Is your Vision equal to this moment?
Storms of all kinds are all around us—political, environmental, organizational. The old maps and methods don’t work anymore.
I’ve learned that the people and communities that will thrive when things fall apart aren’t the ones with perfect plans. They’re the ones who lean into curiosity, are able to sit with uncertainty, and find ways to work together.
I’ve weathered my share of storms and know that the stories we tell about them when they arrive shape the futures we have available to live…
If you are trying to change something, don’t fight the existing reality… build new models that make the old ones obsolete.
~Buckminster Fuller
Photo credit: Jen Simpson. Forêt Communale de Bugarach, FR.
Solutions that Work for You
Photo credit: Jen Simpson. Bahía de Banderas, MX.
Wherever you are headed, I meet you where you are and bring decades of executive experience to shaping what comes next.
Field-building. Mission-driven ecosystems can stall or suffer when the organizations working to address a need are disconnected or mis-aligned. I help you lift up from individual efforts to build something more coherent and connected. By building stronger relationships and crafting a collective vision, teams find they can make a bigger difference together. Field-building partnerships work over a longer arc, laying the foundation for lasting transformation and setting you on the path to achieve new levels of impact.
Facilitated Experiences. Make important moments matter more. Whether you are planning a board retreat, gathering stakeholders around an important issue, or moving your team through a big moment, I design and deliver the kind of experiences that turn friction into innovation, surface the conversations that matter, and send people back to work with both commitment and momentum.
Forging the Future. When leaders and teams have a clear vision that isn’t translating into practice, future-focused executive coaching and team-building can help you stop managing present-day pitfalls and start authoring what’s next with intention. We’ll work with the patterns and habits that quietly shape your decisions, the dynamics that keep your team from full alignment, and the capacities you’ll need to get where you are going—and deliver real results, together.
Fractional Freedom. Whether you are scaling, shrinking, or in transition, some seasons call for a seasoned and steady hand, without the weight of a full-time hire. Fractional Freedom delivers just the C-suite experience you need, just when you need it. My specialty is in providing the cultural continuity required during high-stakes leadership transitions and organizational ‘storms.’
Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.
~Alice Walker
About Jen
I have spent more than three decades as a CEO, scholar, and senior executive—leading organizations and the people inside them through the moments that matter most.
I have lived through my own upheavals and guided others through theirs.
From board meetings to community gatherings and side conversations to stakeholder symposia, I’ve learned again and again that we can’t build the future we dream of from inside old ways of seeing.
Change the story, and you begin to change what is possible.
Whatever change you are navigating, looking at the things people say about who you are in a new light, from a different angle, or with a fresh perspective hands you back the pen and reminds you that you are the author of your own story.
Whether you are leading an organization through transition, helping a board make hard decisions, or stepping into a role that asks something different of you than the last one did, I bring a lifetime of lived experience to the work — and a steady, visionary presence to the rooms where the future of an organization, community, or team gets decided.
Photo Credit: Martha Jayne Photography.
Explore the 25 years of practice and insights gathered along the way… All of it informs what’s emerging next.
Find and follow me
In Zen Buddhism a KOAN is a mantra that reveals the inadequacy of logic for reaching enlightenment. It is also a Bold Vision for new ways of living and working together.
Wherever I have worked, I have always found that humans tend to solve our biggest problems most creatively in community. I’m writing, teaching, and partnering with leaders leaning into that call to meet this moment.
If I can help you do the same, let’s talk.
