Meet the women of Active Minds: Karen Butler, e-mail | resume
Karen Butler is the director of communications for the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (CAPH). Prior to joining CAPH, she worked as a writer in the office of development communications for the University of Southern California where she researched and wrote proposals for major gifts and handled other writing assignments for the office of the president. From 1993-96 she served as special assistant for programs and policy in the office of the director at the Contra Costa County Health Services Department.
In 1988 she began work on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide to former California Senator Alan Cranston covering health and disability issues and later served as a liaison between federal agencies and the public in the senator's San Francisco office.
Karen received her B.A. in political science from the University of California at San Diego and her M.A. in communication management from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.
Shanti Blanton, e-mail | resume
Shanti Blanton is Founder and Principal of Oakland-based Connect Consulting Inc., a full-spectrum communications agency specializing in strategies which improve the human connections that comprise and enhance business success. Services include marketing, fundraising, community-relations, event-planning and organizational development advisement as well as writing and production of web-based and printed marketing materials, proposals, direct-mail, and media kits.
Previously Shanti served as Director of Development and Communications at the University of Southern California and their #1 nationally ranked Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. In this role Shanti stewarded receipt of more than one million dollars in gifts and implemented an aggressive communications agenda including a redesign of the unit's web presence, a bi-annual newsletter, and multi-media promotional materials. Shanti's work with national media outlets include collaborations with CNN and National Public Radio, among others, and her writings have been published in nationally disseminated periodicals including Advance, OT Week, and Today's Student.
Having been raised in Berkeley, California and Washington D.C., Shanti has maintained involvement personally and professionally on a range of social and political issues, particularly those most affecting women's lives. Her earliest employment experience includes work with the YWCA and the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. and her college work in Community Studies at U.C. Santa Cruz included six-months as a women's self-defense instructor in Barcelona, Spain. Her graduate work in Communications Management at USC emphasized research in socially responsible business practices and partnering trends among for-profit and non-profit organizations. Her recent volunteer work includes the Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk, and ongoing service as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Sunshine Mission, Los Angeles' oldest shelter for homeless women.
An avid traveler and dedicated music fan, Shanti has traversed the globe, often with her guitar, and with help from friends has released two CDs entitled Her Voice and Thirsty Boots, both featuring Shanti as a vocalist and rhythm guitarist. She makes her home near Lake Merritt in Oakland, California, where she is surrounded by wonderful friends and enjoys the companionship of her cat, Crystal.
Christina Collins, e-mail | resume
Christina Collins is a Principal Consultant for Phillips Associates with over nine years of internal and external consulting experience in the areas of strategic organizational change, organizational communication, and skills based training. As Principal Consultant, Christina is responsible for structuring and managing all aspects of client engagements. Christina believes in working collaboratively with clients to create customized solutions that meet a client's unique business needs.
As a Change Management Consultant with Andersen Consulting and as an internal consultant with Avco Financial Services, Christina has gained extensive experience in assisting organizations to implement strategic organizational change. Christina uses a high involvement approach to create a strategy and structure for implementing change initiatives. Necessary resources and training for a successful change process are also identified. Working with clients, Christina helps them to achieve business integration, the alignment of an organization's people, systems, structure and strategy.
An expert in organizational communication, Christina partners with clients to improve communication effectiveness by assessing overall organizational communication and specific communication needs. She then works with her internal partners to develop a comprehensive communication strategy and implementation plan. Finally, to maximize communication effectiveness, Christina acts as a resource to help successfully put the plan in place. Partnering with clients on important organizational issues such as the strategic rollout of a new organizational vision and mission and acquisition impact, has consistently resulted in more effective message development and implementation.
Christina is well known as a competent skill development program designer and facilitator. Christina's dynamic presentation style and her interactive, results-oriented approach to learning, result in greater audience involvement and learning retention. After participating in a skills based program with Christina, many clients continue their relationship with her through one-on-one coaching. Christina has worked with external and internal clients to create and deliver customized skill development programs for all organizational levels in areas such as interpersonal communications, presentation skills, management development, performance management, career development, customer service and facilitation skills.
Before joining Phillips Associates as a Principal Consultant, Christina began her consulting career as a Change Management Consultant with Andersen Consulting and worked as an internal organizational development consultant for Avco Financial Services. Some of Christina's clients have included Pioneer Electronics, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, PIMCO Advisors, Mattel, Disney Interactive, and Viacom. Christina has also worked successfully with a variety of clients with international operations.
Additionally, Christina has served on the faculty at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. She is also a member of the American Society for Training and Development.
Christina holds an M.A. in Organizational Communication from the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California and received her B.S. in Management and Organizational Behavior from San Diego State University.
Lynne Cooper, e-mail | resume
Antonia Cusumano, e-mail
Antonia Cusumano is a senior, "roll up her sleeves" strategy and change management consultant with extensive experience and demonstrated successes in three key areas:
Antonia holds a BA in communications and a BA in Spanish from UC Davis; and, an MA in Communication Management/Organizational Strategy from the University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication.
- "Operationalizing" business strategy - implementing effective action plans to achieve strategic and bottom line results;
- Facilitating organizations through large-scale, global change efforts;
- Coaching management teams to improve operational and organizational performance.
Antonia has more than 10 years experience as a consultant and senior line manager. She works closely with executive management teams and stakeholders to deliver bottom line results from various change programs (from big system implementations, to organizational restructuring, to business process re-engineering). She has been a change management consultant with Accenture and a strategy consultant with Extraprise working nationally and internationally. She was assistant director of Women & Philanthropy at UCLA where she helped lead the organization to raise over $5m. As a Senior Manager in Operations for a multi-billion dollar business, she led several change efforts that resulted in over $10m in savings.
Antonia also spends time giving leadership and networking talks to groups from 5 to over 5,000. She is founder of two networking organizations - Active Minds and The Sunday Club. Active Minds is a networking group of former USC Annenberg Alumnae; The Sunday Club is a group of over 100 women in the Bay Area focused on creating a collaborative network. Both groups have succeeded in helping women find employment, develop new skills, and create new contacts.
Based in San Francisco, Antonia is a member of the American Management Association (AMA), the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), the Organization Development Network (ODN), Accenture Alumni, and the UC Davis Alumni Association. She is an avid reader, runner, and "wine and foodie."
C.C. Do is an Organizational and Human Performance Experienced Analyst for Andersen Consulting since September 1998. She works with a wide range of clients within the Communications and High Tech industry partnering with them to design, develop, and implement training and human performance support strategies. Her clients include ITT Cannon, Buena Vista Internet Group, and US WEST. With experience in organizational communication, C.C. has helped clients assess and develop communication strategies and plans.
Prior to working for Andersen Consulting, C.C. worked with AON Consulting as a test administrator and recruiter. As a test administrator, she performed all tasks with administering selection test and interviews to large and small diverse groups. As a recruiter, C.C was involved in national recruitment, interviewing, training, and hiring of new applicants. In addition, she assessed the current recruitment operations, designed and implemented new recruiting methods to better align the business with the market needs.
C.C. received her M.A. in Communication Management from USC's Annenberg School for Communication and her B.A. in Psychology from UCLA.
Elizabeth Guthridge, e-mail | resume
Liz Guthridge is a senior communication and leadership development executive with extensive experience and demonstrated successes in three key areas:
- Strategically translating organizations' visions into actions by key stakeholders;
- Coaching leaders one-on-one to improve their credibility and effectiveness; and
- Working with executive teams and boards of directors to improve their performance.
Liz has more than 20 years experience, primarily as a consultant, working in both the corporate and non-profit sectors. On the corporate side, she has been a principal with the Mercer Consulting Group, Towers Perrin and Hewitt Associates on both coasts. On the non-profit side, she has worked as an independent with boards of directors and executive teams of several prominent national organizations.
In working with leaders and boards, she builds shared understanding, generates energy and engagement among key critical internal stakeholders, and helps mobilize and motivate them to take actions that will transform their organizations and improve operational results.
Some of Liz's clients include The Boeing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Hewlett-Packard Company, Golden State Foods, Jacobs Engineering, Unilever Bestfoods, the American Kennel Club, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Cedars-Sinai Health System.
Based in the San Francisco area, Liz is a member of the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the National Center for Nonprofit Boards (NCNB) and the National Association of Parliamentarians (NAP).
Liz holds a BSJ in journalism from Northwestern University, the Medill School of Journalism; an MBA from the University of Connecticut; and an MA in communication management from the University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication.
Elizabeth Hawkes, e-mail | resume
Jennifer Lee, e-mail | resume | web page
Jennifer is a skilled change management professional with 8 years of experience in organizational change management, communication strategy, project management, process design and business strategy. Jennifer is known for her effective and collaborative communication and coaching style.
Currently, she is a Manager with Gap Inc. where she plays a dual role of managing Planning and Development projects for the CFO and leading the organizational alignment effort for an Oracle 11i implementation. She has also led the process design and change management efforts for the company's human resource systems implementations.
Before joining the Gap, Jennifer was a Change Management Consultant with Accenture where she used her organizational communication expertise to enable large-scale change and she was an e-Business Strategist with a San Francisco Internet consulting firm.
During her personal time Jennifer enjoys spending quality time with her husband and friends, playing with her dog, reading, walking, bookbinding, soap making, practicing yoga and snowboarding. She is the founder of Ayako Arts, an art studio specializing in unique and stylish hand-crafted gifts.
Jennifer graduated from UCLA cum laude with a B.A. in Communication Studies and received her M.A. in Communication Management with distinction from USC's Annenberg School for Communication. She is a certified coach through The Coaches Training Institute. Her coaching practice is called Artizen Coaching. She is also a member of the Organization Development Network, International Coach Federation and the American Society for Training and Development.
Jana Rabenowitz, e-mail | resume
Jana Rabenowitz is a Manager in the Corporate Practice at Burson-Marsteller. As manager, she provides strategic insight and daily support for key client relationships in the technology and biotech sectors. Her background includes media relations, marketing communications, government relations, brand development, advertising and event planning.
Prior to joining Burson-Marsteller, she was the manager of marketing communications and public relations for the Power Systems division of Honeywell International. In that position, she developed and managed all external communications programs for the introduction of the company's microturbine, Honeywell's most important growth project. Under her leadership, Honeywell successfully introduced this product under the Parallon brand name and consistently generated positive coverage in such publications as the Financial Times, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Prior to this, Jana worked in the public affairs department of AlliedSignal Aerospace (which merged with Honeywell), while completing her master's degree. She has also held positions at CIGNA Inc., Gap Inc. and McCann-Erickson.
Jana holds a Master of Arts degree in communication management from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder. In addition, she has an executive certificate from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern in E-Business. She is also a member of the 2000/2001 class of the San Francisco Academy, a postgraduate joint venture sponsored by some 30 firms nationwide to foster innovative professional development in corporate public relations, communications and public affairs management.
Mehera Wohltmann, e-mail | resume
[back to top]
Copyright © 2000-2005 Active Minds. All rights reserved.
To send questions or comments about this site, contact us.