’s CMAP program, George Washington University’s MBA program and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He serves on the World Economic Forum’s Technology Empowerment Network and on the Board of Advisors of RES Partners and has been quoted in notable publications such as Wall Street Journal, Financial Post and Boston Business Journal.
Tolga received a BA with honors from Harvard College and an MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from the Wharton School of Business.
Stacey Kessel
Stacey is a seasoned organizational development professional with more than 25 years of experience working with Fortune 100 companies, government agencies and not-for-profit institutions. Her areas of expertise include program management support (PMO) for large-scale change management initiatives as well as organizational capability development through career model design and architecture, performance management, coaching, internal mobility and deployment and best practices development in career and talent management.
Stacey’s work in helping client’s manage large scale change management initiatives focuses on strategic program management by developing communications for key stakeholders and constituents with appropriate frequency to ensure awareness and engagement on program objectives, approach, progress and results; executive reporting to proactively manage program dependencies, issues and risks; and developing communication for executive management that regularly demonstrates value and maintains appropriate visibility for programs. As a Senior Change Management Consultant, Stacey is focused on the change management efforts for the organizational and process improvements at major government agencies, driving change in three areas:
Prior to Aegean Associates, as a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton’s Learning Development and Talent Management Center of Expertise within People Services, Stacey led Booz Allen’s firm-wide career development sub-discipline supporting 25,000 staff and managers. Her accomplishments included career model design, performance management that enabled employees to identify internal mobility and staffing options, mentoring programs that accelerated onboarding and transition to new roles, and best practices development, for which Stacey's team was awarded the Excellence in Practice award from ASTD and the Bersin Associates Learning Leaders Award.
Prior to Booz Allen, Stacey worked as a Brand Manager at Johnson & Johnson where she successfully launched the largest Rx-to-OTC product introduction. During her tenure at J&J, Stacey worked with the sales organization to ensure appropriate marketing and sales channels were leveraged for products she was supporting. Subsequently, she served as the Associate Director of Career Services at Harvard Business School where she managed and implemented programs that marketed the MBA program to prospective employers and counseled students on their career search.
Stacey's public appearances include interviews by CNN, Forbes Magazine and National Public Radio.
Stacey graduated magna cum laude from Colby College and has also studied at the London School of Economics. She has an MBA in Marketing from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a clinical Master of Social Work from Boston College. Additionally, she is certified in the Hogan leadership assessment, MBTI and CareerLeader.
Stacey’s work in helping client’s manage large scale change management initiatives focuses on strategic program management by developing communications for key stakeholders and constituents with appropriate frequency to ensure awareness and engagement on program objectives, approach, progress and results; executive reporting to proactively manage program dependencies, issues and risks; and developing communication for executive management that regularly demonstrates value and maintains appropriate visibility for programs. As a Senior Change Management Consultant, Stacey is focused on the change management efforts for the organizational and process improvements at major government agencies, driving change in three areas:
- Executive Transformation of senior executive teams into a high performing senior leadership teams. To achieve this, Stacey conducts in-depth interviews to assess the team’s strengths and challenges, designs and facilitates strategic working sessions with the team over the course of a year to re-establish its strategic purpose and operating norms and provides the hands on support necessary for transformation;
- Leadership Development and strategic infrastructural support for executive teams to instill new performance behaviors among team members. As part of this support, Stacey develops agendas for strategic weekly meetings; conducts interviews and gathers data; participates in/facilitates meetings; resolves issues and tracks follow-on actions to strengthen the capability of executives to lead their business;
- Executive Communications and reporting and governance for large, complex transformation projects. As part of this service, Stacey develops communications for key stakeholders and constituents with appropriate frequency to ensure awareness and engagement on program objectives, approach, progress and results; provides executive reporting to proactively manage program dependencies, issues and risks; and prepares communication for executive management that regularly demonstrates value and maintains appropriate visibility for programs.
Prior to Aegean Associates, as a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton’s Learning Development and Talent Management Center of Expertise within People Services, Stacey led Booz Allen’s firm-wide career development sub-discipline supporting 25,000 staff and managers. Her accomplishments included career model design, performance management that enabled employees to identify internal mobility and staffing options, mentoring programs that accelerated onboarding and transition to new roles, and best practices development, for which Stacey's team was awarded the Excellence in Practice award from ASTD and the Bersin Associates Learning Leaders Award.
Prior to Booz Allen, Stacey worked as a Brand Manager at Johnson & Johnson where she successfully launched the largest Rx-to-OTC product introduction. During her tenure at J&J, Stacey worked with the sales organization to ensure appropriate marketing and sales channels were leveraged for products she was supporting. Subsequently, she served as the Associate Director of Career Services at Harvard Business School where she managed and implemented programs that marketed the MBA program to prospective employers and counseled students on their career search.
Stacey's public appearances include interviews by CNN, Forbes Magazine and National Public Radio.
Stacey graduated magna cum laude from Colby College and has also studied at the London School of Economics. She has an MBA in Marketing from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a clinical Master of Social Work from Boston College. Additionally, she is certified in the Hogan leadership assessment, MBTI and CareerLeader.
Michael Hoherchak
Mike built his career helping leaders uncover key strategic insights to drive their businesses. Skilled in a variety of analytical techniques, Mike is also known for his ability to listen effectively and draw out nuances. He is adept at crafting strategy and models that inform challenging business issues.
Over the past 25+ years, Mike served as a strategy consultant for leading companies, including PepsiCo, Gatorade, Tropicana, Frito Lay, Pepsi Bottling Group, Pepsi Americas, American Express, Citibank, ConAgra, Sara Lee, Sunkist, Suez, Florida Ice & Farm as well as a variety of smaller companies. His deep experience leading numerous strategic engagements and intimate understanding of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods businesses provide a unique vantage point on strategy. He has broad geographic experience in North America and a variety of international markets including Mexico, Brazil, Central America, the Caribbean, China, India, Europe.
Mike spent 20 years at Mars & Co, a BCG spin-off strategy boutique, where he built an extensive consulting toolkit featuring quantitative and analytic techniques for M&A support, synergy quantification, demand segmentation, cost analysis, competitive analysis, distribution costs, consumer and channel trends, pricing strategy, strategic planning and competitive benchmarking.
Mike holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard University.
Over the past 25+ years, Mike served as a strategy consultant for leading companies, including PepsiCo, Gatorade, Tropicana, Frito Lay, Pepsi Bottling Group, Pepsi Americas, American Express, Citibank, ConAgra, Sara Lee, Sunkist, Suez, Florida Ice & Farm as well as a variety of smaller companies. His deep experience leading numerous strategic engagements and intimate understanding of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods businesses provide a unique vantage point on strategy. He has broad geographic experience in North America and a variety of international markets including Mexico, Brazil, Central America, the Caribbean, China, India, Europe.
Mike spent 20 years at Mars & Co, a BCG spin-off strategy boutique, where he built an extensive consulting toolkit featuring quantitative and analytic techniques for M&A support, synergy quantification, demand segmentation, cost analysis, competitive analysis, distribution costs, consumer and channel trends, pricing strategy, strategic planning and competitive benchmarking.
Mike holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard University.
Caryn Ginsberg
Caryn has more than 25 years’ experience helping not-for-profits and businesses get better results by improving their strategy, marketing, and communications. She brings a strong quantitative emphasis, working with organizations to use market research and outcomes measurement in their efforts.
Caryn has helped not-for-profit clients including the ASPCA, Animal Rescue League of Boston, Farm Sanctuary, the Humane Society of the United States, Los Angeles Dance Theater and Humane Farm Animal Care. Her business clients have included Citizens Savings Bank, Capitol One, First Nationwide, GE Mortgage Insurance and Provident Bank. Clients appreciate Caryn’s ability to help them see what matters, focus on what’s actionable, and generate new ideas to move forward. Selected accomplishments include:
Caryn has taught marketing strategy and management in the MBA program for Johns Hopkins University and delivered courses in performance measurement for Humane Society University and the Bank Marketing Association. She is board president for Faunalytics, a nonprofit that conducts and collects market research in the animal protection field. She is author of “Animal Impact: Secrets Proven to Achieve Results and Move the World,” a book on applying business marketing practices for success in the nonprofit sector. More recently, Caryn has added visual thinking services to her work with graphic recording and facilitation clients including Drug Policy Alliance, Minnesota Association of Volunteer Administrators and ACT-IAC (American Council for Technology – Industry Advisory Council).
Prior to her consulting work, Caryn held the position of Director, Market Strategy for Freddie Mac, where she helped the organization achieve record results by leading strategic planning for the marketing division and ensuring implementation adhered to direction. As Senior Vice President of Retail Marketing for First American Metro Corp, a $13 billion regional bank, she was responsible for consumer promotion and communications that brought in millions of dollars in deposits and improved profitability. As Group Vice President of Strategic Planning, she instituted the bank’s first strategic planning effort, which identified new business opportunities and supported culture change. She also worked in consulting at Strategic Planning Associates and the Boston Consulting Group.
Caryn holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and an A.B. from Dartmouth College.
Caryn has helped not-for-profit clients including the ASPCA, Animal Rescue League of Boston, Farm Sanctuary, the Humane Society of the United States, Los Angeles Dance Theater and Humane Farm Animal Care. Her business clients have included Citizens Savings Bank, Capitol One, First Nationwide, GE Mortgage Insurance and Provident Bank. Clients appreciate Caryn’s ability to help them see what matters, focus on what’s actionable, and generate new ideas to move forward. Selected accomplishments include:
- Creating a dashboard to measure progress for the ASPCA’s partner communities that supported saving more than half million dogs and cats and helped transform shelters across the country to outcomes-based management
- Developing market strategy for Certified Humane Raised and Handled™ program, a program improving welfare for more than 170 million animals in 2017 and 825 million animals since 2003
- Leading strategy for the Humane Society of the United States to increase the spaying and neutering of pets in Louisiana and Mississippi
- Evaluating key programs for Farm Sanctuary to evaluate current position, determine improvement opportunities and support resource allocation decisions
- Facilitating meeting of national leaders to assess opportunities and barriers to providing veterinary services in low income communities
Caryn has taught marketing strategy and management in the MBA program for Johns Hopkins University and delivered courses in performance measurement for Humane Society University and the Bank Marketing Association. She is board president for Faunalytics, a nonprofit that conducts and collects market research in the animal protection field. She is author of “Animal Impact: Secrets Proven to Achieve Results and Move the World,” a book on applying business marketing practices for success in the nonprofit sector. More recently, Caryn has added visual thinking services to her work with graphic recording and facilitation clients including Drug Policy Alliance, Minnesota Association of Volunteer Administrators and ACT-IAC (American Council for Technology – Industry Advisory Council).
Prior to her consulting work, Caryn held the position of Director, Market Strategy for Freddie Mac, where she helped the organization achieve record results by leading strategic planning for the marketing division and ensuring implementation adhered to direction. As Senior Vice President of Retail Marketing for First American Metro Corp, a $13 billion regional bank, she was responsible for consumer promotion and communications that brought in millions of dollars in deposits and improved profitability. As Group Vice President of Strategic Planning, she instituted the bank’s first strategic planning effort, which identified new business opportunities and supported culture change. She also worked in consulting at Strategic Planning Associates and the Boston Consulting Group.
Caryn holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and an A.B. from Dartmouth College.
Barry Winer
Barry is an operating executive, strategic consultant and research leader with particular expertise in planning for and leading large-scale corporate transformation, sales operations and enablement, sales growth and marketing. With a background of more than twenty-five years merging consulting and research with leadership and implementation, Barry has led and advised organizations in sectors ranging from consumer packaged goods, building products and materials, hospitality, high technology and manufacturing to business/financial services, retail and healthcare. Barry has extensive expertise in mergers, acquisitions, startups and new product launches.
As a research leader, Barry has led publication of more than two dozen major and minor studies focused on rigorously-vetted best practices, original inquiry and innovative analyses on topics including salesforce productivity, strategic account management, solutions selling, channel management, sales enablement and management, cross-silo collaboration and salesforce optimization. Throughout this work, Barry and his teams have always emphasized rigor around determining best practices that can be applied across different organizations.
As an operating executive, Barry has led turnarounds, growth initiatives, new product launches and entrepreneurial ventures for distressed, challenged and stagnating companies ranging from F50 to pre-revenue startups. And, as a consultant, Barry has worked on dozens of projects within large firms on growth projects related to business growth, sales, marketing, new product development and commercialization, strategy and human resources.
Across a more than 25-year career, Barry has collaborated with the majority of the Fortune 500 and hundreds more companies with clients including IBM, SAP, Diebold Nixdorf, Wells Fargo, American Express, Kraft, Pella, Essroc (now Lehigh Hanson), Starbucks, GE, Unilever, Kohler, General Motors, Electrolux, SAB Miller, Colgate Palmolive, Vulcan Materials, MetLife, Disney, Nestlé, Campbell Soup, Brown Forman, Starwood and Pfizer, along with dozens of smaller, entrepreneurial companies. Prior to his business career, Barry served five years as an aviator and Captain in the United States Air Force, including service in Operation Desert Storm.
Barry's professional career has taken him from the Braxton Associates Strategy Group within Deloitte Consulting to a retail/media startup and seven years at the Corporate Executive Board where he led the Sales Executive Council serving more than 850 heads of large corporate B2B sales. Barry led research in all areas of sales including strategic/key account management, stage-gated & customer-focused sales process implementations, first-line manager productivity, certification & accountability-driven sales training, sales compensation and territory allocation approaches and profitable solutions-selling, among many other areas. As Managing Director in CEB’s Sales Practice, Barry personally advised the Chief Sales Officers and other CXO-level executives of hundreds of F1000 companies on sales operations, sales transformations and sales force restructuring rollouts. As part of the SEC’s turnaround, Barry also led the launch and rollout of a new division serving F500 heads of Sales Operations, called the Sales Operations Executive Council (SOEC). Similarly, he led the growth of the SOEC from launch to about 300 F1000 corporations. Barry has been a major contributor to the SEC’s The Challenger Sale book, based on one of the largest studies of sales best practices ever conducted. The growth of this Sales Practice helped realize an acceptable valuation for the sale of the roughly $400 Million company to the Gartner Group in 2017.
During his decade-long tenure at Aegean, Barry has consulted to dozens of companies in the manufacturing, consumer and technology industries where he continues to specialize in Sales Growth and Operations and Growth Strategy Development and Implementation.
Barry earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering at Lehigh University and holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
As a research leader, Barry has led publication of more than two dozen major and minor studies focused on rigorously-vetted best practices, original inquiry and innovative analyses on topics including salesforce productivity, strategic account management, solutions selling, channel management, sales enablement and management, cross-silo collaboration and salesforce optimization. Throughout this work, Barry and his teams have always emphasized rigor around determining best practices that can be applied across different organizations.
As an operating executive, Barry has led turnarounds, growth initiatives, new product launches and entrepreneurial ventures for distressed, challenged and stagnating companies ranging from F50 to pre-revenue startups. And, as a consultant, Barry has worked on dozens of projects within large firms on growth projects related to business growth, sales, marketing, new product development and commercialization, strategy and human resources.
Across a more than 25-year career, Barry has collaborated with the majority of the Fortune 500 and hundreds more companies with clients including IBM, SAP, Diebold Nixdorf, Wells Fargo, American Express, Kraft, Pella, Essroc (now Lehigh Hanson), Starbucks, GE, Unilever, Kohler, General Motors, Electrolux, SAB Miller, Colgate Palmolive, Vulcan Materials, MetLife, Disney, Nestlé, Campbell Soup, Brown Forman, Starwood and Pfizer, along with dozens of smaller, entrepreneurial companies. Prior to his business career, Barry served five years as an aviator and Captain in the United States Air Force, including service in Operation Desert Storm.
Barry's professional career has taken him from the Braxton Associates Strategy Group within Deloitte Consulting to a retail/media startup and seven years at the Corporate Executive Board where he led the Sales Executive Council serving more than 850 heads of large corporate B2B sales. Barry led research in all areas of sales including strategic/key account management, stage-gated & customer-focused sales process implementations, first-line manager productivity, certification & accountability-driven sales training, sales compensation and territory allocation approaches and profitable solutions-selling, among many other areas. As Managing Director in CEB’s Sales Practice, Barry personally advised the Chief Sales Officers and other CXO-level executives of hundreds of F1000 companies on sales operations, sales transformations and sales force restructuring rollouts. As part of the SEC’s turnaround, Barry also led the launch and rollout of a new division serving F500 heads of Sales Operations, called the Sales Operations Executive Council (SOEC). Similarly, he led the growth of the SOEC from launch to about 300 F1000 corporations. Barry has been a major contributor to the SEC’s The Challenger Sale book, based on one of the largest studies of sales best practices ever conducted. The growth of this Sales Practice helped realize an acceptable valuation for the sale of the roughly $400 Million company to the Gartner Group in 2017.
During his decade-long tenure at Aegean, Barry has consulted to dozens of companies in the manufacturing, consumer and technology industries where he continues to specialize in Sales Growth and Operations and Growth Strategy Development and Implementation.
Barry earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering at Lehigh University and holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Jennifer Pike
Jennifer has developed a reputation as an energetic, strategic and innovative thinker; helping the c-suite navigate through their biggest challenges and identifying their greatest opportunities. She has over 20 years of experience building businesses, brands and organizations that deliver.
After graduating from Princeton, she got her start in business at the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago. As an Account Manager, she helped her clients identify emerging markets and untapped opportunities. She was the strategic lead for designing and developing communications to better connect with consumers.
After additional experience at digital and strategic communications agencies, Jennifer moved to Richmond, VA in 2003 to work for the Altria family of companies. There she had a series of assignments that provided her a wide variety of experiences in a large, complex organization competing in a regulated industry. She was largely focused on new and emerging market opportunities and organizational leadership. Viewed as a strategic and creative thinker, she was assigned to several executive-sponsored special teams to help the company identify new ways of going to market, design a strategic and executable vision for the future, and establish innovation infrastructure for the company.
Jennifer was promoted to Altria’s executive team in 2010, becoming one of the youngest to hold such a high-level leadership role. Her first assignment was Vice President, Skoal, where she was responsible for delivering volume, share and income targets for the brand. Through product, packaging, positioning and pricing strategy, she was able prove a model for stabilizing the brand’s share, deliver sustainable profit and help the company understand Skoal’s strategic fit in their smokeless portfolio.
While at Altria, Jennifer became interested in the impact of well-designed consumer experiences on brand affinity and business growth. During her last three years at Altria, Jennifer was responsible for all of Altria’s marketing infrastructure and execution on behalf of the operating company brands. Using an array of consumer experience tools, she built capability within her team to identify issues and opportunities within multi-channel consumer experiences, that when resolved, delivered higher brand affinity, loyalty and engagement.
After almost 15 years of helping Altria build “what’s next”, Jennifer is now working with other companies to help their leaders navigate ambiguity, identify their biggest opportunities and design business, brand and organizational strategies that lead to sustainable growth.
After graduating from Princeton, she got her start in business at the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago. As an Account Manager, she helped her clients identify emerging markets and untapped opportunities. She was the strategic lead for designing and developing communications to better connect with consumers.
After additional experience at digital and strategic communications agencies, Jennifer moved to Richmond, VA in 2003 to work for the Altria family of companies. There she had a series of assignments that provided her a wide variety of experiences in a large, complex organization competing in a regulated industry. She was largely focused on new and emerging market opportunities and organizational leadership. Viewed as a strategic and creative thinker, she was assigned to several executive-sponsored special teams to help the company identify new ways of going to market, design a strategic and executable vision for the future, and establish innovation infrastructure for the company.
Jennifer was promoted to Altria’s executive team in 2010, becoming one of the youngest to hold such a high-level leadership role. Her first assignment was Vice President, Skoal, where she was responsible for delivering volume, share and income targets for the brand. Through product, packaging, positioning and pricing strategy, she was able prove a model for stabilizing the brand’s share, deliver sustainable profit and help the company understand Skoal’s strategic fit in their smokeless portfolio.
While at Altria, Jennifer became interested in the impact of well-designed consumer experiences on brand affinity and business growth. During her last three years at Altria, Jennifer was responsible for all of Altria’s marketing infrastructure and execution on behalf of the operating company brands. Using an array of consumer experience tools, she built capability within her team to identify issues and opportunities within multi-channel consumer experiences, that when resolved, delivered higher brand affinity, loyalty and engagement.
After almost 15 years of helping Altria build “what’s next”, Jennifer is now working with other companies to help their leaders navigate ambiguity, identify their biggest opportunities and design business, brand and organizational strategies that lead to sustainable growth.
Janet Brashear
Janet has over 25 years of experience with companies in the hospitality, travel and consumer industries. As a strategist and a visionary thinker about emerging business trends, Janet can make big ideas real. As a data-driven decision-maker with strong financial background, she creates value with a focus on profitable growth streams and efficient execution.
Janet’s recent consulting experience and clientele include:
Janet led the hospitality and travel practice for Accenture Strategy, advising clients on growth strategies. Prior to that, Janet was a senior executive at Marriott International for 12 years with roles including the Chief Strategy Officer with responsibility for the growth agenda and EVP of Operations including Rooms, F&B, Engineering, & Procurement for over 3,000 properties.
Janet also led an equity research team for five years on Wall Street for Sanford C. Bernstein covering the hospitality, gaming, and cruise sectors. The Wall Street Journal named her their top stock picker in their 2010 "Best on the Street" ranking for Hotels & Casinos.
Janet holds a Bachelor’s degree from William & Mary and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Janet’s recent consulting experience and clientele include:
- · Leading Global Hospitality Company: Defined a vision for both e-commerce and digital marketing capabilities, built a cost model and business case, and engaged business partners in the investment.
- Leading Global Hospitality Company: Defined a vision for revenue management capabilities, prioritized spending based on competitiveness and returns, re-branded the offering, pivoted the IT architecture to allow for more discretionary innovation, and recommended new funding mechanisms
- Leading Global Hospitality Company: Developed a China sales strategy to transform sales capabilities and results, solving for high market turnover rates, new enabling support technologies and a more effective operating model.
- Global B2B TA: Created a new digital business model, building off existing capabilities to target a new customer segment with a differentiated value proposition and a compelling business case.
- Industry Consortium OTA: Created a business case for investment in a compelling digital platform to pull traffic into this cost-effective platform
- Global Retailer: Developed a strategy and business model to extend the brand into the hotel space
Janet led the hospitality and travel practice for Accenture Strategy, advising clients on growth strategies. Prior to that, Janet was a senior executive at Marriott International for 12 years with roles including the Chief Strategy Officer with responsibility for the growth agenda and EVP of Operations including Rooms, F&B, Engineering, & Procurement for over 3,000 properties.
Janet also led an equity research team for five years on Wall Street for Sanford C. Bernstein covering the hospitality, gaming, and cruise sectors. The Wall Street Journal named her their top stock picker in their 2010 "Best on the Street" ranking for Hotels & Casinos.
Janet holds a Bachelor’s degree from William & Mary and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Joan Roy
Joan has led Sales Operations and Sales Finance organizations ranging from startups to multi-national corporations. She has developed and rolled out sales processes, designed compensation plans, enabled pipeline growth and created data strategies to inform ongoing improvement and decision making.
As a seasoned professional with more than 25 years of experience Joan is known as a systems thinker who moves organizations effectively through transitions across diverse organizational boundaries. Joan’s experience to date extends beyond Sales to Operations, Finance, Business Management, Marketing and Strategy. She approaches financial and operational management with a strong business orientation and a dedication to sustained results. Recognized by colleagues as a strategic thinker who learns quickly, builds rapport and moves organizations effectively through transitions across diverse organizational boundaries.
Joan’s recent consulting client engagements include:
Joan has held several Sales leadership roles at Silicon Graphics, HP and Imperva, where she led Sales Operations, including Compensation, Enablement and Deal Desk operations. She managed sales capacity model, enabling efficient organizational design to support new client acquisition and retention as well as new market penetration. She simplified and rolled out compensation plans for sales employees, significantly improving alignment between financial plans and sales plan structure. She led Sales engagement in Business Infrastructure Modernization project and drove Sales hiring and onboarding process that beat hiring targets and built capacity required to achieve growth targets.
Joan holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computational Sciences from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
As a seasoned professional with more than 25 years of experience Joan is known as a systems thinker who moves organizations effectively through transitions across diverse organizational boundaries. Joan’s experience to date extends beyond Sales to Operations, Finance, Business Management, Marketing and Strategy. She approaches financial and operational management with a strong business orientation and a dedication to sustained results. Recognized by colleagues as a strategic thinker who learns quickly, builds rapport and moves organizations effectively through transitions across diverse organizational boundaries.
Joan’s recent consulting client engagements include:
- Setting up Sales Operations function for client, specifically focusing on identifying, testing, and tooling the fastest path to market.
- Designing and delivering sales compensation plans, strengthening the focus on key business goals, simplifying administration, and improving alignment within the Sales organization.
- Evaluating revenue operations structure and recommending on organizational staffing plan to support growth targets.
Joan has held several Sales leadership roles at Silicon Graphics, HP and Imperva, where she led Sales Operations, including Compensation, Enablement and Deal Desk operations. She managed sales capacity model, enabling efficient organizational design to support new client acquisition and retention as well as new market penetration. She simplified and rolled out compensation plans for sales employees, significantly improving alignment between financial plans and sales plan structure. She led Sales engagement in Business Infrastructure Modernization project and drove Sales hiring and onboarding process that beat hiring targets and built capacity required to achieve growth targets.
Joan holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computational Sciences from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Samantha Howland
Samantha operates as a strategic leadership and talent consultant intent on enabling more confident, capable leaders for their organizations. She has served in a combination of HR Executive, Talent Management Practice Leadership and Strategic Planning roles. She has worked in entrepreneurial minded companies to align strategy, build organizational capabilities and drive results. Her specialty areas include strategy, adaptive scenario-based planning, core competency and employment branding; leadership development & talent management; professional services growth via executive relationship management, program development & delivery, thought leadership and staff development.
Samantha has worked with a range of organizations to connect business direction, talent strategy and organizational effectiveness. Using an integrated approach that combines strategy consulting and leadership program delivery, she works collaboratively with world-class organizations to build their strategic leadership capacity, and to craft and execute custom executive education and talent development agendas that ensure companies have the human capital necessary to drive successful, sustainable businesses.
Blending big-picture thinking and executional excellence, Samantha is a side-by-side partner that leaders and teams continually rely on for insights and ability to turn vision into action. Samantha’s work has had a profound impact on a wide variety of organizations, including major healthcare players, such as GSK, Merck, and J&J; complex financial services organizations, including nine of the 12 Federal Reserve banks, Chubb, Lincoln Financial Group, Selective Insurance as well as other Fortune 500s, such as GE and Comcast. She has also worked extensively with national associations and global non-profits like Volunteers of America, the American Marketing Association, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Internet Society, Credit Union Executive Society and others. She has influenced complex program design and helped institutionalize new skillsets that encourage strategic thinking, innovation, and dynamic growth for the organizations and their professional members.
A recognized thought leader and sought-after speaker, Samantha has authored publications that include placements in Harvard Business Review, Chief Executive, Leadership Excellence, Chief Learning Officer, Training Magazine, and SHRM.org.
Samantha received an M.S. in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Vassar College.
Samantha has worked with a range of organizations to connect business direction, talent strategy and organizational effectiveness. Using an integrated approach that combines strategy consulting and leadership program delivery, she works collaboratively with world-class organizations to build their strategic leadership capacity, and to craft and execute custom executive education and talent development agendas that ensure companies have the human capital necessary to drive successful, sustainable businesses.
Blending big-picture thinking and executional excellence, Samantha is a side-by-side partner that leaders and teams continually rely on for insights and ability to turn vision into action. Samantha’s work has had a profound impact on a wide variety of organizations, including major healthcare players, such as GSK, Merck, and J&J; complex financial services organizations, including nine of the 12 Federal Reserve banks, Chubb, Lincoln Financial Group, Selective Insurance as well as other Fortune 500s, such as GE and Comcast. She has also worked extensively with national associations and global non-profits like Volunteers of America, the American Marketing Association, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Internet Society, Credit Union Executive Society and others. She has influenced complex program design and helped institutionalize new skillsets that encourage strategic thinking, innovation, and dynamic growth for the organizations and their professional members.
A recognized thought leader and sought-after speaker, Samantha has authored publications that include placements in Harvard Business Review, Chief Executive, Leadership Excellence, Chief Learning Officer, Training Magazine, and SHRM.org.
Samantha received an M.S. in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Vassar College.
Darlene Newman
Darlene is a digital transformation and innovation executive with an entrepreneurial passion for driving change and guiding corporate leaders on how to leverage key technology trends, transform technology and organization operations to drive competitive advantage. Over 20 years of technology experience in financial services, CPG and technology industries.
Darlene held leadership roles and strategy consultant to several Fortune 500 companies, leading digital transformation initiatives from start through to execution. At Deloitte Consulting, she led a digital transformation initiative to bring a county juvenile justice and child welfare systems into the digital realm in order to provide family focused care; at SilverStream Software she helped turn around a $17 million digital transformation project Marsh & McLennan Companies to bring customer, employees and public online into a single platform, all managed by one of the original content management systems; at Bear Stearns, she was promoted to become one of the youngest female Managing Directors in the IT department, overseeing the creation of several cutting edge digital initiatives, including the creation of a centralized data repository, which would be later termed, “data warehouse”, which enabled the Asset Management Department to realize a six times greater efficiency in both timing and accuracy of its financial reporting.
Most recently Darlene has led Estee Lauder’s largest strategic digital initiative program to move from salesforce learning from 100% offline to 100% online for its 100K+ globally distributed team, covering 20 brands, across 80 markets, handling content in over 30 languages. She spearheaded the capabilities assessment of the platform in its infancy, POC launch to ensure a scalable solution. This included defining user journeys, technology and operational capabilities and identifying gaps, overseeing a product roadmap and re-architecture plan, ensuring the technology and operations could scale. This program was responsible for significant cost savings, eliminating in person training and printing costs of training material, while the access to near real-time information digitally helped drive an increase in IPT 35% and sales by 11% sales.
For Reckitt Benckiser, Darlene led the launch of the North America, Health and Nutrition, Digital and Innovation Department for the firm. This included an initial assessment of the people, processes and technology with the goal of identifying one common technology ecosystem and operational structure to drive the awareness of the online brands, consumer engagement and growth in ecommerce sales. Darlene achieved a 200% reduction in technology licensing costs and a 250% reduction in implementation costs, resulting ability to activate capabilities from a 3 month implementation time-frame to less than 4 weeks.
For UBS Wealth Management’s Digital Transformation engagement, Darlene led the firm’s entry into digital consumer engagement through the launch a robo advisor, a completely automated investment fund management platform, for its Wealth Management Department clients. Darlene was responsible for assessing the integration of the proposed solution into firm’s operations and technology, including understanding the investor journey through trade settlement, identifying technology integration challenges and gaps, while providing recommended solutions for a successful launch. This was firm’s entry into a complete digital client onboarding and account opening experience and helped revamp the firms entire account opening and investment processes, allowing the firm to gain market share with a more tech savvy client. Within three months of launching the team realized over $200M in assets under management in digital accounts.
For UBS Wealth Management’s new business model engagement, Darlene led the assessment and recommendations to leadership for the launch of a new business model for the firm’s Wealth Management Department - launching a digital platform offering specialty and commercial lending to its ultra-high-net worth clients. She was responsible for defining user journeys, conducting a competitive analysis, including competitor interviews, identifying current technology and operational capabilities, determining where gaps and / or synergies exist.
Darlene has extensive experience serving as an advisor and interim CTO for several startups, including spearheading the launch of the first multi-platform, mobile-targeted music service in the Middle East, Africa and Asia that sold for over $125M, as well as being the only female and technologist on the board of one of the first startup SEF trading platforms to launch in the market, recently acquired by the CBOE.
Darlene has a BS in Entrepreneurship & Finance from the University of Arizona, including a degree in the University’s top seeded Entrepreneurship Program, and an MBA from University of Oxford, England. She is the 2003 winner of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), National Phoenix Award, a Yale / Goldman Sachs Foundation Business Plan Competition Semifinalist and in 2002 was inducted into the University of Arizona’s Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.
Darlene held leadership roles and strategy consultant to several Fortune 500 companies, leading digital transformation initiatives from start through to execution. At Deloitte Consulting, she led a digital transformation initiative to bring a county juvenile justice and child welfare systems into the digital realm in order to provide family focused care; at SilverStream Software she helped turn around a $17 million digital transformation project Marsh & McLennan Companies to bring customer, employees and public online into a single platform, all managed by one of the original content management systems; at Bear Stearns, she was promoted to become one of the youngest female Managing Directors in the IT department, overseeing the creation of several cutting edge digital initiatives, including the creation of a centralized data repository, which would be later termed, “data warehouse”, which enabled the Asset Management Department to realize a six times greater efficiency in both timing and accuracy of its financial reporting.
Most recently Darlene has led Estee Lauder’s largest strategic digital initiative program to move from salesforce learning from 100% offline to 100% online for its 100K+ globally distributed team, covering 20 brands, across 80 markets, handling content in over 30 languages. She spearheaded the capabilities assessment of the platform in its infancy, POC launch to ensure a scalable solution. This included defining user journeys, technology and operational capabilities and identifying gaps, overseeing a product roadmap and re-architecture plan, ensuring the technology and operations could scale. This program was responsible for significant cost savings, eliminating in person training and printing costs of training material, while the access to near real-time information digitally helped drive an increase in IPT 35% and sales by 11% sales.
For Reckitt Benckiser, Darlene led the launch of the North America, Health and Nutrition, Digital and Innovation Department for the firm. This included an initial assessment of the people, processes and technology with the goal of identifying one common technology ecosystem and operational structure to drive the awareness of the online brands, consumer engagement and growth in ecommerce sales. Darlene achieved a 200% reduction in technology licensing costs and a 250% reduction in implementation costs, resulting ability to activate capabilities from a 3 month implementation time-frame to less than 4 weeks.
For UBS Wealth Management’s Digital Transformation engagement, Darlene led the firm’s entry into digital consumer engagement through the launch a robo advisor, a completely automated investment fund management platform, for its Wealth Management Department clients. Darlene was responsible for assessing the integration of the proposed solution into firm’s operations and technology, including understanding the investor journey through trade settlement, identifying technology integration challenges and gaps, while providing recommended solutions for a successful launch. This was firm’s entry into a complete digital client onboarding and account opening experience and helped revamp the firms entire account opening and investment processes, allowing the firm to gain market share with a more tech savvy client. Within three months of launching the team realized over $200M in assets under management in digital accounts.
For UBS Wealth Management’s new business model engagement, Darlene led the assessment and recommendations to leadership for the launch of a new business model for the firm’s Wealth Management Department - launching a digital platform offering specialty and commercial lending to its ultra-high-net worth clients. She was responsible for defining user journeys, conducting a competitive analysis, including competitor interviews, identifying current technology and operational capabilities, determining where gaps and / or synergies exist.
Darlene has extensive experience serving as an advisor and interim CTO for several startups, including spearheading the launch of the first multi-platform, mobile-targeted music service in the Middle East, Africa and Asia that sold for over $125M, as well as being the only female and technologist on the board of one of the first startup SEF trading platforms to launch in the market, recently acquired by the CBOE.
Darlene has a BS in Entrepreneurship & Finance from the University of Arizona, including a degree in the University’s top seeded Entrepreneurship Program, and an MBA from University of Oxford, England. She is the 2003 winner of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), National Phoenix Award, a Yale / Goldman Sachs Foundation Business Plan Competition Semifinalist and in 2002 was inducted into the University of Arizona’s Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.
Ken Kralick
Ken is a Digital Transformation executive, providing vision, strategy and leadership of solution design & delivery of management consulting engagements with global top tier clients for more than 30 years.
Ken’s span of experience includes design thinking, customer journey mapping, sales & customer experience business process improvements and technology solutions, and business development and delivery, Sales team and opportunity pipeline management.
Ken has been leading Sales, Business Development and Delivery with track record of delivering annual sales of $500M, including P&L responsibilities, managing sales teams and opportunity pipelines, as well as meeting/beating individual sales quotas. Ken has directed dozens of engagements for Sales and other functional teams, from early opportunity identification & relationship establishment, into leading solution/roadmap/design-thinking workshops, through interactive/agile design, build, installation & support in production, and outsourcing.
Ken has former consulting experience as a Digital Transformation executive with IBM (13 years), VP at Ernst & Young/CapGemini (10 years) and Accenture (10 years). He led the development of the Digital Transformation Concept, Journey Mapping, Solution Design, and Business Case for a global telecom client, integrating and improving a disparate set of customer journeys across new customer acquisition, upsell/cross-sell, and customer service using Salesforce and other AI software.
Ken also led Digital Transformation for Quil Health, launched Quil Engagement Platform enabling proactive personalized recommendations to customers using Machine Learning and AI tools on new data sources.
An IBMiX Design Thinking Expert, Ken has deep industry experience in Communications, Retail, Services, Healthcare, Consumer Products and Distribution, with a strong background in Digital Customer Engagement, Design Thinking, Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Personalization, Advanced Analytics, Data Science Modeling, Marketing/Campaigns, Ordering, Billing, Customer Care, Business Intelligence, Big Data, Data Warehousing, and Master Data Management.
Ken holds a B.A. in Information Systems & Decision Sciences from University of South Florida.
Ken’s span of experience includes design thinking, customer journey mapping, sales & customer experience business process improvements and technology solutions, and business development and delivery, Sales team and opportunity pipeline management.
Ken has been leading Sales, Business Development and Delivery with track record of delivering annual sales of $500M, including P&L responsibilities, managing sales teams and opportunity pipelines, as well as meeting/beating individual sales quotas. Ken has directed dozens of engagements for Sales and other functional teams, from early opportunity identification & relationship establishment, into leading solution/roadmap/design-thinking workshops, through interactive/agile design, build, installation & support in production, and outsourcing.
Ken has former consulting experience as a Digital Transformation executive with IBM (13 years), VP at Ernst & Young/CapGemini (10 years) and Accenture (10 years). He led the development of the Digital Transformation Concept, Journey Mapping, Solution Design, and Business Case for a global telecom client, integrating and improving a disparate set of customer journeys across new customer acquisition, upsell/cross-sell, and customer service using Salesforce and other AI software.
Ken also led Digital Transformation for Quil Health, launched Quil Engagement Platform enabling proactive personalized recommendations to customers using Machine Learning and AI tools on new data sources.
An IBMiX Design Thinking Expert, Ken has deep industry experience in Communications, Retail, Services, Healthcare, Consumer Products and Distribution, with a strong background in Digital Customer Engagement, Design Thinking, Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Personalization, Advanced Analytics, Data Science Modeling, Marketing/Campaigns, Ordering, Billing, Customer Care, Business Intelligence, Big Data, Data Warehousing, and Master Data Management.
Ken holds a B.A. in Information Systems & Decision Sciences from University of South Florida.
Mindy Levy
Mindy is a seasoned executive with over twenty years of experience in management consulting, human capital, and leadership. She is a trained executive coach, working with both men and women at all levels to help them achieve their personal and professional ambitions. She is also a board member of LeanIn.org, an organization committed to offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them reach and exceed their goals.
Mindy has been working in the management consulting industry for over 20 years. The majority of these years were spent at Booz Allen Hamilton, a strategy and technology consulting firm, where she most recently oversaw the leadership development, executive coaching, performance management and talent planning functions.
For many years, Mindy was a human capital consultant and business leader. In this role she advised government leaders and helped them to identify effective solutions to their most pressing organizational issues—recruiting/hiring, selection, training, career development, succession planning, leadership & manager development, mentoring, performance management, team effectiveness. Prior to Booz Allen, Mindy worked at Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) where she developed and ran their managerial assessment center, and at a small consulting firm, Human Resources Resource Organization (HumRRO).
Mindy holds a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from The George Washington University and a business degree from the Wharton School of Business. She received a certificate in Executive Coaching through Georgetown University, and, as a coach, is certified in and has utilized a variety of tools and assessments to help develop individuals.
Mindy has been working in the management consulting industry for over 20 years. The majority of these years were spent at Booz Allen Hamilton, a strategy and technology consulting firm, where she most recently oversaw the leadership development, executive coaching, performance management and talent planning functions.
For many years, Mindy was a human capital consultant and business leader. In this role she advised government leaders and helped them to identify effective solutions to their most pressing organizational issues—recruiting/hiring, selection, training, career development, succession planning, leadership & manager development, mentoring, performance management, team effectiveness. Prior to Booz Allen, Mindy worked at Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) where she developed and ran their managerial assessment center, and at a small consulting firm, Human Resources Resource Organization (HumRRO).
Mindy holds a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from The George Washington University and a business degree from the Wharton School of Business. She received a certificate in Executive Coaching through Georgetown University, and, as a coach, is certified in and has utilized a variety of tools and assessments to help develop individuals.
Dana Pulley
Dana is an accomplished leader, executive coach and organization development consultant. For more than 25 years, she’s brought her contagious passion for growth and development to individuals and organizations. She helps leaders and teams create space, increase awareness, envision possibilities, achieve insights and accomplish challenging goals. She is deeply committed to helping leaders thrive. She is also a frequent speaker and teacher on mindful leadership, presence, emotional intelligence, and their intersections with neuroscience.
Dana previously held senior leadership positions with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. She managed a large division that provided strategy, organization development, leadership development, talent management, and change management solutions to commercial and government clients. She started her career with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Dana is an ICF-certified coach (PCC) and holds certifications in leadership coaching from Georgetown University, somatic coaching through the Strozzi Institute, and presence-based coaching with Doug Silsbee. She is a certified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction instructor and delivers Corporate Based Mindfulness training for the Potential Project and Mindfulness Based Emotional Intelligence training for the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute Purdue. Dana holds a B.A. in Psychology from James Madison University and an M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from George Mason University.
Dana previously held senior leadership positions with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. She managed a large division that provided strategy, organization development, leadership development, talent management, and change management solutions to commercial and government clients. She started her career with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Dana is an ICF-certified coach (PCC) and holds certifications in leadership coaching from Georgetown University, somatic coaching through the Strozzi Institute, and presence-based coaching with Doug Silsbee. She is a certified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction instructor and delivers Corporate Based Mindfulness training for the Potential Project and Mindfulness Based Emotional Intelligence training for the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute Purdue. Dana holds a B.A. in Psychology from James Madison University and an M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from George Mason University.
Will Robinson
Will is a high-tech business executive with significant experience in marketing, strategy and innovation. He recently conducted sales/channel enablement/benchmarking at Intel, Lucent, EMC, Avaya, Sharp Electronics and developed sales-strategy for Masai Barefoot Technology. Some of his other consulting engagements focused on channel and partner management, business development, digital strategy design & development, customer insight & market research, public relations, new product development, technology commercialization, valuation and due diligence. In these assignments, Will has:
- Launched successful products and services through thoughtful business strategy and marketing program development,
- Developed cross-functional marketing and strategic initiatives, forged business partnerships and developed results-based solutions to complex business challenges,
- Led innovation efforts at several companies resulting in successful new products and developed processes to enhance innovation,
- Blended strategic analysis skills with hands-on functional experience.
Maxine Teller
Maxine is a strategy consultant with over 20 years of success defining business strategies, developing new revenue opportunities, and expanding distribution for public and private sector clients.
Maxine’s depth of experience, working across a breadth of industries, enables her to leverage an extensive toolkit of processes and methodologies to rethink traditional approaches. She creates customized, innovative solutions to business problems. Through her tenure in digital media, government and health industries, she has developed in impressive network through which she connects clients with partners and customers.
Maxine directed strategy and business development at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive; managed and grew the USATODAY.com account for interactive agency marchFIRST; co-founded startup StockGift.com; and led global client teams through strategic innovation initiatives at IdeaScope Associates. Commercial clients have included: XM Satellite Radio, Comcast Cable, The HealthCentral Network and Freewebs.
Maxine Teller has unique expertise and is recognized in the Government 2.0 space: helping government agencies to leverage social media tools and technologies to improve mission efficiency and effectiveness. In her work with the U.S. Department of Defense, she developed and co-authored the Web 2.0 policy for the CIO, launched the Emerging Media Directorate, and secured distribution in 12 million households for the Pentagon Channel. Maxine developed engagement strategies for a number of programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, and has initiated cross-agency initiatives that reduced duplicative projects and processes.
As social business thought leader, Maxine applies not just social networking tools and technologies to solve business problems, but also their collaborative principles. She speaks regularly at conferences about the cultural changes catalyzed by social media. In 2008, she conceptualized and produced Government 2.0 Camp, the first “unconference” that convened government leaders to share best practices and alternative approaches to the business of government. She continues to be actively involved in the DC tech community, serving on the advisory boards for various technology startups and conferences.
Maxine earned her MBA from Georgetown University and her BA in sociology from Brandeis University.
Maxine’s depth of experience, working across a breadth of industries, enables her to leverage an extensive toolkit of processes and methodologies to rethink traditional approaches. She creates customized, innovative solutions to business problems. Through her tenure in digital media, government and health industries, she has developed in impressive network through which she connects clients with partners and customers.
Maxine directed strategy and business development at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive; managed and grew the USATODAY.com account for interactive agency marchFIRST; co-founded startup StockGift.com; and led global client teams through strategic innovation initiatives at IdeaScope Associates. Commercial clients have included: XM Satellite Radio, Comcast Cable, The HealthCentral Network and Freewebs.
Maxine Teller has unique expertise and is recognized in the Government 2.0 space: helping government agencies to leverage social media tools and technologies to improve mission efficiency and effectiveness. In her work with the U.S. Department of Defense, she developed and co-authored the Web 2.0 policy for the CIO, launched the Emerging Media Directorate, and secured distribution in 12 million households for the Pentagon Channel. Maxine developed engagement strategies for a number of programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, and has initiated cross-agency initiatives that reduced duplicative projects and processes.
As social business thought leader, Maxine applies not just social networking tools and technologies to solve business problems, but also their collaborative principles. She speaks regularly at conferences about the cultural changes catalyzed by social media. In 2008, she conceptualized and produced Government 2.0 Camp, the first “unconference” that convened government leaders to share best practices and alternative approaches to the business of government. She continues to be actively involved in the DC tech community, serving on the advisory boards for various technology startups and conferences.
Maxine earned her MBA from Georgetown University and her BA in sociology from Brandeis University.
Ellis Rosenberg
Ellis is a consultative sales leader and business development executive with over 25 years of experience developing and executing highly effective sales strategies for commercial organizations and enterprise nonprofits.
With his entrepreneurial spirit, Ellis excels in taking strategic initiatives from conception, through “go-to-market” strategy development, to execution. His end-to-end project management skills and experience in both entrepreneurial and matrixed organizations enable him to successfully build cross-functional teams and develop strategic partnerships with diverse stakeholders. Ellis’ broad industry background also includes business services, healthcare, and technology companies across a wide set of channel development activities ranging from government affairs to corporate/affinity partnerships to employer benefits and enterprise sales. Ellis has worked with companies and enterprise nonprofits to bring new products and services to the marketplace, developed and implemented affinity and licensing programs, and established e-commerce partnerships with Walmart.
A sampling of Ellis’ work to date include:
Ellis’ prior professional experience includes his work at Brookdale Senior Living, the largest operator of senior housing in the US, with full portfolio of food service, house cleaning, and guest/resident health, wellness, and living services. Previously Ellis was Senior Vice President of Marketing, Communications, and Strategic Partnerships at SourceAmerica, an enterprise nonprofit overseeing procurement and contract management services for $2.5B in products and services for the federal government. Before SourceAmerica, Ellis was Vice President of Sales at ADT Health where he increased medical alert system sales by 43% in his first year by developing government sales, field sales, and national account channels. Ellis also has experience in senior leadership positions with AARP and Nextel Communications.
Ellis holds an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Psychology from the University of Maryland.
With his entrepreneurial spirit, Ellis excels in taking strategic initiatives from conception, through “go-to-market” strategy development, to execution. His end-to-end project management skills and experience in both entrepreneurial and matrixed organizations enable him to successfully build cross-functional teams and develop strategic partnerships with diverse stakeholders. Ellis’ broad industry background also includes business services, healthcare, and technology companies across a wide set of channel development activities ranging from government affairs to corporate/affinity partnerships to employer benefits and enterprise sales. Ellis has worked with companies and enterprise nonprofits to bring new products and services to the marketplace, developed and implemented affinity and licensing programs, and established e-commerce partnerships with Walmart.
A sampling of Ellis’ work to date include:
- Managed $9M budget, 14-person team for $13 billion operator Nextel, and led creation of first national sales operations function;
- Overhauled regional compensation and recognition program into a single, national sales program for salesforce of 5,000;
- Planned, aligned, and implemented compensation, incentive, and recognition programs that drove $416M in a new line of business; the enterprise-wide sales forecasting team Ellis rebuilt delivered forecasts within 3% accuracy each quarter;
- Drove 43% Y-o-Y growth for ADT’s key segment through data-driven realignment of coverage and territories with prospect prioritization, training, and use of sales automation tools;
- Reviewed and developed of compensation plans to align with position descriptions and responsibilities for 50 different job titles;
- Designed programs to reduce sales rep attrition and increase productivity, created internal communications campaigns to support cascading rollout, and developed integrated compensation structures after a $35 BB merger;
- Established targets, expected behaviors, actions, and performance management systems, developed new tools and processes for pre- and post-sales effectiveness, and led quarterly business reviews;
- Established coverage model for strategic/named/geography assignments and territory structure;
- Created and led new hire training consultative selling by segment/ position and established “best practices” playbook for Planning, Targeting, Engaging, Negotiating, and Closing;
- Developed definitions of Stages and Criteria for advancing to Next Step in Pipeline;
- Developed Salesforce Scorecards for activity volume at early, mid and late stages of pipeline;
- Conducted weekly forecasting meetings, process, and executive report;
- Developed marketing collateral to sell in hotel, restaurant, and vendor community;
- Managed & executed multi-million-dollar, multi-day sales recognition events at luxury resorts.
Ellis’ prior professional experience includes his work at Brookdale Senior Living, the largest operator of senior housing in the US, with full portfolio of food service, house cleaning, and guest/resident health, wellness, and living services. Previously Ellis was Senior Vice President of Marketing, Communications, and Strategic Partnerships at SourceAmerica, an enterprise nonprofit overseeing procurement and contract management services for $2.5B in products and services for the federal government. Before SourceAmerica, Ellis was Vice President of Sales at ADT Health where he increased medical alert system sales by 43% in his first year by developing government sales, field sales, and national account channels. Ellis also has experience in senior leadership positions with AARP and Nextel Communications.
Ellis holds an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Psychology from the University of Maryland.
Rachel Thompson
Rachel Thompson works at the intersection of strategy and design using human-centered and visual methods. Rachel has over a decade of professional experience with human-centered design and design thinking, strategic facilitation, graphic recording and graphic facilitation, experiential learning and teaching, and coaching. She is a Design Thinking Facilitator at the Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland and an Adjunct Instructor for the Design Leadership MA/MBA program at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Rachel has experience working with C-suite executives, government contracting companies, government agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration, Veterans Affairs, US Department of State, and US Department of Health and Human Services. She has been a part of the leadership team organizing and facilitating design thinking and facilitation workshops for the NovaScribes Meetup, Service Design DC Meetup, NovaScribes, the DC Graphic Facilitation Meetup, the Design Thinking: DC Meetup, and the DC Service Jam. Rachel is a member of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP) and Mid-Atlantic Facilitators' Network (MAFN).
Rachel graduated cum laude a B.A. in Anthropology and French from Kansas State University.
Rachel has experience working with C-suite executives, government contracting companies, government agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration, Veterans Affairs, US Department of State, and US Department of Health and Human Services. She has been a part of the leadership team organizing and facilitating design thinking and facilitation workshops for the NovaScribes Meetup, Service Design DC Meetup, NovaScribes, the DC Graphic Facilitation Meetup, the Design Thinking: DC Meetup, and the DC Service Jam. Rachel is a member of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP) and Mid-Atlantic Facilitators' Network (MAFN).
Rachel graduated cum laude a B.A. in Anthropology and French from Kansas State University.
Lori Perkins
Lori is a highly adaptable, hands-on consultant with more than 15 years of experience in project management, marketing, and marketing operations. She is a versatile marketing leader with extensive experience designing and implementing go-to-market strategies for new products, services, and sales channels in startup environments. She is known for aligning customer insights with business objectives to build programs that deliver results. She is results oriented and customer focused with a contagious enthusiasm. She successfully drives execution and implementation by fostering cross-functional collaboration. She is recognized for ability to effectively communicate across all levels and functions. Her broad-based B2B and B2C experience spans retail, wireless, telecom, cable, and home security industries.
Lori’s principal areas of practice include go-to-market, product marketing, promotions, merchandising, sales channel development, sales enablement, internal communications, training, merger and acquisition integration, and policy, compliance and program management. Lori also has experience supporting merger and acquisition efforts, including the Sprint Nextel merger and Comcast’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable.
Most recently, Lori supported the Comcast Business team leading a cross-functional team of key stakeholders responsible for developing enterprise business requirements for a new marketing database. In that role she created and maintained the project plan, developed the agenda for weekly meetings, provided weekly status updates for senior leadership, and provided overall project management support.
Prior to enterprise database project, Lori supported another Comcast Business project, playing a key role supporting the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Lori led the enterprise customer experience work stream and the mid-market go-to-market work streams. Lori created the customer experience mapping model that was later adopted by all Comcast Business customer experience teams. As the lead for all Comcast Business customer experience work streams, Lori served as program manager within the customer experience work streams and as lead from customer experience across all other work streams, ensuring all impacts to the customer experience were assigned and that teams were developing appropriate remediation plans. Lori ensured work stream leads managed weekly work stream meetings, kept tasks on track, prepared weekly status reports for the integration PMO office, and provided weekly and monthly readouts to senior leadership.
Previously in her career, Lori served as a program management consultant for Time Warner Cable Marketing Operations in the roll-out of the mobile data product. Lori was later hired as Director of Product Marketing. In that role she developed, implemented, and managed a go-to-market process for the launch of all sales impacting initiatives within the residential business. To that end, Lori and her team were responsible for the flow of initiatives from product ideation to execution by the field sales teams. They ensured initiatives were appropriately prioritized and aligned with corporate strategy, and that all cross-functional partners were educated on new initiatives and participating in the development on launch plans. Lori led weekly calls with more than 75 participants representing all functional areas of the business and all divisions within the company to ensure initiatives were launched on time and with the proper support to ensure successful execution.
Lori performed a similar role at Nextel, managing the launch of all sales impacting initiatives to the retail division. Her responsibilities included hosting weekly cross-functional meetings to coordinate the launch initiatives, hosting a monthly launch call with field sales teams, preparing sales bulletins for each imitative, and ensuring all associated marketing and sales materials were packaged and posted to the corporate intranet. Lori typically launched 15-20 initiatives to over 600 company-owned retail stores each month.
Lori holds a Bachelor of Science degree from George Mason University.
Lori’s principal areas of practice include go-to-market, product marketing, promotions, merchandising, sales channel development, sales enablement, internal communications, training, merger and acquisition integration, and policy, compliance and program management. Lori also has experience supporting merger and acquisition efforts, including the Sprint Nextel merger and Comcast’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable.
Most recently, Lori supported the Comcast Business team leading a cross-functional team of key stakeholders responsible for developing enterprise business requirements for a new marketing database. In that role she created and maintained the project plan, developed the agenda for weekly meetings, provided weekly status updates for senior leadership, and provided overall project management support.
Prior to enterprise database project, Lori supported another Comcast Business project, playing a key role supporting the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Lori led the enterprise customer experience work stream and the mid-market go-to-market work streams. Lori created the customer experience mapping model that was later adopted by all Comcast Business customer experience teams. As the lead for all Comcast Business customer experience work streams, Lori served as program manager within the customer experience work streams and as lead from customer experience across all other work streams, ensuring all impacts to the customer experience were assigned and that teams were developing appropriate remediation plans. Lori ensured work stream leads managed weekly work stream meetings, kept tasks on track, prepared weekly status reports for the integration PMO office, and provided weekly and monthly readouts to senior leadership.
Previously in her career, Lori served as a program management consultant for Time Warner Cable Marketing Operations in the roll-out of the mobile data product. Lori was later hired as Director of Product Marketing. In that role she developed, implemented, and managed a go-to-market process for the launch of all sales impacting initiatives within the residential business. To that end, Lori and her team were responsible for the flow of initiatives from product ideation to execution by the field sales teams. They ensured initiatives were appropriately prioritized and aligned with corporate strategy, and that all cross-functional partners were educated on new initiatives and participating in the development on launch plans. Lori led weekly calls with more than 75 participants representing all functional areas of the business and all divisions within the company to ensure initiatives were launched on time and with the proper support to ensure successful execution.
Lori performed a similar role at Nextel, managing the launch of all sales impacting initiatives to the retail division. Her responsibilities included hosting weekly cross-functional meetings to coordinate the launch initiatives, hosting a monthly launch call with field sales teams, preparing sales bulletins for each imitative, and ensuring all associated marketing and sales materials were packaged and posted to the corporate intranet. Lori typically launched 15-20 initiatives to over 600 company-owned retail stores each month.
Lori holds a Bachelor of Science degree from George Mason University.
Lara Azzam
Lara is a business consultant with extensive experience helping clients with their business development and marketing challenges. Lara’s core areas of expertise and recent client experience include Project Management, Building/Operationalizing Businesses, Marketing Operations Management, Events & Campaigns and Database Management.
Prior to her current consulting career, Lara worked as Partner Support Director at GSI Commerce, led Sales Operations at BBN and was a Marketing Associate at GTE. At GSI, Lara identified new market potential, launched and operationalized new businesses. Lara also served as Project Manager for a major global brand refresh initiative for the SI Group, a US-based chemicals company, where she managed large workstreams comprising staff across ten countries and fourteen office locations.
Lara holds an MBA from Wharton Business School and a Masters in International Studies from Lauder Institute and a BS in Business Administration from Georgetown University.
Prior to her current consulting career, Lara worked as Partner Support Director at GSI Commerce, led Sales Operations at BBN and was a Marketing Associate at GTE. At GSI, Lara identified new market potential, launched and operationalized new businesses. Lara also served as Project Manager for a major global brand refresh initiative for the SI Group, a US-based chemicals company, where she managed large workstreams comprising staff across ten countries and fourteen office locations.
Lara holds an MBA from Wharton Business School and a Masters in International Studies from Lauder Institute and a BS in Business Administration from Georgetown University.
Sonia Checchia
Sonia is a communications and marketing consultant with expertise in strategic communications, change management, internal communications, brand management, messaging and event planning.
A strong writer with an eye for design, Sonia consults with clients to build communications strategies that ensure their most important messages are heard.
Sonia was previously at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she held several roles focused on communications and training. During that time, she received awards by industry leaders such as Bersin & Associates and the American Society for Training & Development. Before “content marketing” was a common term, Sonia led a highly-successful webcast series that promoted awareness of diversity initiatives while fostering communications and leadership skill building.
Sonia holds a BA in International Studies from American University and an MA in Sociolinguistics from Georgetown University.
Sonia serves on the Community Advisory Board for The Three Rivers Language Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. She blogs at MetaTalkCafe.com.
A strong writer with an eye for design, Sonia consults with clients to build communications strategies that ensure their most important messages are heard.
Sonia was previously at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she held several roles focused on communications and training. During that time, she received awards by industry leaders such as Bersin & Associates and the American Society for Training & Development. Before “content marketing” was a common term, Sonia led a highly-successful webcast series that promoted awareness of diversity initiatives while fostering communications and leadership skill building.
Sonia holds a BA in International Studies from American University and an MA in Sociolinguistics from Georgetown University.
Sonia serves on the Community Advisory Board for The Three Rivers Language Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. She blogs at MetaTalkCafe.com.
Salima Hemani
Salima Hemani is an Organizational Development and Human Capital Executive Consultant, Leadership Coach, Author and Speaker. She specializes in Leadership Coaching and Management Consulting services in the areas of Organizational Development and Change Management. Salima has over 16 years of experience in the field working with clients at various large government agencies, non-profits and multinational corporations. She has held leadership positions at top global companies including Accenture, Marriott International and BAE Systems.
Salima brings a wealth of expertise to help organizations and leaders enhance their potential and implement lasting change. She is a results-driven strategist and practitioner, who uses robust, structured human capital management, organizational development, and employee and leadership coaching & engagement methodologies to successfully support and guide organizational improvement and transformational efforts. Salima has provided strategic leadership to create innovative solutions to challenging problems, and enabled clients to capture maximum efficiencies and growth. She has a proven track record for successfully managing large-scale change and enhancing organizational effectiveness, efficiency and capacity. Salima has a deep understanding of human and organizational development based on years of experience creating programs that enable companies to embrace the changing business landscape, while coaching and developing leaders and employees along the way to enhance their effectiveness and achieve long term goals.
Salima holds an MBA from the George Washington University and a B.S. Honors in Management Sciences from University of Maryland, College Park. In addition, she holds SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources), Myers Briggs Type Indicator, Leadership Circle 360 Profile™, and the Organizational Culture Survey™ certifications. Salima is currently obtaining Leadership Coaching certification from the Institute of Transformational Leadership at Georgetown University.
Salima brings a wealth of expertise to help organizations and leaders enhance their potential and implement lasting change. She is a results-driven strategist and practitioner, who uses robust, structured human capital management, organizational development, and employee and leadership coaching & engagement methodologies to successfully support and guide organizational improvement and transformational efforts. Salima has provided strategic leadership to create innovative solutions to challenging problems, and enabled clients to capture maximum efficiencies and growth. She has a proven track record for successfully managing large-scale change and enhancing organizational effectiveness, efficiency and capacity. Salima has a deep understanding of human and organizational development based on years of experience creating programs that enable companies to embrace the changing business landscape, while coaching and developing leaders and employees along the way to enhance their effectiveness and achieve long term goals.
Salima holds an MBA from the George Washington University and a B.S. Honors in Management Sciences from University of Maryland, College Park. In addition, she holds SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources), Myers Briggs Type Indicator, Leadership Circle 360 Profile™, and the Organizational Culture Survey™ certifications. Salima is currently obtaining Leadership Coaching certification from the Institute of Transformational Leadership at Georgetown University.
Paul Lawmaster
Paul’s expertise spans executive and leadership development, organizational design, strategy development, execution alignment, process improvement, innovation, strategic partnerships, alliances, acquisitions, functional enablement & development (sales, marketing, brand, R&D, IT, legal) and human resources.
Bringing a passion for clinical psychology and behavioral economics to the executive corridors of clients, Paul’s career represents over 35 years of internal and external consulting. His work began as a psychotherapist in California, where he combined family systems theory, Gestalt and NLP approaches to change behavior for over 1000 individuals and families. He expanded upon this work by co-building boutique consulting firms -- Impaq, Monterey Group, Avatar International -- all of which focused on leadership development, employee engagement and organizational improvement for clients in all industries, including a large practice with US healthcare systems. Through his experiences with Fortune 200 companies including Capital One and Altria, Paul is again applying a systems view to personal and organizational development and employee engagement, marshalling several elements to bring about sustainable change in a highly successful, conservative organization.
More recently Paul led the creation and delivery of an executive program designed to lead a highly successful and mature consumer packaged goods company through complexity and ambiguity while establishing an environment of innovation. The pilot program earned a citation from the Association for Talent Development (ATD, formerly ASTD) and has been an integral part of a larger effort to ignite greater innovation, inclusion and simplification throughout the organization.
A brain-based coach certified by the Neuroleadership Institute, Paul holds MA degrees in Clinical Psychology and Organizational Development and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of California in Irvine.
Bringing a passion for clinical psychology and behavioral economics to the executive corridors of clients, Paul’s career represents over 35 years of internal and external consulting. His work began as a psychotherapist in California, where he combined family systems theory, Gestalt and NLP approaches to change behavior for over 1000 individuals and families. He expanded upon this work by co-building boutique consulting firms -- Impaq, Monterey Group, Avatar International -- all of which focused on leadership development, employee engagement and organizational improvement for clients in all industries, including a large practice with US healthcare systems. Through his experiences with Fortune 200 companies including Capital One and Altria, Paul is again applying a systems view to personal and organizational development and employee engagement, marshalling several elements to bring about sustainable change in a highly successful, conservative organization.
More recently Paul led the creation and delivery of an executive program designed to lead a highly successful and mature consumer packaged goods company through complexity and ambiguity while establishing an environment of innovation. The pilot program earned a citation from the Association for Talent Development (ATD, formerly ASTD) and has been an integral part of a larger effort to ignite greater innovation, inclusion and simplification throughout the organization.
A brain-based coach certified by the Neuroleadership Institute, Paul holds MA degrees in Clinical Psychology and Organizational Development and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of California in Irvine.
Susan Jablonski
Susan's career focus has centered on services firms where people are the primary asset and where innovative processes and people form the value chain.
Susan is a project manager, a problem solver and a thought partner. Her expertise in developing processes and practices that help clients address not just the problems they currently face, but also the ones looming ahead, enables forward-thinking project plans, capabilities development and innovative implementation. She understands viscerally the need to “do more with less” and brings that sensibility to all of her work. She astutely listens to the nuances of situations, defines issues with clarity and responds with creative solutions to address previously uncovered client concerns.
As a consultant to large and small organizations, in both the corporate and not-for-profit realms, Susan has a long record of working with clients seeking to extract more value from their existing assets while developing new revenue streams. Preferring to work as part of a team, she recognizes the importance of different and varied perspectives and how diverse teams themselves need to be nurtured and developed to deliver optimal results. Susan has led, facilitated and participated in collective efforts to achieve results for complex problems and goals.
In addition to exceptional project management, Susan brings considerable experience in organizational design and development. Working primarily with professional services firms, she has helped create new sources for talent, incremental capabilities in corporate structures and innovative approaches to leadership. Specific examples of her client collaborations include:
Susan is a project manager, a problem solver and a thought partner. Her expertise in developing processes and practices that help clients address not just the problems they currently face, but also the ones looming ahead, enables forward-thinking project plans, capabilities development and innovative implementation. She understands viscerally the need to “do more with less” and brings that sensibility to all of her work. She astutely listens to the nuances of situations, defines issues with clarity and responds with creative solutions to address previously uncovered client concerns.
As a consultant to large and small organizations, in both the corporate and not-for-profit realms, Susan has a long record of working with clients seeking to extract more value from their existing assets while developing new revenue streams. Preferring to work as part of a team, she recognizes the importance of different and varied perspectives and how diverse teams themselves need to be nurtured and developed to deliver optimal results. Susan has led, facilitated and participated in collective efforts to achieve results for complex problems and goals.
In addition to exceptional project management, Susan brings considerable experience in organizational design and development. Working primarily with professional services firms, she has helped create new sources for talent, incremental capabilities in corporate structures and innovative approaches to leadership. Specific examples of her client collaborations include:
- Developing and implementing a human capital strategy for an India-based technology services company to establish its first subsidiary to conduct business in North America and Europe;
- Guiding a major pharmaceutical company in better understanding the commercial implications of its long-term investments in drug development;
- Creating a new multi-service subsidiary for a venture capital firm to assist portfolio companies in more quickly reaching their growth goals;
- Designing the human resources capabilities a major gaming company needed to provide to win a state-sponsored casino gambling license;
- Training the next generation of attorneys for a major law firm to become more holistic in their approaches to clients by ensuring awareness of the implications of business issues involved in legal contests.
