Hi. I’m Emily.
I help teams make decisions that actually hold.
I work with mission-driven organizations navigating complexity, change, and competing priorities—especially when progress has stalled despite good intentions and hard work.
My work lives at the intersection of facilitation, strategy, and systems thinking, with one consistent throughline: improving decision quality under real-world constraints, so teams can move forward with clarity rather than spinning their wheels.
I don’t rush groups to solutions or force alignment for the sake of momentum. Instead, I help leaders and teams slow down thinking just enough to name what’s really happening, surface tradeoffs honestly, and make decisions that enable coordinated action.
My approach
I use a decision-centered framework called The Momentum Cycle to help teams identify where movement is blocked and intervene precisely at that point.
My practice treats decision architecture, where authority, criteria, and trade-offs are made explicit, as fundamental to movement, not as an optional add-on.
Complex work tends to stall in predictable ways. Sometimes, the issue is early: something feels off, but no one can quite name it. Sometimes, the problem is alignment that looks fine on the surface but doesn’t hold up to pressure or scrutiny. Sometimes, decisions have been made, but action keeps breaking down.
Rather than pushing every team through the same fixed process, I design engagements to meet teams where they are: supporting clarity, commitment, and learning at the moment it’s most needed.
Not every situation requires a longer engagement. Sometimes, the right outcome is a tighter orientation, a clearer decision frame, or the realization that now isn’t the right time to proceed.
Clarity first. Decisions that hold.
Momentum that lasts.
What this work is (and isn’t)
This work is about:
Clarifying what matters most right now
Naming constraints and tradeoffs honestly
Holding decisions with appropriate authority and care
Translating intent into coordinated movement
Learning from action without blame
It is not about:
Outsourcing leadership judgment
Facilitating around missing authority
Manufacturing consensus
Managing execution
Optimizing for speed at the expense of clarity
Who I work with
I’m best suited to work with organizations and leaders who:
are mission-driven and equity focused
operate in complex, multi-stakeholder environments
care as much about how decisions are made as what is decided
are willing to engage honestly, even when things are uncomfortable
Much of my work is with education, policy, and social impact organizations, though the challenges I support—misalignment, decision avoidance, stalled execution—are not sector-specific.
About Me
I’m a facilitator, strategist, and advisor with a background in education policy, systems change, and large-scale collaborative work.
Over the course of my career, I’ve supported learning networks, coalitions and leadership teams working across difference, often in environments where authority is distributed, constraints are real, and the stakes are high. I bring a calm, structured presence to complex conversations and a deep respect for the judgment required to lead well under pressure.
My role is not to provide answers. It’s to help teams think better together, so the answers they arrive at actually work in practice.
If you’re considering working together
If you’re feeling…
stuck despite effort
pressured to act without clarity
misaligned without knowing why
uncertain about which decision really matters
…we may be a good fit.
If what you’re looking for is someone to manage execution, generate quick consensus, or simply take work off your plate, this is not your container—and I’ll tell you that early.