Matthew Barker Email & Phone Number

My love of communicating came naturally to me. My mom says I was born talking, and since grade school I’ve loved writing. I’ve won essay contests in middle school and high school. In college I took every communications and creative writing class they offered, earning me two of my three minors: Communications, English, and Philosophy. I majored in World History because – as I now understand – I craved the context that good communication requires: We speak more effectively to people if we know why they’re here, how they got there, and where they’re going.My love of leadership also came naturally to me. If you name a 80’s or 90’s cartoon hero team, as a kid I Halloween cosplayed their leader – Leonardo, Optimus Prime, Lion-O, you name it. But it was my grandfather who taught me the fundamentals of leadership: values-based decisions, hard work, honesty, active listening, creative problem-solving, and especially the importance of investing in people. I learned these lessons watching him run his manufacturing business, where I worked until graduating from college. I remember him pulling employees without high school degrees off the assembly line to tutor them in math – while still paying them – so they could earn their GED’s and get better jobs. When I asked him why he said, “Get involved, help people, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”Throughout my career I’ve worked hard to connect my passions to that advice:• I’ve attained over 10,000 hours of coaching and leadership experience, allowing me to guide organizations through complex people problems, crisis management, and effective change management.• I’ve honed my communications skills, using presentations and digital and print media to foster collaborative, values-driven cultures, that practiced empathy and creative-problem solving.• Put together, these skills allowed me grow my last organization an average of 20% per year over 11 years, while retaining 90% of its membership, staff, and volunteers.All of this required me to continually learn and challenge my assumptions: I had to read. I had to listen. I had to be flexible and patient. And I had to help my team do the same. Through this I’ve learned my grandfather was right: Get involved, help people, and you’ll never work a day in your life. As I pursue the next stages of my career, I would like to keep putting this philosophy and my skills to use. If you’re at all interested in communications (internal or external) or leadership development, we should connect. Send me a DM and let’s chat!