Michael Buffington Email & Phone Number

Advisor and consultant to stealth startups and Venture Capitalists. Designs Learning and Development strategies that will support founders with their needs today, tomorrow and for the long play. Designs strategies that help founders reduce employee churn; help teams grow and adapt faster; and help prepare employees to step into leadership roles quickly and successfully. The latter will be especially important when a company starts to take off and there’s sudden pressure to scale the business. Note: A recent study by PwC found that millennials consider learning and development to be the most important benefit their employer can provide. Provides Learning and Talent Development consultation and support to clients across technology, banking, insurance, utilities, and life sciences. Designs, develops, and delivers a wide range of L&D solutions. Specialties include: new hire orientations and onboarding programs; career development, employee development, and leadership development; team interventions and team effectiveness programs; coaching and mentoring, and coaching and mentoring programs; and sales enablement. Adept at designing sales training, product training, customer service training, soft skills training and technical training. Brings a deep background in instructional design best practices and emerging trends—instructional systems design (ISD) frameworks e.g. ADDIE; Blooms Taxonomy, the Kirkpatrick model, and adult learning theory; eLearning, instructor-led training, self-guided learning, virtual learning, on-demand learning, micro learning, and nudges; experiential and blended learning solutions; and eLearning authoring tools.Project manager. Leads cross-functional teams and manages projects of varying complexity. Record of success in achieving results. Known for exceeding project goals and stakeholder expectations.

San Francisco, California, Us

Established the Learning and Development function at Pinterest. Put learning and development infrastructure in place, including a learning management system (Matrix) and other technology; instructional design standards; design planning and project management tools; and best practices and processes, such as weekly team meetings, weekly one on one sessions with direct reports, weekly progress report on all learning and talent development initiatives, and other team norms.Defined, evangelized and drove vision and strategy for all Learning and Development efforts across Pinterest. Led initiatives to attract, engage, and retain Pinterest employees and make Pinterest the best place to learn and grow. Partnered with leadership across Engineering, Sales, Operations and the People Team organizations to ensure that L&D priorities were aligned with business objectives. Built executive-level support and alignment around the strategy, and secured their active engagement in all L&D programs and initiatives. Delivered learning solutions that effectively supported Pinterest employees in acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge needed to achieve individual performance goals and the desired business results. Established key measures for success across learning programs and initiatives; continually assessed the impact to ensure desired goals were being met; and reported results to executives. People leader. Led a talented and motivated team with varying levels of experience. Selected, secured and managed vendor relationships. Planned and managed a $1+ million budget. Ensured that resources were aligned appropriately to support L&D objectives. During Q2 and Q3, delivered...• 15 multi-day orientation and onboarding sessions to 750+ new hires• 11 different instructor-led learning programs to 2000+ participants• 50+ instructor-led sessions, ranging from 1 hour to 4 daysand launched...• 4 new programs in September and October• 22 executive coaching engagements

Advisor and consultant to stealth startups and Venture Capitalists. Designed Learning and Development strategies that will support founders with their needs today, tomorrow and for the long play. Designed strategies that will help founders reduce employee churn; help teams grow and adapt faster; and help prepare employees to step into leadership roles quickly and successfully. The latter will be especially important when a company starts to take off and there’s sudden pressure to scale the business. Provided Learning and Talent Development consultation and support to clients across technology, banking, insurance, utilities, and life sciences. Designed, developed, and delivered a wide range of L&D solutions. Specialties include: new hire orientations and onboarding programs; career development, employee development, and leadership development; team interventions and team effectiveness programs; coaching and mentoring, and coaching and mentoring programs; and sales enablement. Adept at designing sales training, product training, customer service training, soft skills training and technical training. Brings a deep background in instructional design best practices and emerging trends—instructional systems design (ISD) frameworks e.g. ADDIE; Blooms Taxonomy, the Kirkpatrick model, and adult learning theory; eLearning, instructor-led training, self-guided learning, virtual learning, on-demand learning, micro learning, and nudges; experiential and blended learning solutions; and eLearning authoring tools.Project manager. Led cross-functional teams and managed projects of varying complexity. Record of success in achieving results. Known for exceeding project goals and stakeholder expectations.

Mountain View, Ca, Us

Established the Learning and Development function for Partner Business Solutions (PBS), a global sales organization within Google that generated $15B in annual revenue.Developed and drove the L&D strategy. Partnered with VP-level stakeholders and HR to ensure that L&D priorities were aligned with business objectives. Built senior leadership support and alignment around the strategy, and active engagement in all L&D programs and initiatives. Delivered scalable learning solutions that effectively supported Googlers around the world in acquiring the skills and knowledge needed to achieve individual performance goals and the desired business results. Established key measures for success across learning programs; continually assessed the impact to ensure desired goals were being met; and reported results to executives.People leader. Led a talented and motivated team with varying levels of experience. Selected, secured and managed vendor relationships. Prepared budget projections and managed a $1+ million budget. Ensured that resources were aligned appropriately to support L&D objectives.During my first six months, led a cross-organizational team in the design, development and global delivery of a three-day, experiential workshop for 450 of Google’s most senior salespeople on how to negotiate and structure complex deals. Following the rollout of this workshop, deal submission quality improved by 96% and there were fewer than 10% policy violations. Developed competency models, skill maps and curriculum plans/career paths for each role in the organization. Used the resulting skills and knowledge inventory to conduct a needs analysis to identify skills and knowledge gaps. Used findings along with observations from senior leadership and HRBPs, as well as findings from the annual employee engagement survey and a skills assessment survey (that I designed) to inform the L&D strategy, L&D priorities and OKRs.

Mountain View, Ca, Us

Created product and sales training for Google employees. Coached the product team on how to create effective product training based on instructional design best practices, including how to write learning objectives, how to measure effectiveness and success using the Kirkpatrick Model, how to design experiential activities, etc. Met with stakeholders to build relationships and gather information on the learning experience—what training is available in each region, what’s working and what’s not working so well.Project manager. Led cross-functional teams and managed projects of varying complexity. Record of success in achieving results. Known for exceeding project goals and stakeholder expectations.

Provided Learning and Talent Development consultation and support to clients across technology, banking, insurance, utilities, and life sciences. Led talent development + talent management programs such as HiPo, key talent pipeline and succession planning, as well as performance management programs. Designed, developed, and delivered a wide range of L&D solutions. Specialties included: new hire orientations and onboarding programs; career development, employee development, and leadership development; team interventions and team effectiveness solutions; coaching and mentoring, and coaching and mentoring programs; and sales enablement. Adept at sales, product, customer service, soft skills and technical training. Brings a deep background in instructional design best practices and emerging trends—instructional systems design (ISD) frameworks, Blooms Taxonomy, the Kirkpatrick model, and adult learning theory; eLearning, instructor-led training, self-guided learning, virtual learning, on-demand learning, micro learning, and nudges; experiential and blended learning solutions; and eLearning authoring tools.Developed competency models, skill maps and curriculum plans/career paths. Used the resulting skills and knowledge inventory to conduct comprehensive, organization-wide needs analyses to identify skills, knowledge and behavioral gaps. Used findings along with observations from senior leadership and HRBPs, and findings from employee engagement surveys and other data points to inform learning and talent development strategies, priorities and KPIs/OKRs that helped ensure executives, managers and employees acquired the skills, knowledge and behaviors they needed to achieve individual performance goals and the desired business results.Project manager. Led cross-functional teams and managed projects of varying complexity. Record of success in achieving results. Known for exceeding project goals and stakeholder expectations.

Cupertino, California, Us

Global Retail TrainingDesigned and developed L&D solutions for Apple's 40,000+ retail employees located throughout 14 countries. Produced a wide range of solutions, including new hire orientations and onboarding programs; career development, employee development, and leadership development curricula; mentoring programs; and sales training, product training, customer service training, soft skills training and technical training. Designed and developed solutions in a variety of formats, including eLearning, instructor-led training, self-guided learning, virtual learning, on-demand learning, micro learning and nudges; and experiential and blended learning solutions.Created numerous manuals, user guides, job aids, facilitator and participant guides, and other ad hoc training material. Designed, developed and served as program manager for the new manager onboarding program for Apple retail stores.Designed an innovate, creative and cost effective solution to develop store leaders using iBooks and iOS (iPhone Operating System) technology.World Wide Channel Partner Sales TrainingApple’s worldwide channel partner sales force was growing exponentially. Channel partner sales accounted for a majority of the company’s revenue. The tech giant needed solutions to engage, train and motivate this global sales force in order to help sustain the momentum in sales.Designed and developed curricula that fit the diverse regional needs and requirements for a global sales force of 600,000 in developed and emerging markets. Created training solutions and tools, including gamification apps, that motivated channel partner sales staff to advocate and sell Apple products over competitor products in a highly competitive and commission-based environment.Project manager. Led cross-functional teams and managed projects of varying complexity. Record of success in achieving results. Known for exceeding project goals and stakeholder expectations.

Provided Corporate Communications and Learning & Talent Development consultation, support and solutions to clients across technology, banking, insurance, utilities, and life sciences.Learning and Talent Development. Specialities included: VP-level stakeholder management; cross-functional project team leadership; change management; new hire orientations and onboarding programs; career development, employee development, and leadership development; team interventions and effectiveness; coaching and mentoring programs; sales enablement; competency development, skills maps, and curriculum plans (career pathing); LMS administration; HiPo programs; employee engagement; business acumen; performance management; and much more.Designed, developed, and delivered Learning and Development solutions. Specialties included: sales training, product training, customer service training, soft skills training and technical training. Deep background in instructional design best practices and emerging trends—instructional systems design (ISD) frameworks e.g. ADDIE; Blooms Taxonomy, the Kirkpatrick model, and adult learning theory; eLearning, instructor-led training, self-guided learning, on-demand learning, and micro learning; experiential and blended learning solutions; and eLearning authoring tools. Created numerous manuals, user guides, job aids, facilitator and participant guides, and other ad hoc training material. Developed design standards and style guides for use in creating manuals, user guides, job aids, and facilitator and participant guides.Corporate communications consultant. Specialties included: HR communications, employee communication campaigns, executive communications, and change management communication campaigns; copywriting; technical writing; and speechwriting.Project manager. Led cross-functional teams and managed projects of varying complexity. Record of success in achieving results. Known for exceeding project goals and stakeholder expectations.