Organizational Development, Commmunications and Change Management

Valerie Abl
Strategy consultant and change manager
For more than 15 years, everywhere Valerie looked she saw change. Likely, because she had something to do with causing it. With training in Sociology, Psychology and Mathematics, Valeries also sees a lot of sides to any given issue. Her skills have helped her with leadership and organizational development, with high-level problem solving and high-performance team building. With an advanced knowledge of human resources and human behavior, Valerie consistently helps her clients appraise, appreciate and adopt positive changes.

Steve Alexander
Government affairs and management consultant
Steve Alexander can tell you how the big wheels turn. A Loyola MBA with more than 20 years representing business and third sector (e.g. volunteer, non-profit) clients on Capitol Hill and in State Houses across America, Steve has been with his clients on the front of a number of headline events. As founder and President of Washington D.C.'s The CMR Group, Steve provides strategic advice and counsel to organizations who need to come before our legislative and executive branches of government.

Dr. Laura Belsten
Executive Coach
Dr. Laura Belsten works with intelligent, high-achieving, over-worked executives, managers and leaders to navigate the whitewater conditions and rocky shoals of life in the world of business today. With her background in communication, management and leadership, Laura helps executives with their influencing and negotiating skills, conflict management, team-building, political and organizational savvy, emotional and social intelligence, decision-making and problem-solving skills, as well as their strategic, critical and visionary thinking - all aspects of what makes up today's successful executive. Laura holds the highest coaching credential awarded by the International Coach Federation, the Master Certified Coach (MCC) and is a professionally trained mediator. On the faculty at the University of Denver since 1990, her popular courses in leadership, communication, coaching, emotional intelligence and conflict management have sold out for over 17 years. She is the author of the best-selling Coaching Emotional Intelligence and has developed one of the nation's leading emotional intelligence tests, the Emotional Intelligence Profile.

Wendy Boyer
Facilitator, consultant
Wendy Boyer brings more to facilitation than a Masters Degree and 12 years experience in learning and organizational development. She brings a rare combination of bare integrity and a passion for improvement. Wendy – herself an avid learner – joins adult learning theories with a practical in-the-field approach to the realities of today's business environment. It allows her to help people get a deep understanding of their organizations and find real solutions for the challenges they face.

Nikki Carpenter
Leadership consultant and coach
Nikki is passionate about helping leaders discover and maximize their strengths and creativity. She believes that leadership is a powerful opportunity to embrace challenge and change as paths to personal and organizational wholeness and inspired service. Nikki helps pave the way for leaders to speak more confidently, give more effective feedback, create stronger more dynamic teams and realize their vision for leadership service and excellence. Her numerous certifications, knowledge and background enables her to call upon mastery and apply techniques where they will yield the most inspired results.

Kathleen Clevenger
Project and program support
Kathleen Clevenger, MSM, has more than 18 years of business experience, including 10 years inside a Fortune 500 company. Kathleen built up her expertise in corporate training and development, project management, marketing and administration from years of work in small and large businesses, as well as time spent on the front lines of start-up efforts. Kathleen holds a master’s degree in Management from Regis University and a bachelor’s degree in Business Education from the University of Wyoming.

Tom Curren
Executive Coach
Tom Curren is trained as a coach and senior “thinking partner” and has worked with dozens of CEOs and other top-level executives. In addition to advising based on his own experiences, he helps executives discover their own answers through the use of powerful questions, reflective listening, challenging of assumptions, and holding executives accountable for delivering on what they say they want and need. Tom’s resume includes: MBA Wharton Graduate Division, 1967. Finance and Marketing, with honors. Also a B.A. from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Compton Advertising, for Procter & Gamble, 1971-73. McKinsey & Company, 1973-77. Senior Engagement Manager. Marriott Corporation, SVP Strategy Development, 1977-90. Helped the Company grow from $1 billion to $7 billion. Member of the Finance Committee.

Kelly Dignan
Leadership consultant and coach
Kelly Dignan combines her 22 years of experience in business operations and business development with a lifelong passion for helping customers. She began her career with large companies including Procter and Gamble, Computer Associates and General Electric. In 1992, she co-founded CONNECT: The Knowledge Network, an Information Technology consulting and recruiting company. Kelly managed all aspects of the business and taught courses nation-wide on team and leadership development, corporate culture, hiring, and career planning. She currently teaches Mapping Your Success and Managing for Impact for the Women’s Vision Foundation. Kelly was named one of Denver's 40 under 40 Business Leaders in 1999 by The Denver Business Journal. She received an honors degree from the University of Michigan in Marketing. She is a trained coach and is certified to administer the Highlands Abilities Assessment. She is Chair of the Programs Committee for the Women's Vision Foundation, mentor for MBA students at Daniels School of Business (University of Denver), and Chair of the Littleton Public Schools Business and Marketing Advisory Committee.

Brian Gast
Management consultant
Brian Gast has 27 years of business, corporate and entrepreneurial experience. He provides one-on-one and top team alignment facilitation to senior executives and entrepreneurs ranging from one-person investment companies to venture capital-backed high-growth companies and senior executives and teams. Brian's work focuses on improving leadership effectiveness with a focus on relationships, communication, personal accountability and self mastery. He has twelve years of experience as a CEO of both private and publicly traded companies, primarily in the banking, investment and telecommunications industries. The companies Brian has led or founded have employed hundreds of people, been spread across the US and one has been ranked in the top 20 of Inc Magazine's list of 100 Fastest Growing Public Companies.

Patricia Kennedy
Communications and marketing consultant
Patricia Kennedy has three decades of real-world experience working with everything from advocacy groups to the bluest of Blue Chips. Senior executives call on her to help with strategic planning, leadership development, market research, branding, public relations, promotional campaigns and with building integrated communication programs. She is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

Gretchen Mary Krampf
Management consultant and executive coach
Gretchen Mary Krampf, MSOD, PCC, founder and president of ProcessExperts, has thirty years experience in the fields of education, behavioral science, leadership development and business management.  Gretchen works with entrepreneurs, executives, educators, organizational leaders and their teams. A Process Consultant and Facilitator, she uses a systems thinking approach in guiding clients to vision, identify success strategies and create environments for individual and organizational innovation, accelerated learning and process improvement initiatives. An accredited Leadership Coach, Gretchen coaches individuals and teams, with a specialty in coaching high-performing, high-achieving women.

Ulric Rudebeck
Graphics facilitator, executive coach and management consultant
Ulric Rudebeck may be the definition of the ground-up consultant. Ulric's early proficiencies include economics, systems theory and statistics — he even trained as a mechanical engineer. Over his 20 years in management, Ulric has seen the inside and outside of public and private sector organizations up close and personal. These days, Ulric focuses on executive teams, strategic visionary work, business planning, organizational development and change processes for clients on four continents.

Barry Shapiro
Communications and management consultant
Barry is a catalyst for change. He believes that the world’s problems will ultimately be solved through a series of effectively facilitated conversations. Barry spent the first half of his career working within the walls of psychiatric treatment facilities and the second half of his career working within the walls of Corporate America. As a result, Barry understands how to work with clients to improve both their health and their effectiveness.  In his spare time, Barry is the host of the award winning cable television program called Mind Matters and author with several articles and books to his credit.

Emily Stewart
Government affairs and consultant
Emily Stewart is an independent consultant with a background in education and experience in the third sector. Emily specializes in systems thinking about complex issues and grounds this thinking with a strong academic foundation. She has experience building consensus with diverse groups that share common goals and believes in doing well by doing good. She also believes in playing outside.

John Tedstrom
Marketing, communications and management consultant
John Tedstrom is the Managing Director of Strategic Development for Hawkeye | FFWD, and is an Alchemy Affiliate Partner. John's put together more than 20 years of experience in strategic planning, direct & database marketing, loyalty marketing, channel and integrated marketing, customer relationship management, and promotion. John gets to the heart of an organization's issues by combining his experience in an array of industries with a facilitator's ability to listen and understand client input.

Chris Trani
Management consultant and executive coach
Nearly 15 years ago, Chris Trani parlayed a career in one of the most difficult jobs in human interaction - that of an oncology nurse - into a career as an internal and independent consultant on hundreds of change and transition projects for finance, healthcare and technology companies. Her obvious skill in working with and coaching individuals going through personal and professional changes has served her enormously when consulting with teams and larger organizations. Combined with her excellent presentation and facilitation skills, Chris' relentless focus on designing conversations inevitably leads to accountability and positive actions and results.

Strategic Illustration

Bill Hinsch
Senior illustrator, business visualist, and artist
Bill Hinsch is the original learning map artist and the most experienced practitioner of this unique art form worldwide, with over 500 domestic and international projects under his belt. In 1991, Bill formed and created the Learning Map concept, the ideal vehicle for communicating rich strategic content in corporate and customer milieus. This highly visual form helps align the entire organization from top to bottom and its process development provides direction and guidance to senior leaders around new direction, strategy, or change initiatives. Bill has taken the Learning Map concept into corporate board rooms, manufacturing shop floors and designer buildings all to support and inform corporate strategy and design.

It does not stop for this innovative renaissance man – Bill also has a diverse background including professional work in journalism and newspaper, communications and PR, training, as a painter and portrait artist with gallery showings in several museums and many private collections. His current work takes him all over the world and while his studio and home is in Perrysburg, Ohio.

Julie Primozich
Senior illustrator
If a picture is worth a thousand words, it's only because the artist knew what she was doing. Julie has been doing it for two decades. With a decorated history as an art director, illustrator and educator, Julie has proven over and again how to communicate ideas in a rewarding, compelling way. These days, she's one of our top graphic recorders, helping organizations of all sorts make sense of their ideas.

Sabine Soeder
Graphic Facilitation
Sabine has more than 17 years of experience as architect and lighting designer. With her professional background she is has the ability to transform ideas, visions and strategies into simple, clear images. Through pictures we can comprehend the sense of words in a “sustainable” way. How can we find a common language behind the words, behind different languages? Graphic Recording is for her like being a catalyst, making spoken processes visible.

Scott Ward
Senior illustrator and artist
Demonstrating that creativity is perhaps the most flexible talent, Scott's commercial projects over nearly three decades have ranged across fields like advertising, theatre, apparel and landscape design. In addition to being a fine artist, Scott has spent the last 12 years facilitating creativity groups in the Pacific Northwest and other places where innovative thinking abounds.

Kriss Wittmann
Senior illustrator
Kriss is a human highlighter. One of the best graphic recorders in the industry, Kriss works with business, government and non-profit clients in almost every setting imaginable. Her 17 years in higher education and corporate training helps her bring superb listening and conceptualization skills, as well as business acumen to her graphic recordings.