You have better things to do than babysit a transformation.
Let me take it from here.
When the right person is in the room, the org stops fighting itself. Decisions move. Teams align. The work that's been stuck lands. You notice it before you can measure it — and then you measure it.
Every engagement is different. The history, the friction, the reasons nothing is moving. The answer lives in the people doing the work.
It's what I found at Vera Bradley, Abercrombie & Fitch, Barnes & Noble, and Toys R Us.
Find the tension, resolve it, and leave before anyone gets too comfortable.
If you know, you know.
You keep a short list of people you trust. You add to it carefully. This is for that list.
How I Work
The Problem.
Something is always wrong before I arrive. The question is whether anyone has named it yet. I find it — usually underneath the conflict everyone's been managing instead of solving.
The Work.
Fixing the experience isn't enough. I look at everything connected to it — the org, the systems, the spend — and remove what doesn't belong. The work gets cleaner. So does the P&L.
The Proof.
The goal is never to be needed. It's to build something that works without me. When I leave, nothing breaks. No calls. No questions. No cleanup.
Ring any bells?
Warm enough to earn the truth. Clear-eyed enough to act on it.
I love this work.
Not the version of it that sounds good in a bio — the strategy, the transformation, the impact. The actual work. Getting to what's really blocking progress. Then finding creative ways to fix it.
I'm based in Fort Wayne, Indiana with my husband Aaron and our daughter Ellie. Aaron is a firefighter. Ellie is four and already running the house. Outside of work I watercolor paint, practice hot yoga, and play golf — results vary.
I write on the side. Under the name Nell Beckett I publish They Don't Tell You This Part — a Substack for women in the first half of their careers who were told the work would speak for itself. Saying the true thing to the people who need to hear it. That's what I do here too.
Still here? Me too.