Olivia is a Sales Consultant specializing in Learning and Performance. She is an independent contractor who brings credibility, candour and compassion to help the people she works with make their good lives great. Her enduring interest in developing human potential – from obtaining a degree in Management Science, to becoming a certified executive coach, to post graduate courses in the neuroscience of leadership – allows Olivia to match her passion for performance with her desire to pursue possibilities. She is a Certified Professional of Talent Development with the Association for Talent Development, a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation, a Master Certified Trainer of the Challenger TM Selling Model, a Master Coach with The Mind Gym, and previously a Coach, Trainer, Mentor and Assessor with the NeuroLeadership Institute.
Experience
An experienced consultant, facilitator and coach, Olivia works with organisations in behavioural change, combining the latest findings from sales effectiveness and neuroscience to help improve thinking. Her current focus in on driving revenue, reducing costs and avoiding risk throughout the organizational or individual learning journey. She has worked for and with global organisations for over 30 years in various sales, learning and development capacities. She has trained 100’s of individuals on International Coach Federation (ICF) Accredited coaching programmes using the Results Coaching Systems methodology, and 100’s more on the PAUSE methodology from Challenger, Inc. Olivia is also a Professional Certified Coach with the ICF and is an active member of both the Washington, DC and Richmond, VA chapters.
Olivia has worked with four consultancies to create or improve their sales management development training offerings. As Subject Matter Expert (SME), Product Development Consultant, Instructional Design Support or Pilot Facilitator, she enhances both the content and delivery of brand new or tried and tested materials. Her natural curiosity and breadth of experience provide opportunities for useful advice and entertaining anecdotes.
As a keynote presenter, Olivia’s is prepared and thorough off-stage, charismatic, and candid on stage. Her ability to encourage participants to opt in to rather than opt out of further learning by signing up for additional workshops has become legendary at one tech company she continually works with. Taking ideas that everyone thinks they understand and pointing out where misunderstandings hide and assumptions live lead to great moments of learning in larger groups.
Before becoming self-employed in 2004, Olivia worked at increasingly demanding positions from flight attendant to retail store manager through inside sales onto regional sales manager at Arthur Andersen. She has a zest for life and an addiction to fun which has allowed her to live in 8 countries for more than a year each!
Client Profile
Olivia has experience in the non-profit and for-profit sectors and clients include:
Amazon, American Express, AmerisourceBergen, Apple, Avery Dennison, Astra Zeneca, Boston Scientific, BP, Cameron, Cox Automotive, Dentsply, Ellison, Glacier Media, Google, Haas Jr. Fund, Halyard Healthcare, Hitachi Data Systems, IHG, Kelly Services, Microsoft, NCR, Pearson, Staples, Tata Consultancy Limited, Thomson Reuters, and Xerox among others.
She has worked at the senior management level for Global 1000 companies around the globe, including clients in UK, USA, France, Germany, Norway, Spain, Czech Republic, Russia, Dubai, Bahrain, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, China, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Sadly, she only speaks three versions of English – American, British and Jamaican Patois!
For-profit sector Industries include FMCG, Technology, IT, Professional Services, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Healthcare, Retail, Financial, Travel and Hospitality.
Testimonials
Olivia is a delight to work with - bringing a rare combination of insight and analytics to drive change. She leverages her deep understanding of neuroscience and human behaviour to drive improved performance. A highly skilled facilitator, she works well with senior management both individually and in a team environment. Most important, she is unafraid to challenge the status quo and drive breakthrough. It is a pleasure working with her.
Sara Mathew, Retired Chair & CEO Dun & Bradstreet
Olivia's work is firmly anchored in the outcomes she needs to drive. Whether she needed to improve sales results for reps, business acumen for HRBPs, or communication skills for finance executives, she was always careful about linking her work back to tangible outcomes. Then she created the environment, the conversations, and the practice opportunities for learners to get there. She knows how and when to push learners to bring more to their work. And she knows how and when to bring fresh energy to a learning journey. Olivia sets a high bar for learners and a high bar for herself. She is prepared and engaged in every interaction. She is a skilful guide for learners and an invaluable business partner for me.
Nathan Blain, Global Leader for Strategy Execution, Korn Ferry
Olivia is a consummate professional, great partner and collaborator. She welcomes feedback throughout the process and can quickly adjust based on this input. In our work together, I really appreciated that Olivia brought an informed point of view based on her depth of experience. Olivia was able to easily draw from her many experiences to help make or reinforce a point. She was able to quickly establish credibility with audiences at different levels of seniority. Olivia is also a strong facilitator and presenter. She was able to keep a group of senior managers engaged for a full day and meet the overall learning objectives. I thoroughly enjoy working with Oliva.”
Kristi Schwartz, Senior Director, Worldwide Learning at Microsoft
Olivia was a really good training consultant. In FY2019 her workshops helped me beat both top line and bottom-line goals by a bunch. It also helped me win the fastest growing account in the company’s history. She focused my attention on the amount of prior research and where to conduct the research. This has helped me prepare my team better and challenge them to be better. The relentless pursuit of customers’ problems and how much they could be spending was important as I never like to leave even a penny on the table. Two items to remember are “how am I increasing customers’ revenue?” and “how am I cutting customers’ expenses?” If I can answer those two questions, I am a winner. FY2020 is off to a great start with a $25m deal closed yesterday and a $50m deal set up to close by early Q3.
David Magee, General Manager (Healthcare), UST Global
Olivia was tremendous in helping us rethink our leadership training courses and helped lead our team to identify core learning objectives with the customer in mind first. She helped lead our team to develop a best-in-class customer experience and her knowledge, insights, and approach were invaluable. Watching her then take the experience and deliver it multiple times to our clients was off the charts positive. She is an engaging facilitator who presents, listens to questions, and then challenges participants with thought provoking questions that lead to better outcomes. I look forward to future work with Olivia as she makes everyone around her better at what they do!
Brian Joseph, CEO RevJen Group
I first met Olivia as the facilitator for the CEB Sales Management Leadership Academy more than ten years ago. I was immediately impressed with her skills and became more fascinated by her ability to challenge the adult learners to push themselves beyond normal learning. Each learner was fully engaged in the multiple-day academy and its activities. She didn’t allow us to become complacent, nor accept less from ourselves than personal and professional growth. My goals at the academy included: (1) to learn and grow as a regional vice president for sales; (2) to support three other learners at the academy; and (3) to assess the program for future attendees from our organization. Due to Olivia’s skilled coaching, personal expertise and facilitation, all three goals were achieved. As a group, we completed the second part of the sales academy, then sent additional students when it became available. She connected well with everyone in the academy and surpassed the expectations of everyone - whether they were relatively new to sales management or very experienced. Based on this interaction, I later connected with Olivia to employ her as an executive coach. Her skills in working with individuals were as impressive as her skills in working with large groups. Her coaching was invaluable and helped me to be more successful in my current role and led to other strategic roles in the company.
DeLania Truly, Vice President-Sales, CUNA Mutual Group (Retired)
I had the opportunity to partner with Olivia for many years while leading Product Development and Innovation at CEB (now Gartner). She is the rare facilitator that is also highly skilled in instructional design and adult learning principles. As a facilitator, she brought a coaching-first mindset, working with hundreds of sales executives, managers, and leaders to build their sales skills and leadership capabilities. Her thought partnership was also invaluable in the creation of our learning programs, where she would push our team to simplify and clarify concepts in ways that would most benefit the learners in their aim to achieve stronger sales performance. Beyond her facilitation and skill-building capabilities in a classroom environment, I also recommend Olivia as an executive coach, as her thoughtful, candid, and thought-provoking techniques help leaders clarify - and then attain - their professional goals and personal objectives.
Jessica Cash, Executive Director, Go-to-Market at Vista Consulting Group
What I value the most about Olivia extends beyond her professional credentials and deserving accolades....and is something that speaks to just how devoted she is to developing Leaders to best position them for delivering winning results. I had the pleasure and honour to serve on the Board of Trustees (BOT) for the Richmond Waldorf School (RWS) with Olivia, and at a time when the School was experiencing financial duress...barely staying afloat. RWS failing was not an option for Olivia, as she played a pivotal role in its turnaround by devoting countless hours of pro-bono coaching to the BOT that covered planning, problem-solving, governance and many of the other disciplines instrumental in getting the School back on its feet. Amazingly, this culminated with RWS recently purchasing a $1.5MM property on three acres of land where 135 students currently attend the School. The professional demands on Olivia make family time all that more important to her - yet, she took from that time to see that RWS did not fail...and for that, I and many others will always be grateful. Olivia is that rare professional that is as devoted to the success of her paying clients, as she is to the likes of an RWS. It is this sense of devotion to the betterment of others, irrespective of who it is, that I value most about Olivia...and I think you will as well when you engage her services.
Craig Schwartz, Friend and grateful, former fellow RWS BOT Member (Richmond Waldorf School Board of Trustees)
I engaged Olivia in several ways while I was a business leader at CEB: facilitator, coach, and content design thought partner. In each aspect Olivia did a great job to reach the goals set out in advance and facilitate a productive, business applicable session. One of the most valuable jobs she did for me was coaching one of my team members who was struggling significantly with the transition from independent contributor to manager of a large team. Olivia diagnosed the challenges, set a clear timeline with goals, and worked with her until she was confident to function on her own. The transformation in her was impressive and she went on to lead the team successfully for the next 3 years, taking on more team members and responsibility. She wouldn't have made it without Olivia's coaching. I also engaged Olivia as a design thought partner we built out new content for the sales audience. Olivia is a great contributor to the content design process - she contributed useful, though provoking ideas and helped design thoughtful exercises that demonstrated the given concepts. She also is more than willing to be the first to deliver the new content and test it out, which is invaluable in the design process.
Kristen Howe, Director, Sales Enablement at Vista Consulting Group
For the past decade I have had the privilege of observing, learning from and working with Olivia. She possesses a rare combination of talents and life experiences that allow her to move easily in varied cultures with a wide range of leaders. I have witnessed first-hand her creativity, discipline, and deep knowledge of designing optimal learner experiences. There is, in my opinion, no one else who can quickly assess an audience and pivot in the moment to ensure the fastest learner in the room stays on the edge of their chair while the others feel included and challenged. Her passion for ensuring leaders challenge themselves to be their best is unmatched. I have frequently referred top level leaders to her for coaching because I recognize the level of coaching, she provides is really what they want and need. She is a lifelong learner herself who has worked unselfishly to share ideas, introduce others to the neuroscience and leadership development she so loves, and to challenge herself to grow and learn.
Cheryl Jensen, CEO, C&S Knowledge Company LLC
