Elisabet Rodriguez

Elisabet Rodriguez is the founder and president of Rodriguez & Associates, a strategic consulting firm headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The firm specializes in a customized approach to women’s advancement in organizations, yielding an increase in the spirit of collaboration, team performance, and engagement.

Prior to founding Rodriguez & Associates, Elisabet spent 12 years in international business development in Latin America and Europe. This experience enabled her to become well versed in the forces that affect global competitiveness — including the importance of retention, engagement, and inclusion.

Elisabet serves as lead faculty at the Duquesne University Women’s Executive Leadership Program, where she teaches Leadership, Change: The Organization as a System, Ethics, and Global Issues in Organizations. She is also adjunct faculty at Duquesne University’s School of Leadership and Professional Development, teaching Business Ethics, Leadership, and Diversity in the Workforce.

In addition to teaching, consulting for multinational companies, and public speaking, she is now at work on a book, Can You Afford to Ignore Me? How to Manage Women from Different Ethnic Backgrounds. The book will enable executives at all corporate levels to understand how to navigate the complexities of gender and culture in the new global economy.

Elisabet is fluent in English and Spanish.

Education

• B.A., Psychology, University of Puerto Rico
• J.D., University of Puerto Rico
• M.A., International Affairs, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Awards

• Pennsylvania Best Fifty Women in Business
• “Who to Watch”
• Pennsylvania Best Women in Business — Judge Award

Affiliations

• Board member, Women and Girls Foundation, member of the Grant Committee and the Catapult project, designed to educate women on salary negotiations
• Board member, Beard Center for Leadership in Ethics of Duquesne University
• Former board member, Power Link, an organization that assists women-owned businesses
• Former board member, Center for Latin American Studies of the University of Pittsburgh
• Founding board member, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Pittsburgh
• Founding board member, World Trade Center, Pittsburgh

Dan Dennehy

Dan collaborates on our project and consulting work in two key areas:

Program Development and Case Study Writing. Dan develops experiential learning programs tailor made to each client — taking direct input from our team of experts and from the results provided by client-based planning and needs assessment. He enjoys writing client-specific interactive case studies that capture day-to-day reality from a participant’s view to engage them in lively discussion and meaningful evaluation of the complex challenges they face. Drawing from his 20+ years experience in adult learning program development, Dan injects our work with real issues and realistic drama. As a result, we produce work that “feels authentic” to program participants, allowing them to grasp the full import of the programs we deliver and enabling them to take action to improve.

Talent and Performance Measurement. Dan also designs and evaluates client pre-work survey instruments which are used in our planning process to capture “before” needs and attitudes. This allows our team to design an appropriate program to meet exact needs within the population and to compare results “after” delivery. These metrics enable us to measure program success over time, ensuring clients can quantify the benefits in their program investment, and identify hot-spots where additional work may be called for. We pay special attention to employee engagement and talent management when we design our measurement tools.

Dan serves as visiting faculty at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate Business School in the Marketing Department, where he facilitates adult learning in Strategic Marketing Management, Consumer Behavior, Sales Management, Brand Management, Marketing Services, and International Business Development. Dan also facilitates Masters Leadership classes as adjunct faculty at Duquesne University’s School of Leadership and Professional Advancement (SLPA). He works with students face to face in Pittsburgh and online throughout the world.

Dan is fluent in English and Spanish.

Education

• A.S., Civil Engineering, Wentworth Institute (Boston)
• B.A., Finance, University of Puerto Rico
• M.B.A., Katz Business School, University of Pittsburgh

Hank Walshak

Hank Walshak is president of Walshak Communications, Inc., the Pittsburgh-based communications consulting firm he founded in 1984 following a successful 16-year career in public relations.

He now coaches and partners with mid-level and senior-level, domestic and international executives to articulate their messages through the spoken and written word to diverse audiences — from male and female employees and stakeholders to consumers and end users.

He is a professional speaker sought by businesses and other organizations throughout the United States, such as the President’s Institute of the Council of Independent Colleges and Siemens & Rolm.

Hank is now co-authoring a soon-to-be-published memoir/motivational book with a chief executive officer in the high-tech industry. Previously, he had written two other works: Meeting the Challenge: The Wesley College Story 1873-2003 and Elmira College: Still Ahead of Its Time.

He has served as an adjunct graduate and undergraduate faculty member in the Department of Journalism & Mass Communications, Point Park University; at the Duquesne University School of Communications and Graduate School of Business; at Carlow College and Chatham College.

Education

• B.A., Language Arts, St. Bernard’s College
• B.A., Religion, Université de Louvain (Belgium)

Affiliations

• Board member, Pittsburgh Coaches Association (PCA)
• Member, American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), Pittsburgh Chapter
• Member, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE)

Frances Jordan

Frances Jordan is an accomplished human resources executive with more than 25 years of progressive experience, largely in Fortune 100 companies.

She is a thought leader with extensive experience in developing and delivering proven, innovative, and customized solutions to build and sustain organizational capability.

Her areas of specialization include talent management, organizational transformation, cultural integration, executive coaching, leadership development, performance management, employee engagement and inclusion.

Frances is the former HR Director of Worldwide Software Sales and Marketing with IBM Corporation where she was responsible for worldwide HR practices, executive coaching and leadership development.

Prior to IBM, Frances served in senior leadership capacities for Fannie Mae (Washington DC), UNUM Corporation (Portland, ME), Mellon Bank (Pittsburgh, PA) and US Sprint Communications Company (Reston, VA).

Education

• B.S., Education, University of Pittsburgh
• M.Ed., Counseling, University of Pittsburgh
• M.S., Public Policy, Carnegie-Mellon University

Stephanie McDilda

Stephanie McDilda helps her clients become centered and work with focus and intention — to achieve their goals, to develop resilience, to bring balance and abundance to their lives.

Her specialty areas include working with intention, career management, balance, personal leadership, authentic power, and the integration of joy and passion into life and work.

Stephanie spent 15 years working in a corporate environment coaching managers and facilitating management training. In 1993, she began her own successful business as coach, consultant, seminar leader, and motivational speaker. She has worked with a major international telecommunications corporation, providing coaching for senior managers and directors as part of a succession planning/top talent management program. She also worked for several years with Drake Beam Morin, providing career coaching for clients including IBM and Glaxo-Wellcome.

Stephanie is a contributing author of the book A Guide to Getting It: Achieving Abundance. She also is currently working on a new book on the Law of Allowing.

Education

• B.A., Business Management and Economics, N.C. State University
• M.Ed., Adult Education, N.C. State University
• M.Ed., Counseling, N.C. State University
• Coaching Program, Coach University

Affiliations

• Member, International Coach Federation (ICF) - Raleigh Area Chapter
• Member, former Chapter president, former board member, American Society for Training and Development - Research Triangle Chapter
• Wake City Literacy Council
• Habitat for Humanity
• Shriner’s Women’s Auxiliary (fundraising, Shriner’s Hospitals for Children)

Paul A. Ross

Paul A. Ross, Ed.D., is a recognized leader in human resources. He brings a particular expertise in management education — specializing in diversity and inclusion, executive coaching, organization development and workforce effectiveness.

Paul has a broad background in government and the corporate world, including positions with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The MITRE Corporation and Digital Equipment Corporation (Hewlett Packard).

In 1994, he established Paul A. Ross Associates, a consulting practice dealing with paradigm shift to help meet today’s business needs, given an increasingly diverse workforce and customer base.

His current work is varied and very often done through alliances and collaboration. This honors his original intent of maximizing human potential in ways that make sense to individuals and their respective businesses or organizations. His Fortune 500 client base includes technology, communications, government systems, and financial services firms.

Paul has often been a speaker on the professional conference circuit.

Education

• Ed.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Affiliations

• Board member, Victory Programs
• Board member, Community Research Initiative of New England
• Board member, Lexington (MA) Historical Society

Lou Musante

Lou is a seasoned strategy consultant with a foundation in marketing research. He partners with Rodriguez & Associates to offer diversity programs with a focus on issues of gender communication at strategic levels.

As with the rest of the Rodriguez & Associates team, Lou brings eclectic and diverse professional experience. He understands the complex and sometimes difficult conversations that executives need to have to attain a full understanding of the realities and challenges faced on the front lines by their workforce. Lou’s unique talent is in engaging clients in these conversations using hard data and information, and then creating actionable and strategic implementation programs. His work has been proven time after time to enhance the quality of work environment — and generate the spark for innovation and productivity.

Lou is also Managing Partner of Echo Strategies, a research and strategy firm that was launched in 1991, and has experience with a wide variety of companies. Echo has created strategic alliances with Carnegie Mellon University as well as with Dr. Richard Florida and Dr. Kevin Stolarick, both now at the University of Toronto, to offer regional economic development and strategic planning services.

Education

• B.S., Chemistry, Minor in Political Science, Clarion University
• M.S., Information Science, University of Pittsburgh

Angela Arrington

Angela’s passion and work concentrates in the areas of executive coaching, strategic planning, organizational/talent development, and facilitation in which she has over 20 years of experience.

Angela has served as a leadership development consultant, trainer, and coach. She believes that every person has tremendous potential and a desire to accomplish something really important both professionally and personally. Her goal as business coach is to help each person become more self aware, clearly establish and focus on meaningful goals, move towards the desired state of work-life balance, and improve their performance (being accountable to a few key measurable actions). She helps her clients enhance their leadership (with or without position power), increase their positive impact on the organization, and find success on their own terms (being authentic).

For the past 12 years Angela has worked closely with organizations of varying sizes to assess their talent development needs, create and deliver programs that fulfill those needs and have measurable impact, and ensure that the organization’s talent development strategies are aligned with their business goals. She has worked with mid-size to large organizations in the healthcare, education, retail, transportation, chemical, and engineering segments.

Her work also includes working with leadership teams to develop long-term business goals, strategies, action plans, and performance measurements. She provides these teams on-going support and assistance in strategy deployment and leads periodic strategy review sessions.

Angela worked for 12 years in the Electro-Mechanical Division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation, where she led strategic thinking sessions for several business areas and was responsible for new business development and marketing communications.

Education

• B.S., Industrial Engineering, University of Tennessee
• M.S., Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University

Colleen Slaughter

Colleen Slaughter specializes in propelling desired change for organizations and individuals. She has over 15 years of experience in change leadership, coaching, and consulting — and has worked internationally for most of that time. Fluent in French with a working knowledge of German and Spanish, Colleen helps clients living in the U.S. and abroad.

Capitalizing on extensive education and experience in corporate change leadership, executive coaching, and management consulting, Colleen Slaughter founded her own leadership development and executive coaching firm in 2009 through which she lives out her passion of helping women in leadership achieve lasting, satisfying change by aligning themselves with their true desires and talents.

Previously, Colleen was the Senior Change Management Consultant at Ariba (Europe and North America) and Transformance Consulting (Paris, France) where she pioneered the establishment of new areas of expertise — and designed and implemented several impactful change initiatives — for multinational companies such as: General Motors, Altran, Alstom, SanofiAventis, Deutsche Post, O2, France Telecom, Husky, and Heinz. Spanning Europe, North America, and parts of Asia, Colleen’s consulting led directly to dramatic bottom-line improvements.

Colleen has drafted and given several keynote presentations such as “The Six Emotions that Shape You as a Leader” and “Branding, Marketing and Sales: You as New Observer.” She is a regular blogger on what true, authentic leadership looks like and how women can integrate those traits into their own professional and personal lives.

Education

• B.B.A., Business Management, University of Kentucky
• B.A., French, University of Kentucky
• M.B.A., Entrepreneurship, HEC - Paris
• Certified Coach Training Program, Newfield Network

Affiliations

• Board Member at Large, International Coach Federation, Raleigh Area Chapter
• Member, International Coach Federation
• Member, Program Committee, Triangle Organization Development Network
• Toastmasters