Maria Hernandez

Maria Hernandez has consulted to Fortune 100, public entities, foundations and non profits for the past 17 years. She partners with senior executives responsible for large scale change initiatives, professional development or diversity awareness programs to provide strategic and content expertise. A talented facilitator and strategist, Maria supports project teams to insure goals are well defined and achieved in a timely manner. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Maria holds a doctorate in community psychology and began her career in academic administration at a private liberal arts college in Northern California. After 8 years teaching and managing cultural outreach programs on campus, she left to establish a full-time consulting practice focused on training, coaching executives, and coordinating strategic planning efforts. Within the year she was voted outstanding Hispanic Entrepreneur by the Northern California Region of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce. MGH CONSULTING, LLC remains a premier boutique consulting firm serving clients nationally. In addition to consulting to organizations, she has provided regular commentaries to the Perspective Series of KQED FM in San Francisco and occasionally to Latino USA of Public Radio International. She has also written a column for Latina Style on careers and business and has been quoted in Forbes ASAP. Maria is a member of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs-Silicon Valley, Association for Women in Technology and the American Psychological Association.

Carolyn Hayden

Carolyn Hayden has consulted to foundations, nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies for the past two years. She works with senior executives responsible for large scale change initiatives, foundation executives responsible for field building, capacity building, systems change, and leadership development, and nonprofit intermediary organizations seeking to implement programs and advocate for achieving measurable results and impact in communities across the country. Carolyn holds an undergraduate degree in Sociology and Business Administration.

Previously, she was co-owner and operator of DCH Distribution, a small business contracted with American Express to provide marketing and service support to over 20,000 retail establishments in a four state Midwest region. Carolyn is also a graduate of the Ford Motor Company Minority Dealer Development Program, and owned a Ford Lincoln Mercury automobile franchise in Texas. In addition to her experience as a business owner, Carolyn has over 14 years experience in the nonprofit sector in senior leadership positions. She has developed and led national initiatives in collaboration with partners including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fannie Mae, and First Union Bank; created a sustainable social venture in partnership with the insurance industry serving thousands of faithbased organizations nationally; and served as Vice President for a national intermediary, serving as advisor to foundations and developing asset building approaches to serve low income communities. Carolyn is an Annie E. Casey Foundation Children and Family fellow, and the author of numerous publications and articles.

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MGH CONSULTING, LLC is a female, minority owned management consulting firm specializing in several areas of human resource management and organizational development. The firm was founded by Maria Guadalupe Hernandez in 1998. Dr. Hernandez began consulting as an independent contractor in the Bay Area in 1989 while maintaining a successful career in academic administration at a small liberal arts college. Her achievements in cross-cultural awareness, valuing diversity and affirmative action at the college won Maria the attention of public and private organizations looking for ways to support and embrace multiculturalism in the work place. In 1994, she dedicated herself exclusively to consulting and broadened her work to include management development, organizational change and executive coaching.

The success of the firm has grown as a result of a core set of principles in working with clients that insures a high degree of customer satisfaction. These are: (1) a strong emphasis on integrity in all transactions with clients; (2) a respect for the unique qualities of each client organization and corresponding interventions; (3) a clear focus on putting the best interests of the customer first and foremost in project planning; and (4) a professional collegiality that fosters true organizational learning and professional growth. These signature qualities of the firm have been at the core of its growth from an individual practice to a small boutique firm with loyal clients who provide 95% of the referrals to the firm.

MGH CONSULTING has five major areas of service with various specialties associated within each of the following:

• Outsourced Human Resources
• Customized Training
• Organizational Development
• Executive Training and Development
• Strategic Communications

MGH CONSULTING, LLC actively identifies additional consultants and vendors that match the needs of our clients and the project team involved. Clients served include companies in the Fortune 100, technology start-ups, and public institutions at the federal, state, county and city level, as well as major non-profits and foundations.

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- Senior Consultant
Dr. Marrero is a senior human resource professional and organizational development practitioner with over 20 years internal and external consulting experience. Her work has involved executive coaching, training initiatives, and change management in large complex organizations. Prior to consulting in the public and private sector, Santalynda was Director of Staff, Management and Team Development at Stanford Medical Center/University Hospital.  She was instrumental in facilitating work groups toward team development in merging cultures throughout the UCSF and Stanford University Hospital merger. Equally noteworthy, she managed a process of “healing” members of the nursing staff after the de-merger during which a strike posed unique challenges to patient care, staffing relations, and stakeholder relations.  Santalynda holds a doctorate in educational psychology from Rutgers University and is a member of the American Sociaety of Training and Development and the Bay Area and National Organizational Development Network.

- Senior Consultant
George Maxe brings clients an unique mix of consulting and management expertise. He began working as an organizational learning and development consultant in 1993 for such companies as Hewlett-Packard, Pacific Bell and Kaiser Permanente. For Hewlett-Packard, he worked on a two-year, large scale change project as a facilitator, trainer and personal coach to managers. As a small business owner for seven years, George drove all operations including strategic planning, human resources, customer service, order fulfillment and marketing. George is especially adept at building effective and efficient business processes when starting with disarray. He is often asked to work alongside individuals and small groups to solve difficult business problems while emphasizing their development. George holds a BA in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and an MS in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

- Senior Consultant
Jeanne offers US and international clients tailored pharmaceutical industry and health policy expertise.  Her extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry, academic achievements in public health, and proven ability to partner with public officials and non-profit organizations provides clients a unique combination of perspectives to enable them to reach their community and public relations objectives.  Her three primary areas of specialty are: [1] Creating and shaping health care legislation through research, drafting and advocacy.  Subjects include access to health care, competition and price controls, intellectual property, parallel trade/importation and ethics; [2] Designing and managing philanthropic programs; and [3] Training on health policy and managed care principles.

Jeanne’s professional experience includes working as a Health Policy Manager at Merck & Co. from 1997 to 2003 at their Central and Eastern European Operations in Vienna, Austria and their affiliate in Johannesburg, South Africa.  She designed and implemented programs to improve access to the company’s products both in the government and private sectors, and was instrumental in shaping legislation relating to medicines, intellectual property, private medical insurance and national health systems.  Jeanne also worked as a Senior Advisor for International Relations for Eli Lilly and Company’s Central and Eastern European operations from 1995 to 1997 and as a Program Officer for the non-profit Business Council for International Understanding from 1994 to 1995.  She was also an East-West Trade Specialist at the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in Moscow, Russia from 1992 to 1993.

She is currently finishing her Masters in Public Health with a concentration in Health Policy from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and has a BA (summa cum laude) in International Relations and Russian from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.  Jeanne has also studied at Moscow State Pedagogical University in Russia and the Université François Rabelais and L’Ecole Supérieure de Commerce à Tours in France.

Eric provides writing, editing, media production, public relations and communication coaching to both public and private sector organizations. A former reporter for National Public Radio and a producer for the KQED-FM “Forum” program, Eric works with clients who are preparing for public presentations, media interviews, and speeches. He has worked with internal public relations staff to develop employee communication and outreach for companies such as Charles Schwab, PG&E, Howell Mountain Mutual Water Company, and special events such as the AIDS Bike-A-Thon, The NAMES Project and Community Focus. A graduate of the University of Redlands,  Eric also holds an MS in journalism from Northwestern University.

- Consultant
Dr. Hillary Syman is a clinical psychologist with additional background in training, consulting and program design and development. A graduate of the Wright Institute in Berkeley, Hillary has worked for the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center, Contra Costa County Regional Medical Center and the Oakland Unified School Districts alternative education programs. Her work has focused on training for preventative mental health strategies and crisis intervention. With a strong background in education, she has a unique appreciation for secondary and post secondary education issues for at-risk youth. In 2006 Dr. Syman began her practice with MGH CONSULTING, focusing on organizational assessment and educational development. She has participated from its inception in the firm’s Strategic Executive Onboarding Alliance ™ --a unique pairing of executive recruiters and executive coaches who support the first 100 days of a senior executive's on-boarding program.

Angela Zawadzki, PhD
Dr. Zawadzki has worked as an interpreter and as a cross cultural dialogue coach for immigrants in the US and Americans working abroad.  Major corporations with multinational subsidiaries have also used her exceptional interpreting skills during senior strategic planning sessions and corporate events.  A native of Colombia, Angela has lived in five different countries throughout Latin America and the European Union, as well as the United States.  Angela is fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, and French.  In addition to her work as an interpreter, she has also been an instructor on the faculty at San Francisco State University where she offers several courses leading to a certificate in court interpreting and as an adjunct faculty for the Naval Language Academy in Monterey.  Dr. Zawadzki earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. 

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