Consulting

I love working with organizations who are serious about cultural change and inclusion. They are an excellent match with my philosophy of practicing presence and living and leading with intention.

As a consultant, I am adept at supporting leaders to identify development priorities for themselves and their teams and to navigate transformation with presence, clarity, and purpose.

Is your organization ready to walk its talk about intentional leadership and culture? Book a free initial consultation for us to explore a potential partnership.

People and Culture Consulting

Through my 20-year career in HR and People and Culture, leading organizations through cultural transformations has been my most meaningful work. As a consultant, I partner with executives and boards to make their aspirational cultures come to life.

The majority of my consulting clients are small to mid-sized nonprofits in the Portland, Oregon, area whose missions align with my values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. These organizations are typically too small to have high-level HR expertise in-house, or they are undergoing an organizational shift and can use some additional support.

I work with organizations to transform their cultures in the following ways:

Applying the Enneagram: Bringing the Enneagram into organizations is an incredible scaffolding for organizational development. Through one-on-one typing sessions and a series of workshops, I support teams to access self-knowing, vocabulary, and practices to become more present, authentic, and effective with each other and their stakeholders.
Leadership and Team Development: Using a variety of organizational development and team-building tools, I help leaders create high-functioning teams capable of self-reflection, navigating conflict, and improved communications, leading to inspired results.
Employee Engagement: I create, administer, and analyze employee feedback tools and surveys, and collaborate with leadership to design and monitor action-plans for increasing employees’ emotional connection and commitment to their teams and work.
Performance Management: I design and implement systems and tools for employee goal-setting and ongoing performance reviews and evaluations. I also train teams on how to deliver and receive feedback, leveraging neuroscience around psychological safety.
Creating People-Centered HR Practices: Traditional HR practices are often stale and do not meet today’s workforces where they are. I help organizations bring humanity to human resources, updating their policies, procedures, and communication approaches so their HR teams reflect the cultures they are building - without losing sight of risk management.

Words from clients ...

Over the past three years, Rose Haven grew its workforce by 64%, a period marked by rapid expansion and meaningful change. Elke was instrumental in guiding us through the complexities of this growth—helping to standardize practices, strengthen systems, and thoughtfully recruit a more diverse workforce. During this time, she also played a key role in our efforts to diversify and expand our Board of Directors by streamlining recruitment processes, clarifying goals, and supporting early-stage engagement and interviews. Elke’s deep expertise in human resources allowed our team to stay focused on our core mission, while she provided strategic leadership behind the scenes. Her understanding of our agency’s culture, vision, and values made this collaboration seamless. Thanks to Elke’s exceptional partnership, our human resources are stronger, more resilient, and better aligned with our mission than ever before.

Katie O’Brien — Executive Director, Rose Haven

Working with Elke has been a game-changer for our mission-driven organization. She brought a thoughtful, values-aligned approach to every aspect of her work—whether guiding us through sensitive personnel issues, refining our HR policies, or helping us think more strategically about organizational structure. Her expertise, responsiveness, and ability to balance compliance with compassion made Elke an invaluable partner during a period of growth and change.

Dr. Christine Toribio Pitts — President and CEO, Open School Inc.

Our partnership with Elke has been an incredibly rewarding and positive experience. From the beginning, she demonstrated exceptional readiness, thoroughly addressing all complex tasks related to developing our HR functions with a high level of professionalism. Elke’s patience and remarkable adaptability have been vital as we faced various challenges. Her commitment to identifying practical and effective solutions for any problem we encountered has been fundamental to our success during this partnership. I am extremely thankful to have Elke as a consultant; her expertise in both HR and Leadership Development is evident in every interaction. Her extensive experience and competence have consistently contributed to our team's development and success, reinforcing her reputation as a trusted and highly proficient consultant in her field.

Antonio Jackson — Executive Director, Building Blocks 2 Success