Sterling Consulting

Emily has served as a strategic thought partner to thousands of innovative and influential philanthropists, community leaders, social entrepreneurs, nonprofits, boards, corporations, and governments for over 30 years. Before moving into sole advisor work through Sterling Consulting, Emily was the Founder & CEO of Olive Grove. Emily provides a comprehensive range of services to philanthropists and nonprofit boards and CEOs (strategy, governance, growth plans, founder transitions, coaching, collaboration, interim/fractional leadership and more). She enjoys supporting donor circles, funder and nonprofit collaboratives, and collective impact initiatives that provide higher leverage toward outcomes. Her interest is working with highly innovative, paradigm-shifting projects and ideas. She partners with those who are driven to challenge historical assumptions and approaches, and who are motivated to work in collaboration with others to generate, catalyze, and test ideas that excite and challenge. Emily is known as a trusted and knowledgeable advisor who can quickly distill complex information into clear patterns and options, and who supports leaders to make the right choices, not necessarily the easy ones. She thrives on new and big ideas, and has the experience and know-how to move them into action. Emily has made a 25-year study of what actually enables change and moving from ideas to action - and what builds both impact and resilience at a personal, organizational, and systems level. Emily is an engaging presenter, interviewer and panel participant at conferences and events with a core audience of philanthropists, entrepreneurs, CEOs, board members, and influencers. Emily has served on several nonprofit boards, and is open to private/corporate board placement.