Heather Smith brings a deep operational knowledge of people, change and culture initiatives and a successful record of creating engaging and fulfilling employee learning experiences. She excels at innovative learning design and delivery strategies, communication planning and team leadership. With a background in professional services and management consulting, Heather brings 20+ years of experience to help clients meet strategic business goals through learning and development solutions. Heather combines proven professional development strategies with creative learning and program approaches to ensure outcomes are achieved and employee engagement increases.
 
Heather was recently Senior Vice President of Organization Development at a healthcare services firm, responsible for talent development for 20,000 associates globally and leading a team of 20 talent and learning professionals. In addition, she was responsible for delivering change management and communication strategy for M&A initiatives, supporting employee transition/re-badging for associates at local hospitals, and leading internal systems transformations. She also led a two-year intensive culture initiative to build the foundation for the company’s new mission, vision and values. Through resources such as a leader scorecard, global champion network, quarterly values recognition program and values education, the company achieved increased retention and employee satisfaction.
 
Prior to her leadership role in Organization Development, Heather was an independent consultant, working with clients in various industries to help identify their needs and recommend effective change and learning solutions. Heather successfully managed numerous projects including: a client on-boarding program at a software analytics company, a leadership development program at a Fortune 500 insurance brokerage, a change leadership strategy and workshop at a large beverage distributor, a change management organization design at a healthcare analytics firm, and an experiential sales training program at a real estate investment trust, which expanded to include shaping the organization’s learning culture. In order to establish a new learning culture, Heather helped leadership define the learning strategy and execute on it through learning needs assessment, curriculum design and the design and development of numerous core and specialty courses. She is well-known for integrating problem-based learning strategies into character scenarios in order to provide compelling content in workshop experiences.
 
Prior to consulting independently, Heather spent several years with Price Waterhouse and Andersen Consulting in various roles from a Change Integration Consultant in the SAP practice to Process Consulting Program Manager. She was an integral member of the team that formed the SAP client curriculum for the Price Waterhouse Global Training Center. Heather also spent several years as a trainer and instructional designer with the global bank, ABN AMRO, in their corporate training group.

Heather is currently based in Chicago, Illinois, and Scottsdale, Arizona.
 

Certification

• Center for Creative Leadership 360
• DiSC

Education

• Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Bowling Green State University

Practice Areas

• Organizational Development
• Change Management
• Communications
• Conflict Resolution & Team Intervention
• Executive Team Coaching
• Leadership Development