WORK WITH ME

Strategic planning & facilitation for health, research & non-profits

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As a strategist, I help teams and organizations develop inspiring and actionable strategies that enable effective use of resources and achieve more just and sustainable results. As a facilitator, I design conversations that support diverse groups to speak openly, listen deeply, and think better together.

I empower groups and organizations to envision new possibilities, determine what needs to shift to bring them into being, and attend to the grief that accompanies change.

Let's create change together.

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Let's create change together. 🌱

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An experienced and compassionate guide:

  • 15 years of strategic and change leadership experience in national and provincial organizations

  • PhD-trained researcher who balances rigorous methodologies with right-sized processes

  • Proven track record developing and implementing strategies that are ambitious, actionable, and equity-informed

  • Recognized expertise in facilitating generative conversations on complex and sensitive topics

  • Specialized knowledge of trauma- and grief-informed approaches

Here’s how I can help:

Strategic Planning

Collaborative development of organizational strategies championed by your staff, board, and the communities you collaborate with and serve. My strategic planning process is participatory, pragmatic, and customized to your needs and context.

Ideal for: Organizations and teams looking for expert guidance in envisioning their desired futures and co-developing strategies they’ll actually use

Facilitation

Purposeful design and hosting of the conversations that matter to you. I create inclusive, energizing spaces where participants feel heard, listen deeply, generate new ideas, and make wiser decisions together.

Ideal for: Groups looking to make the most of their meetings, retreats, and strategic convenings and who need support in navigating high-stakes and challenging dialogues

Organizational Change

Designing and implementing organizational change processes that go beyond the Gantt chart. My approach to change leadership is complexity-informed, adaptive, and builds lasting buy-in by attending to both the practical and embodied aspects of change.

Ideal for: Organizations seeking guidance in navigating their internal landscapes as they design and implement change processes

My approach

While tailored to each client’s needs, my approach generally includes:

  • We begin with conversations and information-gathering focused on defining your needs and where we’re starting from, what success looks like, and any problems we might be trying to solve. For a strategic planning or change leadership process, this will typically include a more in-depth internal environmental scan.

  • Informed by your input, I’ll develop a custom process design and accompanying project plan based on your specific needs and organizational context. For more complex projects, our work together might span six months to a year, so we’ll collaboratively map out our accountabilities, project milestones, and approach to working together.

  • Throughout our work together, I’ll use my skills as a facilitator to build trust and foster alignment by creating regular opportunities for open dialogue on the evolving context of our work to help in navigating any challenges that arise.

  • I’ll create clear, actionable documentation of our work together. For strategic planning or change leadership projects, this might take the form of a written strategy and accompanying implementation plan. When engaged as a facilitator, I’ll create all of the necessary materials for bringing our vision of your event or meeting to life.

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Real change

Case Study:

Creating a Focused, Field-Leading Research Strategy

The challenge:

A national health research funding agency was under new scientific leadership. We worked together to create a focused, field-leading strategy to set the course for their work over the next five years. Their strategy had to align with their parent organization’s strategic plan and be responsive to the priorities of a diverse research community.

I worked with their leadership, staff, and board to articulate a compelling and context-informed vision of the future and what it would take to get there. We designed with implementation in mind, scanning the environment, assessing their available resources, and articulating their top priorities and guiding values.

The result:

The result was an inspiring, actionable strategy positioning their organization for values-driven leadership and meaningful impact in a rapidly changing environment.

Case Study:

Sparking Dialogue and Building New Connections at a Conference

The challenge:

The organizers of a community-engaged research conference wanted to integrate opportunities for interaction, engagement, and relationship-building into their event design. I worked with them to design and facilitate interactive sessions for their 250 conference participants.

Drawing on input from the conference planning team and a custom pre-conference survey, I designed three activities aimed at getting conference participants talking about the topics of greatest interest to them, building connections with new people, and priming them to keep the momentum going by putting their learnings into action after the conference.

The result:

The result was a conference buzzing with the energy of 250 people stepping into the role of active participants—and excellent post-event feedback from 94% of respondents.

  • "Zena brings her sharp intellect, integrity, humanity, attention-to-detail, and high-quality expectations to bear in everything she does. Her skills and expertise include strategic planning, organizational change leadership, and facilitating consultation and decision-making processes with diverse groups. She has a unique ability to ‘read the room’, inspire people to work alongside her, and to create conditions that enable everyone to contribute."

    —Dr. Bev Holmes, President & CEO, Michael Smith Health Research BC

  • "The best word to describe working with Zena is transformative. She is a visionary strategic thinker whose clear, values-centred approach breathed life into our community-informed national sex, gender and health research strategy. Through her exceptional and relational coaching skills, she builds trust and instills confidence. Over one year after the release of our strategic plan, I continue to rely on her guidance. I wholeheartedly recommend Zena to any team seeking to create a high-impact, accountable, principled strategic plan that is rooted in a culture of care."

    —Dr. Angela Kaida, Scientific Director, CIHR Institute of Gender and Health

  • "Zena is one of the warmest, wisest, and most creative facilitators we've had the pleasure of working with. She helped us meet the challenge of bringing together 250 academics, staff, students, and community partners to engage in meaningful conversations about the complex issues facing community-engaged research today. Zena created space for diverse forms of connection - getting people talking, thinking, and even laughing. With humour and grace, she handled last-minute changes with ease, turning them into unexpected opportunities."

    —Dr. Genevieve Creighton, Manager, Knowledge Exchange Unit and Katie McCallum, Director, Community Engagement, University of British Columbia

My Values

We might work well together if you value:

  • Courage to ask difficult questions, try new approaches, and understand root causes

  • Rigorous inquiry into where you are, where you want to be, and what’s going to help get you there

  • Genuine collaboration over quick fixes or surface solutions

  • People-first approaches that don’t lose sight of results

  • Equity and justice in an era when the stakes of adhering to these commitments are high

As someone committed to prison-industrial complex abolition, I choose not to work with organizations directly affiliated with or generating substantial profits from prisons, policing, the weapons industry, or the military. If that’s you, we’re not the right fit. 

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Which is best for you?

Consulting vs. Coaching

Consulting

Consulting addresses organizational challenges and strategies. As a consultant, I work with teams to develop specific solutions, facilitate group processes, and create organizational strategies.

Coaching

Coaching focuses on supporting your individual leadership development and effectiveness. As your coach, I serve as a thinking partner who helps you develop your own insights, strategies, and approaches.

Many clients engage with both services, either simultaneously or sequentially. I'm happy to discuss which approach might best serve your current needs during an initial conversation.

Interested in exploring how we might work together?

Reach out to get the conversation started!