Bios
Michael Goldman
Michael is the President of
Facilitation First.
His expertise is geared to helping teams embrace change, take accountability and follow-through on actions! He is a workshop designer and leadership trainer. Michael’s experiential facilitation programs guide individuals to becoming effective relationship managers through the use of simple yet powerful participatory tools. Over the past fifteen years Michael has also successfully facilitated over 400 meetings across North America and Europe.
Michael has edited over 5 books including the national bestseller ‘Facilitating with Ease’ and is the chief contributor to Facilitation First’s newsletter ‘The Facilitator’s Flipchart.’ His monthly teleconference series ‘Teams in Trouble’ attracts over 150+ listeners worldwide per session. He is also a keynote speaker. Michael has designed and presented keynotes for a host of groups from financial institutional conferences to association lunches, on topics ranging from ‘managing group conflict’ to ‘simple tools for running effective meetings.’
Ingrid Bens
Ingrid has a Masters Degree in Adult Education and over 25 years experience as a facilitator and consultant. During her career, Ingrid has been a community development officer, an internal organization development consultant, an independent consultant and trainer. She is also the author of many of our best-selling books on facilitation that Facilitation First uses for many of its training programs.
Rita Gupta has over fifteen years of professional experience, primarily in Project/Process Management, facilitation, IT consulting and training. Rita is a versatile consultant with superior expertise in facilitation, communications, and the documentation of understandings and results of workshops. She has facilitated workshops over intermittent durations of up to two months with five to twenty team members. She is able to deal effectively with individuals at all levels, including senior executives. She is succinct and direct, with the ability to keep teams focused and goal-oriented.
Rita has extensive leadership experience in the IT industry including Director of Project Management Office (PMO) and PMO Facilitation & Process/Project Management Consultant. Her specialty is her ability to bring troubled projects back on track. Rita has expertise in successfully managing multiple projects and working with varied clients, as well as development, implementation, and maintenance of custom project management processes.
With an Honours Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, Rita obtained her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI) in 2002 and her Certified Professional Facilitation (CPF) certification from the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) in 2008.
Marion Howell
Marion’s intuitive capacity to see and draw out the very best in people has made her a much sought-after confidante, guide and mentor to leaders from all walks of life. She is a passionate advocate for the integration of objective data and feedback with a deepening sense of authentic self-awareness that enables individuals and teams to transform their perspective. This shift allows them to see and pursue opportunities that may have been obscured by the misplaced emphasis on self-imposed constraints.
Marion has had significant success in taking her personal coaching skills into a team or departmental setting. She blends artful facilitation with a deep commitment to listening to people’s stories and then helps them frame a new collective narrative to which they become increasingly committed. Marion is also certified through Myers-Briggs and a Certified Emotional Intelligence facilitator.
Carla Martynuik (Regina, SK)
Carla Martynuik is currently a Facilitator of New Initiatives – Community and Organizational Development with the Saskatchewan Association of Rehabilitation Centres. Carla resides in Regina and travels throughout the province facilitating various strategic planning and community consultation processes.
Carla’s background has been immersed in community and organizational development. She is past Executive Director for the Community Futures program in Saskatchewan, which involved managing the activities of an entrepreneurial association that supports individuals in growing /expanding their own businesses. Carla has pursued her own consulting business and started delivering facilitation and training services. Recently she also was involved in delivering many employee development functions with the City of Regina.
Carla has combined the above work experiences with the University of Waterloo’s economic development program and her accreditation as a Certified Trainer with Facilitation First to bring a range of experiences to complement her deliver yof our Facilitating with Ease workshop in Saskatchewan.
Suzanne McGugan
Suzanne McGugan enjoyed a successful 32 year career in the Financial Services industry including positions in Retail Branch Banking, International Audit, Finance, IT and 20+ years in increasingly responsible roles in Project & Program Management. Recognizing that there was a need for Project Managers to look beyond process to excellence in Stakeholder Management, in 2003 Suzanne launched her career as an independent consultant to offer clients her insights and hard-won experience in the trenches of Project Management. Suzanne combined this experience plus a Project Management Certification from Boston University and a Project Management Professional (PMP) designation, with her accreditation as a Licensed Practitioner of Insights Discovery® to create the suite of tools and services she offers today.
It is this combination of experience with world-class tools, a “cut-to-the-chase” focus and award-winning leadership that resulted in successful implementation of a critical BMO Financial Group Program, and ultimately earned her the title of “World’s Best Project Manager” from the international research firm The Standish Group. Suzanne works with Facilitation First to deliver targeted, practical facilitation training to project managers.
Kevin Quinn
Kevin Quinn is a senior consultant specializing in coaching, consulting and the design and delivery of customized human resources development. For twenty years he has been helping his clients achieve business results by getting the best from their people. Kevin delivers these results through customized training and problem-solving with teams and individual managers. Clients have included Manulife Financial, National Trust/Scotia Bank, University Health Network, and Nelvana Productions.
Kevin has done doctoral work in Adult Learning and holds Masters degrees in history and public administration.
Heather Ramsey
Heather has taught facilitation skills at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education for several years and brings a wealth of facilitation experience to training through Facilitation First. Heather supports organizations in designing “sustainable business strategies.” She is dedicated to evolving current businesses into stronger managers of their triple-bottom-line (i.e. profit, people and planet) ultimately building organizations fit for the 21st century.
Heather holds a Business degree and a Masters in Education.
Patty Schachter (Calgary, AB)
Patty Schachter is a Professional Facilitator, a Business Excellence Consultant, and a Certified Executive Coach. By combining these finely-honed skills with nearly 30 years extensive operational and leadership experience, Patty has helped numerous organizations, teams and individuals in private, public and not-for-profit sectors, improve their effectiveness and performance.
As an associate of the National Quality Institute, Patty has been certified as an excellence professional in the Quality and Healthy Workplace streams, equipping her to assess organizational performance against world class criteria. She currently is on the External Review Team for the Premier’s Award of Excellence in Alberta which uses the same criteria. Customer Service, Process Redesign and Strategic Planning are her three key areas of expertise.
Patty was on faculty at the Banff Centre for nearly ten years, teaching two of their week-long Leadership Development programs: Team Leadership and Facilitation Skills, and Leading and Managing for Results. From developing Balanced Scorecards for measurement to Coaching for optimal performance, Patty taught most of the essential leadership skills to hundreds of participants. These leadership programs, highly experiential in nature, involve the delivery, interpretation and individual coaching for several assessment instruments, including 360° feedback on key leadership attributes. As a Certified Facilitation First Trainer (CFFT ) Patty continues to teach two-day Facilitating with Ease and problem solving programs through Facilitation First.
Bruce Withrow
Bruce Withrow has been facilitating strategic planning sessions and corporate retreats for the past thirteen years. During that time Bruce has been the lead facilitator for strategic planning sessions and high level conferences with up to 300 participants. Bruce earned his CA designation in 1980 and is a past director of the Strategic Leadership Forum in Toronto.