PURE Award Winners

We are pleased to announce our 2020 Q1 winner of the PURE Service Award, Jim Bierbower.

Jim Bierbower is a tremendously talented Learning and Development professional with over 25 years of consulting experience. His creativity, thought leadership, and collaboration skills are outstanding. Jim has most recently been consulting with one of CARA’s premier insurance customers to conduct a needs analysis for creating a new Learning & Development function.

Jim’s CARA Service Delivery Manager, Deanna Claerhout, shared the following comments:

“Jim exhibited all of our PURE values, he produced a high-quality findings and recommendations report that was detailed and thorough and Jim left no stone unturned. We could always count on Jim to respond to the client’s needs in a collaborative way. He even went above and beyond to get additional buy-in and support for his final recommendations from key stakeholders, ensuring CARA’s ability to move to the second phase work effort. I appreciate Jim’s accountability in seeing the work through to a successful outcome.”

THANK YOU, Jim, for consistently demonstrating CARA’s PURE values, delivering the highest quality of service, and exceeding our clients’ expectations.

CARA’s PURE Service Program provides a unique way to measure success and evaluate how well our consultants’ service delivery meets our clients’ needs. CARA’s service delivery process is based on the PURE service philosophy and consultants are reviewed quarterly based on how well they demonstrate our PURE values: Professionalism, Understanding, Responsibility and Excellence. CARA’s consultants are nominated based on client feedback, PURE evaluations, and team interaction with the consultants. After careful consideration of each candidate, CARA selects the PURE award recipients. The PURE award program is the foundation of CARA’s culture, aligning us with our clients’ and consultants’ values in service excellence.

We are pleased to announce our latest winners of the PURE Service Award, Antara Prasad, Johanna Dillon, and Michele Brayndick.

Antara Prasad is a talented organizational change management professional with over 15 years of business experience. For the past year, she has consulted with one of CARA’s Fortune 500 clients to lead global communications for one of the largest technology and business transformation efforts in that company’s history. She is also a member of our 2020 CARA Advisory Board and volunteers her time to take a leadership role in the CARA consultant community.

Antara’s recent project manager shared the following comments:

“Antara has elevated our change communications and brought forward new ways of thinking. She blends bringing the key things needed in our culture with her expertise to keep driving what is important for (the client) but also stretching our comfort zone. She is a great thought partner and she will get it done! Everyone enjoys working with her and she brings a lot of value to the practice of change management here.”

Johanna Dillon is a talented Organizational Development and Change Management professional with over 15 years of business experience. For the past year, she has consulted with one of CARA’s Fortune 500 company clients to create a strategic workforce management strategy and plan and lead two teams to help leadership determine current and future talent.

Johanna’s recent project manager shared the following comments:

“Our sincere thanks for the outstanding work Johanna did. This (project) has lasting value for us and will be put to use on other future transactions. We recognize and appreciate Johanna’s hard work on this.”

Michele Brayndick is a talented strategic learning and design professional with over 25 years of business experience. Michele has consulted with a variety of industries, including airline, government, insurance, retail, and most recently, the utility industry. Her strengths are the design and development of strategic learning solutions from needs assessment through design and development. She brings a fresh perspective and a wealth of experience in the learning industry.

Michele’s recent project manager shared the following comments:

“Michele has been great…she dived in and was able to navigate and work independently as needed. Michele has been doing an awesome job.”

THANK YOU, Antara, Johanna, and Michele for consistently demonstrating CARA’s PURE values, delivering the highest quality of service and exceeding our clients’ expectations.

CARA’s PURE Service Program provides a unique way to measure success and evaluate how well our consultants’ service delivery meets our clients’ needs. CARA’s service delivery process is based on the PURE service philosophy and consultants are reviewed quarterly based on how well they demonstrate our PURE values: Professionalism, Understanding, Responsibility and Excellence. CARA’s consultants are nominated based on client feedback, PURE evaluations, and team interaction with the consultants. After careful consideration of each candidate, CARA selects the PURE award recipients. The PURE award program is the foundation of CARA’s culture, aligning us with our clients’ and consultants’ values in service excellence.

 

We are pleased to announce our 2019 third quarter winner of the PURE Service Award, Jill Spealman!

Jill Spealman is a talented learning professional with over 20 years of business experience. For the past 7 years, she has consulted with one of CARA’s largest Fortune 500 customers to design and develop custom learning solutions for the Technology Adoption and Experience organization. In addition to CARA’s PURE Award, Jill was also recognized and awarded internally by our client.

Jill’s recent project manager shared the following comments:

“Jill has been a rock star on the team this year… She is very proactive and is always thinking about a positive user experience in everything she creates. Jill takes complex projects and turns them into simple to understand learning products.”

THANK YOU, Jill for consistently demonstrating CARA’s PURE values, delivering the highest quality of service and exceeding our clients’ expectations.

CARA’s PURE Service Program provides a unique way to measure success and evaluate how well our consultants’ service delivery meets our clients’ needs. CARA’s service delivery process is based on the PURE service philosophy and consultants are reviewed quarterly based on how well they demonstrate our PURE values: Professionalism, Understanding, Responsibility and Excellence. CARA’s consultants are nominated based on client feedback, PURE evaluations, and team interaction with the consultants. After careful consideration of each candidate, CARA selects the PURE award recipients. The PURE award program is the foundation of CARA’s culture, aligning us with our clients’ and consultants’ values in service excellence.

We are pleased to announce our 2019 second quarter winners of the PURE Service Award! The following CARA consultants are the recipients of the PURE award.

Marcia Gauger is a master performance development consultant with over twenty-five years of business experience. She is a previous CARA PURE Award winner and has worked with CARA on multiple engagements. Most recently Marcia helped create a sales onboarding program for newly recruited college graduates and worked on a new sales curriculum for a global audience.

Marcia’s recent project manager shared the following comments:

“Marcia joined our team as a consultant to lead a critical sales training need and within weeks, no days, she had integrated into our culture and organization. Marcia quickly learned our complex business and rapidly provided value to the project. Perhaps more importantly, her expertise spread throughout the team and she took on an informal coaching role for many of our team members. Marcia was an outstanding asset to us, and I am proud to share the great work she did for our team.”

Peggy Plohg is an OCM and change communications consultant with over 25 years of business experience. She has led numerous cross-industry change programs including business transformation, culture change, employee experience, organizational design, the design and standup of Centers of Excellence and shared services functions and enterprise-wide system implementations. As a CARA Consultant Peggy has led the OCM efforts for a large manufacturing client to transform global marketing processes to drive competitive market advantage, including the stand-up of a shared services organization comprised of 50 individuals. She developed and led the OCM strategic plan to drive enrollment and adoption of ~5000 global and geographic marketing professionals and senior leadership. She has served as a trusted advisor to the client.

Peggy’s recent project manager shared the following comments:

“Peggy is an excellent change partner. She takes time to understand her clients, creates a change plan that will land with the organization, and executes it. Additionally, she builds communications plan, drafts communication, and works with L&D on a training plan. Most importantly, she keeps the leader on top of the pulse of a project and project team. She reminded me when to send out motivating messages and alerted me when to send out a let’s get going here team”

Andy Welter is a learning and development professional with over twenty years of business experience. His strong consultative skills and industry experience allows him to create learning solutions on a wide-range of topics including leadership development to systems and process training. Most recently Andy helped turn a strictly instructor led training program into a blended-learning program with online capabilities improving workplace performance.

Andy’s recent program manager shared the following comments:

“I wanted to take a moment to let you know how appreciative I am of having Andy on our team. His conscientiousness, work ethic and quality of work is second to none and he has provided a great deal of value to our team and our project. Andy has become ingrained in the team and is a trusted and valued team member whom others rely on for many, important project activities and deliverables and he has come to understand our technology platform as well or better than many of our core team members. I can tell he takes it all very seriously and when he takes something on I don’t have to worry about it because I know he is. This level of commitment to his project work is invaluable to me as the project manager. In addition to all of the above, Andy has a great style – he is very patient and understanding when things outside his control but which impact him don’t go as planned. He’s always very willing to adjust and/or be flexible as we work through the complexities and challenges of a large systems project. Kudos to Andy for all his hard work and dedication – it is greatly appreciated!”

THANK YOU Marcia, Peggy, and Andy for consistently demonstrating CARA’s PURE values, delivering the highest quality of service and exceeding our clients’ expectations.

CARA’s PURE Service Program provides a unique way to measure success and evaluate how well our consultants’ service delivery meets our clients’ needs. CARA’s service delivery process is based on the PURE service philosophy and consultants are reviewed quarterly based on how well they demonstrate our PURE values: Professionalism, Understanding, Responsibility and Excellence. CARA’s consultants are nominated based on client feedback, PURE evaluations, and team interaction with the consultants. After careful consideration of each candidate, CARA selects the PURE award recipients. The PURE award program is the foundation of CARA’s culture, aligning us with our clients’ and consultants’ values in service excellence.

We are pleased to announce our 2019 first quarter winners of the PURE Service Award! The following CARA consultants are the recipients of the PURE award.

Paul Chironna is a program management professional, senior learning consultant, and learning operations manager with over twenty years of business experience. Paul is a two-time PURE Winner and has worked with CARA on multiple engagements. On his most recent project, he has spent a little over one year at a multinational professional services organization. While on this engagement, Paul worked as a program and project manager. He partnered with L&D and business leaders to define a program approach and plan for learning components related to among other things, increasing sales. Additionally, he is managing a team of consultants assigned to multiple workstreams.

Paul’s recent Project Manager shared the following comments:

“Paul has been instrumental in critically analyzing our stakeholder’s business goals and aligning our L&D strategy to best achieve those goal. Paul is extremely skilled at managing the team processes and products. He has put in place effective processes to ensure high quality deliverables that meet both learner and stakeholder needs. One of the things we admire about Paul is his ability to remain unflappable in the face of an ever-changing array of opinions, sponsors, stakeholders, SMSs, and L&D staff. He continues to flex accordingly and adjusts to the needs of the business without missing a beat! Paul is a model of professionalism on the team. He has been a true consultant and partner with us.”

Dara Moore is Dara Moore is a Learning and Development professional with over eighteen years of business experience. Dara has extensive experience in fostering learning, setting learning strategy, and impacting organizational productivity and growth. She has worked with CARA on several engagements, her most recent project being with a multinational professional services organization. During her time with CARA, Dara worked as a part of the Solutions L&D team. She employed detailed analysis methodologies leveraging highly-effective stakeholder management and collaboration, as well as conducted in-depth content assessment and synthesis as inputs to developing multiple micro learning solutions that she too developed. Dara fosters strong relationships, quickly assesses the clients’ needs, and provides quick wins.

Dara’s recent Project Manager shared the following comments:

“Dara is doing great! I am so impressed with her skill set and she is wonderful to work with!”

“Dara Moore is doing an exceptional job for the Phoenix team. I am thrilled to have her on our team! She is a rock star!”

Colleen Roop is Colleen Roop is a Learning and Performance professional with over thirty years of business experience. Colleen is a seasoned consultant with the ability to assess business and performance requirements, design, develop and customize solutions for diverse groups, geographies, industries, business units, and staff levels, as well as develop and refine work processes to deliver quality products and procedures. She has worked with CARA for about four years at a multinational professional services. During her time with CARA, she worked as a Program/Project Lead and Lead Designer. She led the re-design and building of a new curriculum, worked with procurement to manage faculty requirements, and worked with leaders to create global workshops. Her ability to build relationships, manage large-scale programs, and lead global teams has enabled the growth capabilities of several programs for her client.

Colleen’s recent Project Manager shared the following comments:

“Colleen was the key lead driving all of our program activities from design to implementation. She has demonstrated strong commitment and resolve. During her time on the program she established a wide network across stakeholders, subject matter experts and course faculty that has been invaluable to the success of the program. She also has an eye toward ensuring everyone’s best interests were kept at the forefront. Her blend of program management expertise and learning development expertise has added tremendous value to the program.”

Emma King is Emma King is a Learning and Development professional with over seventeen years of business experience. Emma is an innovative thought partner, project management business consultant, and mentor. Her views on the status and future of technology-based learning has been published in several magazines, she has taught at conferences, and delivered several webinars. Emma is a two-time PURE Award winner. She has worked with CARA on several engagements. During her time with CARA, she developed effective engagement practices for video and learning content, designed and developed cutting-edge content and innovative gamification strategies, and has worked with clients on choosing the best set of technologies for their needs.

Emma’s recent Project Manager shared the following comments:

“Emma represents PURE in every way as a consultant. She is always a professional and builds credibility and demonstrates a trusted partnership every time with her client. She displays grace under fire, the most recent project had really tight deadlines. She was responsible for creating documentation to support a system that was being built as she created the materials. She exceeded expectations and worked in an agile manner to create scripts, record audio and manage another consultant without missing any deadlines.”

Jim Heininger is Jim Heininger is an organizational change management and strategic communications professional with more than twenty-five years of business experience. Jim is able to coach executives through change requirements of business transformation while designing and executing “best practices” based change management solutions tailored to each client’s unique culture and environment. He has worked with CARA for about four years for a national banking client. During his time with CARA, he has served as the change management lead on three high-profile projects where he was responsible for all people impact work streams. He ensured that the projects were successfully launched with stakeholders prepared, and delivered against business expectations.

Jim’s recent Project Manager shared the following comments:

“There is no way that we would’ve been able to get to end of job without all of your efforts. The countless hours you put into ensuring that all tasks were on track and completed were greatly appreciated. You were a tremendous asset to the project team and went above and beyond all of my expectations”.

THANK YOU Paul, Dara, Colleen, Emma, and Jim for consistently demonstrating CARA’s PURE values, delivering the highest quality of service and exceeding our clients’ expectations.

CARA’s PURE Service Program provides a unique way to measure success and evaluate how well our consultants’ service delivery meets our clients’ needs. CARA’s service delivery process is based on the PURE service philosophy and consultants are reviewed quarterly based on how well they demonstrate our PURE values: Professionalism, Understanding, Responsibility and Excellence. CARA’s consultants are nominated based on client feedback, PURE evaluations, and team interaction with the consultants. After careful consideration of each candidate, CARA selects the PURE award recipients. The PURE award program is the foundation of CARA’s culture, aligning us with our clients’ and consultants’ values in service excellence.