Erica Wood, MS

EMW Consulting (Embody Meaningful Work) – People Strategy | Leadership Advisor I help organizations from nascent startups to Fortune 500 companies build people strategies that scale while working with leaders to develop teams, improve processes, and achieve business goals. Services include: ✧ Fractional HR Executive & Strategic Advisory ✧ Building a Culture That Attracts, Engages & Retains Top Talent ✧ Strategic Narrative Development & Mission-Driven Storytelling ✧ Executive Coaching, Leadership Development & Succession Planning ✧ Talent Acquisition, Retention & Workforce Planning ✧ Organizational Development | People, Process & Performance ✧ Change Management for Mergers, Acquisitions & Major Transitions ✧ Proposal Writing & Funding Acquisition ✧ Organizational Risk Management & Compliance Strategy ✧ Compensation Strategy & Total Rewards Design ✧ HR Process Redesign & Technology Integration ✧ Rethinking Performance Management for Real Results

✧ Elevate HR decision science and evidence-based thinking to impact and rethink culture and leadership. ✧ Attract and engage a diverse, multigenerational workforce who feel vested in a common mission, purpose, and a sense of belonging. ✧ Embrace perpetual, iterative work reinvention that orchestrates the many emerging ways to get work done while elevating health and well-being. ✧ Enable organizational agility through serving as an architect of new and enhanced communication strategies crucial to the organization's future and vision. ✧ Spearheaded strategic narrative development, defining purpose, mission, vision, and values in a language that moves internal and external partners to engage and invest. ✧ Translate complex data and impact into compelling stories that open hearts, build trust and psychological safety, and inspire investment funders and partners. ✧ Conducted rigorous due diligence and drove compliance requirements to support a successful funding acquisition, securing $27.5 million from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital in a Series A capital raise.

✧ Led enterprise-wide leadership initiatives with senior executives to drive accountability and operational excellence across multiple locations. ✧ Designed and delivered customized leadership development programs that sharpened decision-making and elevated team communication. ✧ Guided clients through a culture-realignment process to recalibrate mission, purpose, and their organizational "WHY". ✧ Facilitated strategic business mapping and culture sessions to align leadership teams around shared priorities and vision.

✧ Serve emerging growth markets, partnering with small- to mid-sized companies to drive transformational change across people, culture, and organizational strategy. ✧ Lead strategic organizational development, guiding companies through brand identity, purpose definition, strategic business planning, culture development, change management, succession planning, and executive leadership coaching. ✧ Design and deliver leadership development ecosystems including customized training programs and ongoing follow-up coaching sessions that create lasting behavioral change. ✧ Drive workforce development initiatives: navigating culture shifts, resolving conflict, and building training programs that align people to organizational mission and values. ✧ Apply neuroscience principles to organizational and personal effectiveness translating brain-based research into practical leadership development strategies that elevate performance and well-being. ✧ Partnered in high-stakes sales conversations to translate client discovery into compelling narratives for possibility, bringing the vision to life through storytelling and real-world case studies that inspired commitment. A global study of more than 5,500 executives and employees across 27 countries shows that leadership is falling short in many ways, and years of training in the typical leadership programs have not helped. That is because a vital, foundational piece was missing: an understanding of the brain. Understanding how it functions, optimizing its strengths and minimizing its limitations is the new frontier in enhancing your performance, relationships, and health. The mapping of neuroscience research is crucial in application - especially in what we now understand about communication, stress, effectiveness, and our ability to reach our potential.

✧ Consulted with large, complex global organizations to generate breakthroughs in management performance: e.g., driving top-line growth/profitability, strategy implementation, and transformational culture change. ✧ Participated in a "Stanford d.school Design Thinking Methodology" Think Tank for human-centered innovation frameworks, and creative problem-solving for complex organizational challenges. ✧ Led Breakthrough Projects, Transformational Leadership, and Change Management initiatives across large, complex organizations. ✧ Guided large organizations through fundamental reinvention, moving leadership teams and culture from incremental improvement to transformational breakthrough. ✧ Developed strategic frames that gave organizations a new context for seeing what's possible to align leadership teams around a shared vision for the future. ✧ Drove business development through RFP response and proposal writing to craft compelling narratives that translated organizational capability into winning submissions. ✧ Led executive sales conversations by listening deeply to client challenges and co-creating possibility through storytelling, case studies, and vision-based pitches. *Stanford d.school Design Thinking Methodology for creative problem-solving - Think Tank.

✧ Led international system-implementation training programs for management, including an on-site rollout in Ireland. ✧ Collaborated with key leaders to assess organizational needs and customize learning objectives, program design, and methodology. ✧ Facilitated and executed enterprise-wide learning and development programs across all levels of the organization. ✧ Designed and implemented Competency Models in partnership with senior leadership to define and elevate performance standards. ✧ Developed evaluation metrics to measure the success and outcomes of L&D initiatives. ✧ Conducted thorough needs analyses to identify learning and development gaps and opportunities across the organization.

✧ Managed and enforced brand consistency across the firm, ensuring cohesive identity and messaging throughout all communications and materials. ✧ Executed marketing initiatives including a full website launch. ✧ Directed large-scale CEO Executive Summits, overseeing logistics, content, and the client executive experience from concept to execution. ✧ Led proposal development and RFP submissions: writing, reviewing, and refining compelling responses that positioned the firm competitively for new business opportunities.

Graduated Summa Cum Laude (4.0)

Magna Cum Laude with distinguished honors. Wrote an honors thesis and conducted laboratory work on Alexithymia, which is a state of deficiency in understanding, processing, or describing emotions. Concentration: Organization & Management / Risk Management