Meet Our Strategy & Leadership Professionals

"Don't confuse efforts with results". Robert Nitschke's decades of relentless drive to achieve remarkable results by introducing collaboration and a focus on continuous improvement have gained him the respect of his clients, associates and peers. His extraordinary work ethic and desire to be an organizational problem solver continues to provide him with the tenacity and drive to serve where problem issues or initiatives dwell. He is the recognized author of the book Creating a Collaborative Enterprise; How to retool your organization to dominate your markets, which some have called the text book on collaboration.

 

Robert is currently founder and managing partner of Arago Partners LLC, an independent consulting firm providing operations and performance renovation leadership services to clients, nationally and internationally. He is also Managing Partner and co-founder of SDR Holdings LLC, an investment portfolio holding company, with investments valued at over $200 million.

 

Robert has more than three decades of business experience, spanning a wide range of skills, experiences and industries. He has held executive and managerial positions in operations and information technology within several Fortune 500 companies and has invested over ten years in support of turnaround and early stage entrepreneurial ventures. Robert’s results driven spirit has produced successes in telecommunication, manufacturing, ecommerce, International project finance, cruise-tour and service enterprises.

 

Robert believes in helping others in need. He serves non-profit organizations that reach out to abused and foster children, providing medical and mobility equipment for low income people stricken with Multiple Sclerosis and teaching children the benefits of staying in school.

 

Robert is a continual learner. He is a graduate of the University of Washington, the highly recognized Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, and holds Certifications in Lean Operations and Project Management. He is proud to have served the United States Army Security Agency and participated in the Viet Nam Campaign. He teaches at local colleges, publishes business articles for local and web-based distribution and sits on the Boards of Advisors for local companies. He lives in the beautiful Puget Sound bordered town of Edmonds Washington with his wonderful wife Barb.

 

To know more about Robert L. Nitschke, visit:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/rnitschke

www.creatingacollaborativeenterprise.com

 

To know more about Arago Partners LLC, visit:

www.aragopartnersllc.com

www.aragopartnersllc.com/bulletin

www.twitter.com/aragopartners

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Lauren is president of Lauren Owen, LLC. She works with Families in Business who want to develop and execute their succession planning and operational processes, sharpen their business practices, strengthen their relationships, and create long-lasting value in their businesses .

 

Lauren’s 25+ years of experience of working with closely-held and family businesses in a diverse area of industries has given her keen insights into the underlying causes beneath the symptoms of poor performance. Once those are identified and acted upon, her clients often realize immediate results. Lauren’s specific areas of expertise include:

 

• Designing and implementing succession plans;
• Identifying and improving the key drivers to cash and profitability;
• Understanding how to work on and not just in the business;
• Improving productivity by assessments, coaching, and benchmarking;
• Implementing communication and management structures to monitor, measure, and increase performance

Lauren holds an MBA in Organization Design and Human Resource Management from the University of Washington and an A.B. Degree in Public Policy from Duke University. She completed the Core Essentials program from Coach U, a leading coach training organization. She also considers herself a lifelong learner, and counts among her best teachers the many business owners and families she has had the privilege to work with over her career.

 

Prior to establishing her own practice, Lauren was a partner with Business Resource Services, a Seattle-based company that specializes in financial training, research, and performance groups for closely-held and family-owned businesses throughout North America and Australia. Her clients included the American Rental Association, Home Instead Senior Care, and the Association of Small Business Development Centers.

 

Your business mostly likely represents your single most important investment of your time, money, and energy. Let’s protect this investment for you and for future generations to come! Lauren would be pleased to meet with you and your family and explore where her experience and expertise would be of service to your company.

 

Lauren is a licensee of Challenges, Inc., a leader in family business consulting for over 25 years. Request More Information

Margaret W. Purvine is a business professional with a career spanning more years than she would like to admit. A graduate of the University of Michigan, she spent the first part of her business career at IBM. There, she learned the organizational, project, and management skills necessary to get large computer systems implemented properly. After leaving IBM, she and her husband Dennis founded a business consulting firm, Next Step Solutions, Inc., focused on the operational and management needs of small businesses.

Margaret shines in her work with people. Experienced as a manager and facilitator, she is able to work with her clients to make sense of big tasks by breaking them into digestible chunks. She helps her clients build and direct teams of people to get these big tasks done. Margaret enjoys teaching and finds that moment, when the light goes on in the student’s eyes, particularly rewarding.

Complementing Dennis’ skills with numbers, Margaret excels with words. Writing is a major passion that has generated many clear, concise strategic plans that are road maps to growth and success. As well, Margaret has written many business articles for a number of business publications and the Web, including a column for the Puget Sound Business Journal. Active in the community, she has served on several boards and is 2009 President of Women Business Owners www.womenbusinessowners.org.

Margaret is passionate about music. She is an accomplished musician and has performed with many of the area’s leading classical performance ensembles. Margaret is also an avid cook and quilter. Writing a book is her next big goal…whether that book is about cooking, business or a treatise on the joys of quilting…only time will tell.

Margaret W. Purvine – links:

Email: margaret@nextstepsolutions.com
Website: www.nextstepsolutions.com
Blog: businessinwashington.com
LinkedIn Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/mwpprofile

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Big Agenda Coaching founder Kristiina Hiukka is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach, trained and experienced at helping executives, teams, and organizations succeed. She is passionate about and skilled at building sustainable high performance teams and individuals.

 

Born in Finland, Kristiina earned her B.A. and M.A. in speech communication at the University of Jyväskylä. She has coached and trained executives throughout Europe, the U.S., and Canada. Previously based in Dublin and London, Kristiina has lived in Seattle since 1994. Many small businesses and larger prominent companies, including Vulcan Inc, Microsoft Corporation, Nokia, and Kodak have called on her to coach their executives and develop their teams.

 

Kristiina graduated from the Coaches Training Institute of San Rafael, California (CPCC) and is a credentialed member (PCC) of the International Coach Federation and an Authorized Facilitator of the Team Diagnostic ™ methodology. She has co-authored a text book for professional service providers on how coaching can serve as an integral tool for their personal and professional growth and for sustained success in business.

 

Big Agenda Coaching specializes in coaching professionals, business leaders, executives and their teams. The Big A coaching approach gets lasting results that enhance performance, productivity and effectiveness.

 

We are a perfect partner for you when you have a need to:

• Transition your organization
• Optimize team performance
• Envision and plan strategy
• Define roles and responsibilities
• Develop your organization’s talent
• Improve individual performance
• Identify future leaders
• Plan succession
• Share leadership
• Form new teams
• Increase engagement
• Prepare for new projects

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Urs Koenig is the founder of RedPoint Business and Executive Coaching, located in Seattle that specializes in leadership development and business development strategies. His approach combines a successful track record as a leader in business, academia and competitive sports with professional executive coaching and facilitation skills. As a business and executive coach, Urs has worked with 100+ leaders from businesses large and small helping them to lead more effectively, improve their bottom line, while finding more personal fulfilment in their career.

 

Urs' background includes two years as the turn around marketing director at Merriman, one of the Northwest’s largest investment advising firms and 6 years as a business and executive coach in Seattle and Sydney, Australia. Urs has also served as an adjunct professor at Seattle University where he taught business communication and as CEO group coach for Business Resource Services, a Seattle based financial education firm. He furthermore was an instructor at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) business planning workshops.

 

For 5 years prior to this, Urs worked as a lecturer/assistant professor and research fellow at the University of Zurich/Switzerland and the Australian National University, Canberra/Australia. As an assistant professor, he published 20+ original journal articles and book chapters and presented at more than 30 conferences.

 

Urs is an accomplished ultra cyclist. Since 2002, he has won numerous ultra bike races (200 to 3,000 miles) and holds several course records. Prior to his ultra cycling career, Urs was competitive Nordic skier and coach for the Swiss University Ski Team for 15 years. He regularly placed in the top three at Swiss Championships and won numerous university championships worldwide.

 

Urs holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management, Sydney/Australia as well as a PhD in economic geography from the University of Zurich/Switzerland. He is a certified Master Coach and a certified Change Professional at Centerpoint, the Northwest's leading career renewal centre, where he taught workshops on business start-up issues. He is also a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) and the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD).

 

You can get in touch with Urs via email at urs@redpointcoaching.com or by phone at 206 420 3245.

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Mike Brice founded Brice Consulting in 2003 following 30+ years in senior management positions in heavy manufacturing and high-technology companies to aid business owners and leadership teams in creating above-market value in their companies. Mike has 20 years of experience with bottom line performance responsibility and has successfully led those organizations to consistent levels of high performance using a proven method that builds value into the business. This success formula resulted in the sale of a high-tech IT infrastructure company that he co-owned.

Mike delivers value in the development of leadership skills & practices, business process, critical metrics (KPI) and organized financials. This formula for success has proven effective in a variety of business markets beyond high-tech and manufacturing. Clients consistently comment on Mike’s ability to quickly identify critical business issues and direction toward an effective solution path with measureable results.

Mike has a BS in Computer Science from WSU.

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PROFESSIONAL PROFILE:

Recognized nationally as an expert in organizational performance excellence by contributing as a Senior Examiner for the Baldrige National Quality Award program and Judge for the Washington State Quality Award Program. Thirty-five years experience solving business problems and leading organizational change in telecommunications, healthcare/insurance, utilities and manufacturing industries, as well as public sector. Strong record of strategic planning and strategy execution, program management, problem solving facilitation and executive coaching.

 
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

• Assessed and coached major Washington State city departments to identify strengths and close gaps in customer service & satisfaction, operational performance & measurement, and process improvement: Public Works (Engineering & Maintenance), Finance and Community Development. Recommendations implemented in customer, business process and employee learning dimensions of the Balanced Scorecard.
• Coached utility maintenance department of major Washington State city in improvement of operational effectiveness and in thrice achieving Washington State Quality Award recognition of its superior customer focus, work/cost management and innovation. Actions taken to improve on customer and employee satisfaction as well as cost efficiencies.
• Facilitated annual strategic planning for 190-person department, linking initiatives to enterprise’s strategic goals, to maintain financial viability and position for long-term sustainability.
• Assessed 18 private/public sector organizations nationwide against the Baldrige Criteria for performance excellence--a holistic leadership and quality system, plus best processes, for achieving performance excellence. Offered actionable feedback to U.S. mid- to large-sized organizations seeking to improve their fiscal, operational and customer performance.
• Coached small business owner on strategic planning, conflict resolution techniques and organizing work systems to support projected growth of a financial services business.
• Coached newly promoted leaders in effective business and personnel management techniques. One result is customized employee recognition programs.
• Led Public Works organization’s self-assessment project in preparation for American Public Works Association accreditation application. Result is list of gaps of best practices to adopt and document to be role model service provider.
• As an independent auditor on team of four, audited new Pay for Results compensation system’s deployment and effectiveness for medium-sized insurance company for Chief Executive Officer. Recommendations endorsed by Board of Trustees.

EDUCATION AND PERSONAL HISTORY:

M.B.A., Pepperdine University
B.A., Mathematics, University of California at Los Angeles
Certificate in Project Management, University of Washington
Judge, Washington State Quality Award Program
Senior Examiner, Baldrige National Quality Award Program

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