I have a passion for the outdoors, trees and gardening. I was asked by the chair and founder of Green Minneapolis to join the board of this organization to provide my expertise from my leadership at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Green Minneapolis allows me to utilize my skills in partnering public resources with private resources to drive innovation and outcomes for the public good. I love how Green Minneapolis connects and addresses issues related to environment, livability, and equal access to green space in downtown Minneapolis. Specifically, I am leading Green Minneapolis' work in the carbon offset supply chain by creating a market for local companies to buy carbon credits from trees planted to expand the urban tree canopy. Our first project for Climate Resiliency Initiative is underway in partnership with Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to certify the planting of 24,000 trees with City Forest Credits and secure one or more local Fortune 500 companies as buyers of carbon credits to fund the planting of these trees. Green Minneapolis' Climate Resiliency Initiative’s goal is to plant 5 million trees across the 7-county metro area over the next 20 years, increasing the Twin Cities tree canopy by ~30%, sequestering thousands of tons of carbon and mitigating the most severe impacts of climate change on Twin Cities residents.

Microgigantic--yep that's the name my two business partners came up with for our company. Besides being catchy and a source of innuendo, the name and branding were perfectly relevant. We built a business that was relatively small and nimble, yet fully capable of supporting Fortune 500 clients. We focused on helping our clients successfully develop digital content strategy, produce high-end digital content, and ultimately activate that content though branding, marketing and sales channels. And we had some specialties that helped us stand out in a crowded market: expertise in creating experiences using digital signage and seasoned filmmaking skills for telling exceptional stories.My job from the start was to develop the growth strategy for the business and make sure we implemented operational capabilities to support it. That meant defining and clarifying the services we offered and the markets we served. I drew upon my experience in B2B sales transformation to create a line of business that focused on producing effective digital content to support complex B2B sales for industries like medical devices, health care technology, software, and financial services. I implemented a structured approach to business development and partnerships. I also was responsible for all things financial, legal, and operational allowing our awesome staff to stay focused on creative work.In 2020, we dealt with curveballs just like everyone else and stayed focused on our financial position, core business, and strategic partners. We did well enough to attract a buyer for the business and I guided the company through negotiating the business terms, finalizing legal paperwork, and closing the sale at the end of the year.

The last two years with Accenture were an incredibly rewarding capstone to a long career. I was asked to return to the Central Region to invigorate growth and take the team and talent in management consulting up a notch or two. I did this successfully in Pacific and now my leadership asked me to do it again. Initially I had a team of six managing directors. After two years of adjustments I had a team of ten with only two remaining from the original team. Our revenue as a business unit grew from $46m to $102m.Even more rewarding than leading the region practice was serving as an account leader for Sprint, one of our largest accounts in the region. I was responsible for leading our most strategic work for Sprint. The most significant program was helping Sprint drive $4B in cost out of their business in preparation for the merger with T-Mobile while preserving profitable revenue. Personally, I was engaged leading the front-office component of the program where we identified and executed on $1B of transformation opportunities in sales, marketing and customer service. I was fortunate to have an excellent team of over 20 management consultants supporting me across all areas of the program as I met with Sprint's cross-function leadership team weekly to share new ideas and progress on in-flight initiatives. Our success on this program furthered our relationship with Sprint and in the next two years our business grew fivefold.

In 2008, Accenture made a strategic decision to scale and broaden its management consulting brand and capabilities. In the previous five years this practice area was a boutique focused on high-end strategy work. A change in direction required building depth and strength in industry and functional domains.As part of this change, I was asked to use my expertise in sales, marketing, and service strategy and operations to focus on building our capabilities in management consulting on the West Coast in the high technology industry sectors. I was thrilled by the opportunity to build a practice and a P/L in a region that has high technology hot beds like Silicon Valley and Seattle. I built a diverse team of 15 managing directors and 200 consulting professionals that grew the business from $30m to $110m.I also had specific account management responsibility at Microsoft. This included a portfolio of management consulting across the account which included a variety of work such as product strategy, technology strategy, sales effectiveness, partner channels, talent management, and service operations design. Our team grew the business to over $40m annually in management consulting revenue--almost a third of the revenue for this segment in the Pacific Region.

Managing Director for Accenture's Customer Relationship Management business consulting practice for the Communications and High Tech sector in North America. Grew this business unit from $150m to over $300m and from 400 to nearly 800 management consultants providing strategic and operational solutions to improve marketing, sales and service operations.