I help organizations catalyze innovation, accelerate profitable growth, and find better Ways of Working (WoW) through training and practices from Agility, Behavioral Research, and Design Thinking that move cross-functional teams from forming to performing in ways that lead to Business Agility.
As a certified Agile Coach and member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), I coach entrepreneurs, leaders, and teams from corporate to non-profit who want to increase agility and strategically leverage unique talents and abilities that drive innovation. My experience in behavior science, physics, technology, and people operations makes me uniquely qualified to work with multiple audiences who want to achieve breakthrough performance.
Roles
- Agile Transformation Coach
- Agile Leadership Coach
- Agile Team Coach
- Facilitator, both online and offline
- Trainer
- Training Program Designer
- Organizational Development Coach
Methods and tools I bring
- Organizational Analysis – 9 Dimensions Model
- Systems Behaviour Analysis
- Strategic Doing
- Scrum & Kanban
- Scaled Agile
- Agile Program and Portfolio
- Disciplined Agile
- Training From Back of The Room
Education and certification
2013 – Certified Change Manager, CCMP
2014 – Masters in Human Resource Development, MSC HRD
2018 – Behavior Design Coach (in partnership BJ Fogg from Stanford University)
2018 – Crucial Conversations Facilitator, VitalSmarts
2018 – Certified Professional Coach, CPC (in accordance with ICF standards)
2018 – Professional Scrum Master, PSM I
2018 – Organizational Behavior Studies
2019 – Agile Coaching, ICP-ACC
2019 – Agile Talent, ICP-TAL
2019 – Management 3.0
2019 – Training from the Back of the Room
2020 – Strategic Doing Practitioner, Trainer, and Facilitator
2020 – Certified Master Coach, CMC (in accordance with ICF standards)
2020 – DevOps Leadership, DOL
2020 – Kanban System Design, KMP I
2020 – Scrum@Scale Certified Practitioner
2020 – Certified Disciplined Agilist, CDA
2020 – Leading SAFe 5.0
2020 – Agility in the Enterprise, ICP-ENT
2020 – Coaching Agile Transitions, ICP-CAT
"One of the things that impressed me most about Kari was her passion and energy around helping others be successful. Kari analyzed Apple’s use of the Lominger Competencies and it’s own in-house selling model to create a master training plan for teams. Her agenda was well thought out and she was able to personalize it to each employee’s own natural strengths. This allowed her to communicate the correct selling behaviors in a way that was both relevant and engaging for each employee. The results were astounding! Kari was able to communicate her vision in a compelling way and she provided specific, actionable steps to assist everyone in achieving their goals. The “magic & mystery” of selling were dispelled and employees could easily tie back their results to their behaviors. Not only did the sales of those she mentored drastically improve, but so did their engagement in the store’s success. I found her strategy and implementation to be nothing short of brilliant! I learned a lot from watching her approach and I was truly inspired to live up to the standard she set." "I highly recommend Kari and her group coaching course for existing businesses or small start-ups. The content of the course helped us learn about each other and ourselves which has positively impacted our group dynamics and productivity. Kari’s course gave our team a solid foundation of respect and understanding for each other. Using these tools completely destigmatizes conflict resolution and creates an effective, repeatable path for working past issues that satisfy everybody. The content helped us learn about each other and ourselves which has positively impacted our group dynamics and productivity. This helped bring up so many important things for our team as we start to work together. Kari was insightful and awesome.”
Some of my assignments
Restoring Lives International – Agile Transformation and Team Development, July 2017 – August 2020
Working with leaders and teams to take this growing organization to the next level of effectiveness and impact through uncovering and overcoming organizational structures that were hindering communication, innovation, and productive collaboration. Helping operations and strategy teams transition from waterfall to Agile ways of working using Kanban and methods from Strategic Doing’s approach to Agile Innovation for promoting quick adaptation to changing market conditions and self-organization while increasing time-to-market. Coaching the executive team to adopt an Agile mindset (and how to coach those they lead to adopting an Agile mindset).
Linden Avenue Baptist – Agile Transformation and Team Development, July 2019 – February 2020
Coaching the CEO in Servant Leadership and strategies for enabling strong teams and growing an Agile mindset while overcoming blockers that were hindering team development and organizational agility. Partnering to craft their mission and vision for reaching their next-level through storytelling and strategy workshops in ways that involved everyone’s voice and input so there was strong alignment. Redesigned the organizational structure so it was flatter and introduced Agile ways-of-working for increased autonomy, alignment, and employee engagement.
Construct Connect – Mastermind for People Development Leaders, February 2020
Partnering with the Chief People Officer to create and launch a multi-day facilitated group coaching experience designed to help People Development leaders team uncover and leverage and unleash their capabilities as well as those whom they lead across the organization. Leaders who participated reported an increase in self-awareness and understanding of how their capabilities can be used to increase organizational effectiveness.
Rivertown Brewery – Executive and Culture Coaching, 2017-2019
Coaching the Executive Director (who later became the CEO) on servant leadership strategies and the critical role that an aspiring vision plays in organizational transformation. Creating organizational development strategies, brand make-over, attracting top talent, and launching culture change initiatives that increased internal and external customer engagement and morale through reimagining what’s possible.
O’Keeffe PR – Executive Coaching and Agile Advisement, December 2017 – May 2019
Coaching the Vice President of Operations on organizational development and agile ways of working which led to increased autonomy, alignment, and engagement at the team level. Focusing on organizational behavior and strategies for unleashing the brainpower of an organization through very intentional conversations, interactions, and organizational structures that support creativity and innovation while minimizing risk through discipline and consistency.
Vectre XR – Executive and Team Coaching, January – May 2018
Coaching and training a cross-functional Agile start-up on strategies for transforming into a high performing team with a strong brand that could execute on their vision while leveraging their unique capabilities. The result was a solid set of team working agreements that could support their vision and strengthen their brand, an understanding of leadership and team levels of the conditions required for launching and sustaining a high-performing team, and coaching strategies for sustaining success.
Private clients and masterminds – Entrepreneur women looking for breakthrough results
Coaching leadership B2B and B2C clients who want to increase productivity and happiness while accomplishing goals and dreams they never thought possible through powerful 1:1 coaching that adheres to the ICF (International Coaching Federation).
Apple Retail – Sales Expert, Mentor, and Genius Admin, 2010 – 2013
During my time at Apple, I wore multiple hats. I consistently outperformed company sales goals by 20% while coaching and mentoring new and seasoned sales associates. I developed and implemented a sales training curriculum that we used in our store and spearheaded sales team development strategies to achieve 14% increase in sales metrics. I was also part of the leadership team that oversaw the team of Geniuses (technicians), performed software and hardware repairs as needed, and worked with customers to create Apple promoters.
Alkermes Pharmaceuticals – Learning and Development HR Leader and Coach, 2016 – 2018
Oversaw all site-wide learning and development endeavors and coached cross-functional teams in Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) wanting to move from forming to performing using Agile approaches. Leading a team of Instructional Designers and Learning Management System Administrators, I also spearheaded site-wide change management efforts and partnered with department SMEs to create customized learning and engagement solutions.
Construct Connect – Training and Development HR Manager, 2013 – 2016
While at Construct Connect, I designed and launched multiple Culture Development initiatives in partnership with the VP of HR to promoting personal and professional development as well as lead Change Management initiatives with IT during the Salesforce Zuora Integration. I also developed and managed on-boarding programs that improved new-hire’s time to productivity by 65%.
My open training and interesting projects
Emerald Publishing – Writing book about today’s innovative talent 2020 (ongoing)
ABA Technologies – Using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to create a research-based tool for Agile Teams who want to move quickly from forming to performing – 2020 (ongoing)
Looker Data Sciences (owned by Google) – Facilitated workshop on Collaboration and Neurodiversity in Today’s Workplace, August 2019
University of Cincinnati – Facilitated workshop on Collaboration and Neurodiversity in Today’s Workplace, November 2019
USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) – Facilitated workshop on Collaboration and Neurodiversity in Today’s Workplace, April 2019
Agile People – ICP TAL- Workshop Facilitator, March 2019 – March 2020
Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce – Workshop and Talent Pipeline Consulting December 2018-2019
Management 3.0 – Workshop Facilitator 2019
Pep Promotions – Facilitated Workshops on Listening Skills and Candid Conversations, August 2019
Paycor – Facilitated a Workshop on Wiley’s DiSC Agile EQ training, October 2018
Some of my popular blog posts
Learning Organizations, what it is, and why it matters
The 7 Conditions for effective Agile Leadership Teams
