ANDRIA CORSO: September Consultant of the Month

ANDRIA CORSO has 16 years experience as a Human Resources leader who works with clients to develop leadership skills and talent strategies that that align with business strategy and drive results. She is an organizational and leadership development coach and Strategic HR consultant with areas of expertise in career and leadership development, talent and succession management, and executive coaching.

RUSSELL E. GRAY, JR.: August Consultant of the Month

RUSSELL E. GRAY, JR. is the Founder and Managing Director of a full service Professional Services Firm focused on transforming companies to meet the challenges of evolving technologies and globalization. Utilizing a three-tiered approach, Russ and his team initially assesses an organization’s strategic staffing vision to determine talent level.

CATHIE MURENSKY: July Consultant of the Month

With the economy on a positive trend and the job market heating up, this an optimal time to review and enhance your talent development processes. Investment in your leadership bench-strength will be a competitive asset for your organization; not only to retain the talent you have, but to continue to build your internal capability.

CAMILLE PRESTON: June Consultant of the Month

Please meet Dr. Camille Preston, an executive coach, leadership trainer, and author who has answers. Camille has been recognized by organizations from Citrix and Go-to-Meeting to the Human Capital Institute as a pioneer in virtual effectiveness and in developing leaders, teams and collaborations across time zones, cultures and generations. Her clients are more effective with engaging associates, leveraging technology to support them and delivering outstanding results and they balance having a life.

DARRYL SIMON: May Consultant of the Month

DARRYL A. SIMON specializes in organizational assessment and design; strategic analysis and planning, executive coaching and leadership development; human capital planning and talent management. He serves regional, national and global clients in commercial, government and non profit sectors.

Darryl is a senior-level strategist and executive advisor whose expertise has improved the performance, growth and effectiveness of executives and organizations during thirty years of consulting and corporate assignments with a diverse range of clients such as Adventist Health Care; Ameritox; Bunge International; Constellation Energy; DuPont; HBO; MedStar Health; National Association of Manufacturers; Sterling Capital Partners; Verizon; U.S. Interior Department and USDA.

WENDY KAUFMAN: April Consultant of the Month

WENDY KAUFMAN is a life balance specialist led by personal crisis and triumph. If you catch yourself whining during the day, Wendy’s advice would be her seven minute rule. “You’re allowed to whine for seven minutes, once or twice a week. And then you’ve used up your quota.”

Combining her education and hands on experience to inspire and inform audiences for the last decade, Wendy has paved a successful path in the corporate world. A no nonsense woman Wendy’s direct and honest assessments of how to succeed in life have won her the respect and admiration of her coworkers and clients. Her engaging presentation style gives employees the empowering tools they need to face today’s demands, and enjoy the immediate benefits of a more confident, competent workforce.

MONICA BELL: March Consultant of the Month

Combining her teaching, recruiting, management, business analysis, and systems expertise, MONICA BELL shares her wealth of knowledge with clients. You will benefit and learn immediately by working with Monica as she is a professional, accountable, business savvy and generous consultant.

She believes in sharing her expertise so that others will benefit from it. Utilizing business process improvement methods, Monica assists companies and organizations, including government contractors, in achieving their hiring goals and improving their processes. Regardless of size, all companies can benefit from Monica’s expertise.

WENDY MACK: February Consultant of the Month

“We live in an age of accelerating change,” says Wendy Mack, a speaker and consultant who helps leaders mobilize energy for change. “Shifts in the economy, technology, and customer demands are forcing your organization to adapt. Unfortunately confusion, fear, and inertia may be stopping your people from embracing and supporting the changes that are crucial to executing your strategy. And without genuine buy-in from employees at all levels, strategic initiatives often fail or fall short of their potential.”

CARA PARKER: January Consultant of the Month

When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This heuristic is true in our personal lives and certainly true in our professional organizations, says CARA PARKER. “Regardless the size of your organization or the products and services you produce, it is necessary to concentrate on the strategic direction of your organization.”

December 2009: The Year in Review

As the year comes to a close, we are reminded of the great honor it is to contribute to more effective workplaces. It has been a banner year despite an unusual economic environment and tight budgets. We’re happy to share with you some highlights of the past year. We accomplished a lot together.

Our training assignments this year included sessions on:

ELLEN KANDELL: November Consultant of the Month

ELLEN KANDELL is an attorney and conflict resolution specialist with over 25 years of experience in public and private sector law practice. She marries her experience with large organizations and her conflict resolution and facilitation skills to transform disputes and organizational challenges into a positive force for growth and change. Her clients include manufacturing and health care companies, government agencies, non profits and educational institutions.

LEROY THOMPSON: October Consultant of the Month

LEROY THOMPSON helps clients manage change in the strategic, technical, and human dimensions of their organizations. LeRoy has worked with a broad range of private, public, and nonprofit sector organizations. Private sector clients have included Citigroup, Motorola, Marriott Corporation, BMW, McCormick, and Lockheed Martin. He has assisted public sector organizations such as the U.S. Departments of Energy, Justice, Defense, Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, and Treasury, the Governor’s Office of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Ohio Department of Public Welfare, Riverside (CA) County Department of Public Social Services and Sarasota County (FL) government. He has extensive not-for-profit experience including United Way of America, numerous local United Ways, American Cancer Society, and the National Urban League among others.

Prior to becoming a consultant, LeRoy was an Associate with McKinsey & Company in their Washington, DC office. He was a part of the engagement team that submitted recommendations to Congress for the establishing of the Amtrak system. He has been a Practice Leader with Kepner-Tregoe in the Worldwide Strategy practice as well as a Senior Consultant with Booz, Allen and Hamilton specializing in large-scale change management projects with Federal agencies.

LISA GARDNER: September Consultant of the Month

When LISA GARDNER listens, people talk. Clients trust her. She connects quickly with people “from the mailroom to the boardroom.” Lisa is an organization development and diversity consultant with over 25 years of HR and diversity leadership experience in Fortune 50, large nonprofit and privately held organizations.

Lisa is driven by a personal mission to create healthy and productive workplaces and to bring out the best in employees. She specializes in creating best practice workplaces through culture change, leadership and team development, diversity and inclusion, and employee engagement. She enjoys facilitating strategic planning, action planning and teambuilding sessions, and helps build greater trust, inclusion and accountability among leaders and teams. Lisa is also a committed career transition coach and mentor.

VICTORIA RUTTENBERG: August Consultant of the Month

VICTORIA RUTTENBERG is a management consultant who applies her considerable conflict resolution, executive coaching, and organization development skills toward helping leaders and organizations succeed. Her clients include nonprofit, for-profit and public-sector organizations.

She works with her clients on a variety of topics, including:
• Conflict resolution guided by mediation principles
• Retreat and meeting design and facilitation (for groups of all sizes)
• Interpersonal communication training and coaching
• Executive coaching for senior leaders and high potential staff
• Recruitment and retention troubleshooting
• Team building and organizational effectiveness

ZAYD ABDUL-KARIM: July Consultant of the Month

Dr. Zayd Abdul-Karim brings widely acclaimed expertise in the training and psychology of effective self-leadership and conscious thinking—ho w great leaders think. Dr. Zayd is an Inspirational Speaker, Coach, Trainer and Author of four books on personal transformation. He is a Catalyst for Growth and Inner Peace and is affectionately called “Dr. Z.” His life mission is to serve the purpose of Releasing Inner Power for Balance, Happiness, and Peace.

What qualifies Dr. Z to be known as the “Voice of Self-Leadership?” He was a troubled inner-city teen whose fears led him to adopt self-destructive thoughts, feelings and behaviors that held him back. He learned how to transform himself from fear, abusive behaviors, and mediocrity to love, inner healing and excellence. He lives to teach and give testimony to the power of mercy and self-leadership. Dr. Z raises consciousness and ignites constructive energy through coaching, keynote speeches, company workshops, public seminars, tele-seminars, and weekend boot camps.

NAN SIEMER: June Consultant of the Month

Negotiation expert NAN SIEMER is an accomplished communicator who has helped individuals in the private and public sectors negotiate better futures for themselves.

During her 15 years as a broadcast journalist, Nan found job changes in her chosen career occurred frequently. Yet she found that transitions were not always as profitable for her as they were for some of her colleagues. Nan couldn’t find any role models to teach her how to become a better negotiator. Therefore, she became self-taught.

Her ten nieces and nephews showed Nan the people who possess the most natural negotiation skills are children, so the children in her life became the focus of an informal, 25-year study. She watched the way children negotiate with others, and she encouraged those in her life to bargain for what they want. Today, lessons learned from those children help thousands of adults improve their skills.

GRETCHEN NEELS: May Consultant of the Month

Communications expert Gretchen Neels is in the business of helping professionals improve performance by fine tuning their soft skills. Throughout her career as an executive recruiter, she saw countless examples of candidates who had the technical expertise to do a particular job, but an inability to convey adequate levels of trust, confidence, and charisma to land the position.

“Social expertness is crucial to the success of today’s professional,” says Gretchen, “and it doesn’t stop at getting hired. In the current economy, it’s all hands on deck with everyone expected to develop business contacts at a minimum, and for most, to add to the bottom line with paying clients.” Many lawyers, accountants and consultants are far more comfortable with doing the work, not necessarily finding it – that’s where Gretchen adds so much value.

As a coach, speaker and workshop facilitator, Gretchen gets to the heart of what it
takes to be a strong performer: top-notch communication skills. Popular workshops
include:

BARRY COLEMAN: April 2009 Consultant of the Month

HR expert BARRY COLEMAN is a professional organization development practitioner specializing in helping leaders and organizations meet the ever-changing demands of business. He works collaboratively with leaders to provide the knowledge, skills and competencies needed for organizations to be effective and productive. He helps leaders and organizations focus on the intervention needed for the organization’s success. He offers a variety of services including facilitating group success through team building, management and leadership programs and change management consulting.

MICHAEL CISZEWSKI: March 2009 Consultant of the Month

We are in a new era. The time when progress came through fragmented, disjointed activity is over; what is called for now is a new focus on connection and integration.

With 25 years of global experience, MICHAEL CISZEWSKI has learned a great deal about what it takes to move individuals and groups into a much more productive, integrated way of working. To develop leadership capabilities and find solutions to their toughest challenges.

He has helped clients combine business units; turn complexity into a competitive advantage; manage all types of change; and shift from a reactive, transactional way of operating to one that is more client-centered and partnership-oriented.

At the heart of this work is discovering connections — talking and thinking together to innovate and create breakthroughs.

KIRSTEN HUBER: February 2009 Consultant of the Month

KIRSTEN HUBER offers clients the benefit of twenty years of strategic human resources experience. She has spent her career creating HR infrastructure and designing programs for organizations undergoing significant change, in order to facilitate the necessary change and help organizations achieve their objectives.

For the last eight years she has been providing human resources consulting services to a wide range of private and public sector clients. Kirsten draws on her extensive human resources generalist and management experience as well as excellent analytical and problem-solving skills to advise client management on the HR strategy necessary for their evolving organizations.

Kirsten’s broad-based HR background gained working for diverse organizations and industries contributes to her strong ability to rapidly assess a situation and develop an action plan for addressing issues.

STACEY BERK: January 2009 Consultant of the Month

Organizations trust and turn to STACEY BERK to optimize human capital and strengthen their HR programs and services. Leveraging 12 years of corporate recruitment, human resources and diversity outreach experience, Stacey provides HR consulting and outsourcing services focused on each client’s objectives.

Stacey is highly regarded for taking time to understand each client’s business, mission and strategic direction and integrating HR in context. She carefully advises clients on HR process flow review and analysis, talent acquisition, employee performance, organizational structure, employee relations, compensation and customized training.

Prior to launching her independent practice in 2006, Stacey worked for Gaithersburg, Maryland’s Sodexo, the world leader in food facilities management services. Managing the recruiting program and generalist duties for the 110,000-person company’s corporate headquarters, she also participated on a company-wide diversity panel, devised a diversity outreach plan and participated in a glass ceiling audit. She completed Employment Advisory Council training focused on compensation review and recruitment programs.

JOYCE OLINER: December Consultant of the Month

JOYCE OLINER has 20 years of experience as an employment lawyer. As a partner with Shaw Pittman LLP in the District of Columbia, she counseled management on all types of employment matters. In addition to her counseling practice, Joyce also successfully represented employers in litigation before federal and state agencies around the country on a wide range of employment discrimination issues.

Joyce now concentrates on providing employment law and human resources training programs to the senior executives, managers and staff employees of commercial and non-profit organizations. She has extensive experience as an employment attorney makes her uniquely qualified to provide very practical training that combines both legal principles and real-world situations.

KEVIN NOURSE: November Consultant of the Month

KEVIN NOURSE is a research-based executive coach, organization development consultant, and trainer/facilitator with nearly 20 years of progressive experience in both for-profit and non-profit organizations. He focuses on helping leaders, teams, and organizations become more resilient and sustainable. Kevin is an affiliate of Sharon Armstrong Associates.

He is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) through the International Coach Federation and has over 800 hours of experience working with leaders in the areas of leadership development, career planning and transition, influence, risk-taking, and strategic thinking. Kevin’s consulting experience includes organizational assessments, competency modeling, learning strategy development, retreat design, and team effectiveness. As a trainer, Kevin has facilitated training for a wide range of audiences on negotiation, career management, team dynamics, influence, risk-taking, and leadership.

TOM MORRIS: October Consultant of the Month

TOM MORRIS is certified internationally as a Career Management Fellow. A sought-after trainer, coach, and off-site retreat facilitator, he has an extensive background in interpersonal communications and subjects having to do with career development.

He is known for carefully customized and dynamically interactive training programs, retreats and meetings. Topics he is frequently called on to address include: Emotional Intelligence, Team Building, Change Management, Behavior-Based Interviewing, Coaching and Counseling Skills for Managers and Supervisors, Marketing Yourself after 50: Good News for Gray Hairs, Putting Passion Back in Your Life and Work, Resumes from the Reader’s Point of View, and How to Avoid Being Deselected (in the Hiring Process).

JOAN MATOCHIK: September Consultant of the Month

A professional communications trainer and consultant with 18 years of experience, JOAN MATOCHIK helps employees sharpen their written and verbal communication skills so that they are more productive in the workplace.

As one training workshop participant wrote on her evaluation form: “Joan is a professional communicator who leads by example in her training sessions. She has a thorough knowledge of the English language and is able to instruct others in a dynamic and entertaining way. She makes learning grammar “fun.”

Others have noted that Joan’s passion for her work shines through each training session she delivers with enthusiasm, interest and competence. She not only teaches professional communications skills, she is herself a dynamic communicator who practices what she teaches.

ANNE LOEHR: August Consultant of the Month

ANNE LOEHR came through the “back-door” of leadership development. After graduating from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Management in 1990, Anne Loehr owned and managed international eco-friendly hotels and tour companies for over 15 years, predominantly in Africa.

Frustrated that she couldn’t find top-quality leadership, coaching, and team effectiveness facilitators for her 500 Kenyan employees, she started studying these skills herself. She has since left the hospitality industry and now specializes in executive coaching, training program design, facilitation and organizational culture consulting for both for-profits and non-profits.

Some of her clients include World Bank, Campbell’s, National Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, and Carlson Destination Marketing Services; they enjoy working with her because of her international business background, creativity and sense of humor.

BARBARA QUIST: July Consultant of the Month

For more than twenty years BARBARA QUIST has worked as a coach and a management development consultant to help individuals and organizations improve the way they communicate. Since establishing her own company in 1993, she has worked with clients in the federal government, financial corporations, information technology firms as well as non-profit and educational organizations. She has worked with organizations throughout the United States.

Her focus on coaching and training in Presentation Skills has enabled her to help scores of leaders and executives improve their level of confidence and competency in speaking one-on-one as well as to small and large groups. She provides practical strategies and techniques to enable clients to establish rapport, speak persuasively and with passion, organize ideas, and handle challenging questions with self-assurance. Clients gain confidence as they uncover self-limiting fears, find effective ways to manage them, and channel nervous energy in a positive way.

MARSHALL BROWN: June Consultant of the Month

MARSHALL BROWN is a certified executive and career coach and personal brand strategist. Marshall has always had a passion for helping professionals find ways to succeed in the workplace while living happy and fulfilling lives. Unleashing & Channeling Your Power to Succeed—reflects his commitment to supporting and encouraging his clients to find their passions and unique talents, while seeking additional possibilities to move from mediocre to exceptional. He sets the bar high for himself and others, and is the catalyst for new and breakthrough thinking.

Marshall brings a significant amount of knowledge and experience in coaching, branding, business, marketing and leadership to his work with individual and organizational clients. He serves as a coach to already successful high achievers who enjoy challenging themselves. His clients include association executives, lawyers, health care professionals, CEOs and business entrepreneurs.

NEDRA WEINSTEIN: May Consultant of the Month

NEDRA WEINSTEIN is an organization development specialist who provides a multitude of services to clients both in the private and public sectors – including strategic planning, team and leadership development, change management and large group meeting facilitation.

She is known for her dynamic style and has received accolades for her ability to engage groups in stimulating and thoughtful dialogue. Nedra is frequently called upon to coach teams, managers and leaders that are dealing with challenging and contentious organizational issues. She has been an adjunct faculty member at George Washington University and The American University.

Nedra has worked as an internal consultant for over 17 years providing consulting services for organizations including the Public Broadcasting Service, The Washington Post, MCI Communications, Phillip-Morris and the Virginia Department of Mental Health.

NATALIE LOEB: April Consultant of the Month

NATALIE LOEB is a human resources and training and development professional with more than 20 years experience in employee relations, training program design, implementation, and facilitation. She has been providing training, coaching and consulting services to individual clients for more than 10 years.

Her experience is mainly in the private sector. From 1988 to 1997, she was
employed by the international law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in New York City, New York. At Skadden, Arps, Natalie held various positions within the Human Resources department as part of the Employee Relations and Training and Development teams.

As an expert in employee relations, Natalie had responsibility for the design, development and facilitation of professional development training programs for all levels of support staff and management groups.