Selected client engagements

Turning Points in Practice

These are selected engagements I have led with organizations navigating consequential moments of change. Each story shows what the organization was facing, the role I was brought in to play, how I approached the work, and what changed as a result.

The situations are different. The common thread is a moment when the organization could not simply keep operating as it had before.

Explore by turning point

Six engagements across arts and culture, higher education, associations, insurance, and public history.

Arts & Culture Nonprofit

Mergers & Integration

Two Organizations. One Building. No Shared Identity Yet.

Two arts organizations with distinct histories, loyal stakeholders, and decades of separate culture had been brought together under one roof and one name. The merger had closed on paper. What no one had done was decide who they were now.

My role: I advised the executive team and facilitated the identity, values, and strategy work that the merger agreement could not resolve.
What changed: A published mission, vision, values, and four strategic pillars the staff helped author and now use.

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Higher Education · Community College

Leadership & New Direction

A New President. A Community Watching. A Decade to Define.

A community college that had served its region for generations welcomed a new president. The instinct in that moment is to plan fast and announce boldly. The risk is a strategy that belongs to one leader instead of an entire institution.

My role: I designed and facilitated the institution-wide planning process that gave a new president a mandate rather than a personal agenda.
What changed: A published Strategic Foundation with five pillars and named enrollment, retention, and partnership targets.

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Association · National Membership Organization

Strategy & Organizational Evolution

Relevant to Whom? Sustained by What?

A national association serving government communicators sensed the landscape shifting beneath it. There was no crisis, which made the turning point harder to name: incremental adjustments to the existing plan were no longer enough.

My role: I designed and led the board's strategic planning process, from current-reality assessment through a five-year plan.
What changed: A published 2025 to 2030 strategic plan with four priorities and a roadmap the board owns.

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Association Management · Woman-Owned Company

Strategy & Organizational Evolution

A Decade of Growth. A Question Worth Answering: Who Are We Now?

A woman-owned association management company had built a real reputation over a decade. What they had not done was pause to ask whether the words they used to describe themselves still matched what they had become.

My role: I designed and facilitated a two-day executive session on identity, purpose, and the values the next decade would be built on.
What changed: Live mission language and a new core value the leadership team authored and can explain.

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Insurance · Enterprise Carriers

Mergers & Integration

Two Companies, One Path Forward: Building Shared Services

Two enterprise insurance companies could see real efficiencies in shared HR, finance, and IT. Capturing them meant something harder than cutting a budget line: asking two organizations to share functions that had always been their own.

My role: I partnered with both organizations to move shared services from concept to operating reality, and led the cultural work that made it hold.
What changed: Shared HR, finance, and IT operations built on processes both sides helped define, with trust intact.

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Public History · State Historic Site

Culture, Trust & Alignment

A Name at a Crossroads: Whose History Does a Site Belong To?

The Minnesota Historical Society had expanded the story told at Historic Fort Snelling. The turning point was not whether to tell those histories, but whether the site's name itself could hold them, with funding and public trust in play.

My role: This engagement illustrates the stakeholder engagement and decision-framework approach I lead when a public decision carries real community consequence.
What changed: A contested decision made transparently, with public accountability strengthened rather than spent.

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Your turning point

What is changing in your organization?

You may not yet know whether the answer is strategic planning, facilitation, integration support, or something else. That is often where the work begins: understanding what has changed, what is at stake, and what this moment requires.

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