Biography
What might be possible if community and organization members were fully engaged and using their strengths to collectively achieve shared visions?
This is the question that motivates Kathy Becker and has her focused on collaboration. Given current global challenges, Kathy uses strengths-based organizational design practices to help clients respond effectively to increasing levels of complexity in their environments and growing demand for innovation and change.
Kathy is the CEO/President of the Company of Experts, Inc. and oversees this Small Woman Owned Business serving schools, colleges and universities, businesses, corporations and non-profits moving them from deficit models of planning and thinking to engagement, empowerment and collaboration. Under Kathy’s leadership the Company has developed a world presence and is continuing to add new teams throughout the world including Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, Middle East and South America.
Kathy’s employment history includes 20 twenty-years at a college that began a premier international student’s program for undergraduate students. Kathy has knowledge of the housing, personnel, visa, hiring and orientation, health and curriculum decisions that will go into the development of this project.
Always wanting a challenge Kathy accepted an offer to serve as a founding Chief Human Resources Officer, Staff Development Coordinator, Equal Employment Opportunity Officer, and has had direct responsibility for contract negotiations, sexual harassment training, discrimination investigation, mediation and conflict resolution, discipline and grievance, management training, and leadership development. This work at a small rural college led her to discover Appreciative Inquiry and the positive impact on employees and communities.
Kathy has co-authored three articles including “Appreciative Inquiry and Virtual Technology: An Improbable Pair for Accelerating the Wholeness Principle” published in the AI Practitioner: International Journal of Appreciative Inquiry, November 2021 edition; as well as two articles to highlight a large scale summit “Creating a Legacy to Live Into: The Macon Miracle” and “The Macon Miracle: A Community [Re] Designing Education to Capture the Hearts and Minds of Students” and to present her work alongside the school who dared to dream big in Ghent, Belgium. These articles are published in two books – Exceeding Expectations: An Anthology of Appreciative Inquiry Stories in Education around the World and Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, Volume 4.
Kathy has also served as an elected board member for a number of non-profit organizations and has relocated her company to Las Vegas, Nevada to be part of the energy, creativity and change.
