WLH CONSULTING - Key Persons
Dakota Kinney provides project management support and content development for a number of large-scale projects for WLH Consulting, Inc. He often collaborates with WLH Learning Solutions to co-author tools on change management, competency model development, leadership development, and talent retention.
Steven Hammond's career has been characterized by proven performance in demanding leadership positions in federal, state, and private sector organizations. WLH relies on his extensive experience in organizational and leader development, change management, and conflict resolution to develop and facilitate our offerings.
He has an extensive military and government career in homeland security, performance-based budgeting, quality, and earned-value management. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, he has also earned three post-graduate degrees: a Master of Arts (College Teaching and Social Psychology) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; a Master of Science (Counseling Education) from Long Island University at C.W. Post College; and a Master and Doctor of Philosophy (Organizational Psychology) from Columbia University in New York City.
His career began with service in the US Army as a commissioned officer. He achieved the rank of Colonel and culminated his federal service as Director of the Office of Leader Development at the United States Military Academy (West Point), where he played a key role in chairing and authoring institutional initiatives to eliminate hazing and abusive leadership practices from the 4-year West Point experience for developing leaders of character for service to the nation. During this period, Dr. Hammond also served as Head of the Department of Tactics, Deputy Dean of Students, and as Chief of Strategic Planning for the Academy.
Upon his departure from the federal sector, Dr. Hammond served for 5 years in Florida's Senior Management Service as Senior Director of General Tax Administration in the Florida Department of Revenue (FDOR). In this capacity he managed the operations of 38 offices across the United States and Florida, comprised of approximately 2,300 employees responsible for the annual collection, processing and distribution of over $25 billion. In 1998, the exemplary productivity of General Tax Administration and FDOR was formally recognized as the first state agency in Florida to receive the Governor's Sterling Award for quality management and performance excellence.
Following service in state government, Dr. Hammond managed the start-up of Camber Corporation's Tallahassee Office. He subsequently directed the Statewide Security Assessment of Florida Seaports for the Executive Office of the Governor. The study was cited in the report of the Presidential Inter-Agency Commission on Crime and Security in US Seaports as an example for other states to emulate and resulted in Florida being the first state in the nation to legislate standards for security of deep water seaports. In recognition of the importance of this effort, the National Cargo Security Council (NCSC) named Dr. Hammond to receive their prestigious Industry Leadership Award for 2000.
Upon leaving Camber Corporation, Dr. Hammond served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Special Security, Inc. (SSI), headquartered in Lake Mary / Orlando, Florida. Special Security, Inc. provided its government clients with configurable, state-of-the-art, biometric-based identity verification products and services, employing tamperproof, passive fingerprint technology on a secure 2-D barcode.
More recently, Dr. Hammond served as Executive Director of the Florida Tax Watch Center for Smart Justice. In this capacity he worked with elected officials, the legislature, members of the judiciary, state agency heads, law enforcement, and service providers to promote scientific, evidence-based reform of Florida's criminal and juvenile justice systems.
Lela Tepavac, PhD brings extensive leadership development consulting experience to the WLH team. She is dedicated to helping leaders build innovative organizations with enabling cultures that attract exceptional people and fully leverage their talents and initiatives. She has deep expertise in supporting leaders with their ability to lead growth or turnaround, build effective governance frameworks, and build organizations that enable creativity and innovation. She also developed a methodology to assess the generational gap between incumbent and emerging leaders - data that is critical in leadership succession planning.
Lela was a Partner at Mercer Delta Consulting from '93 to '06 working with senior executives across industries to design and execute strategic organizational change. Lela worked primarily in the areas of strategic change management, organizational diagnosis, executive leadership assessment, CEO evaluation and succession, organizational culture change, Board assessment, intellectual capital building, and change metrics.
Before this, Lela held a research position at Columbia University where she designed and executed various research studies. Lela has been a contributing author on a number of publications and has collaborated on several books. Her work in the innovation area was published as a book (Fearless Journeys: Innovation in Five American Orchestras). She is a current member of the American Psychological Association, NYHRPS, and METRO.
Job Titles:
- Leadership Development Professional and Certified Executive Coach
Dr. Loretta Cate is a leadership development professional and certified executive coach who brings over 30 years of proven ability to work with all levels of senior management to analyze performance needs, develop strategic solutions, and build support and alignment among diverse stakeholders to WLH Consulting, Inc. ("WLH").
During her 23 years working in the Pharmaceutical industry, most recently serving as Director, Leadership Development for Pfizer, Inc., Loretta held leadership positions in sales training, front-line management, leadership development, HR and talent management, and senior sales management. Her leadership resulted in being sought out by Senior Leadership representing a variety of business units to lead and consult on critical business, leadership, and change initiatives.
As a Senior Consultant with WLH, Loretta's primary area of focus is Leadership Development. Clients value her diagnostic skills and ability to build learning strategies that increase learning transfer, application, and sustainability. Loretta blends her background as a sales leader and learning professional to design and facilitate fully integrated leadership development programs for sales leadership and targeted high- potential emerging leaders. Her areas of interest include designing talent architecture, succession planning processes, and selection criteria that produce a diverse pool of ready now candidates for leaders at all levels.
As a certified executive coach, Loretta supports leaders at all levels with how to lead through change, develop strengths, and create high performing teams. She brings her passion as a consultant, coach, and mentor to women as the co-founder and lead designer for the Women In Leadership Now Initiative, ("WILNow ® ). Loretta has designed and implemented several regional and national women in leadership initiatives for Global Pharmaceutical companies. She helps organizations identify systemic challenges and address unconscious gender bias to become a company where high female talent want to work.
Loretta holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Tennessee Center for Health Sciences with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Tennessee. She earned her executive coaching degree from The Coaches Training Institute, an affiliate of the International Coaches Federation.
Dr. Michael Warech has over 30 years of experience designing, developing, and implementing data-driven human capital solutions that demonstrably impact an organization's bottom line. He has designed, developed, and managed numerous engagements for a variety of Fortune 1000 companies across multiple sectors, including pharma/biotech.
Michael has worked on various WLH Human Capital Strategy projects since the firm's inception in the early 1990's. In this capacity, Michael focuses on talent management and other competency-based human resource system applications (i.e., selection, performance management, succession planning, learning, leadership development, and career management systems), HR transformation, HR analytics/score carding, employee engagement survey design and analysis, organizational design, employment branding, organizational development, and change management.
Prior to founding Warech Associates LLC in 2008, Dr. Warech served as Watson Wyatt's (now Willis Towers Watson) North American Organization Effectiveness Practice Leader. There he was responsible for designing and managing Watson Wyatt's groundbreaking Human Capital Index® (HCI) research which resulted in the 2002 book entitled, The Human Capital Edge. Prior to that, Dr. Warech was a Principal at Organizational Strategies, Inc. and Assessment Alternatives, Inc., both located in the New York metropolitan area.
For the last four years, Michael has also served as a Learning Solutions Architect for Harvard Business Publishing's Corporate Learning Group. In this capacity he has sold, designed, and implemented cutting-edge learning and leadership development programming for a myriad of target audiences across all industry sectors, addressing organizations' critical human capital needs.
Job Titles:
- Member of the WLH
- Programming Chair for the South Florida Organizational Development Network
Sheryl Unger is an integral member of the WLH team who provides extensive change management and human capital strategy consulting to our clients; often involved with projects from initial scoping, project planning, and through execution.
Sheryl takes the lead on various human capital strategy projects related to competency models and development planning, with deep expertise supporting Pharmaceutical Sales and Market Access organizations. She was instrumental with the creation of 360-degree feedback surveys and supporting development planning tools for a global roll-out.
Her deep understanding of the evolving healthcare marketplace is leveraged in our Business Acumen and Account Management practice area where she supports clients with the development of their planning processes, tools, and learning solutions. When projects involve systems integration work, she works as a liaison between the client and data solution vendors to outline the process, specifications, and user interface.
She has authored management toolkits, learning programs, and articles on change management, transitional leadership, HR's role in mergers and acquisitions, goal planning, and operating plan implementation. For our large-scale change management projects, Sheryl takes the lead in communications planning and execution. For WLH Learning Solutions, she contributes to the design of assets related to teamwork, leadership development, change management, business acumen, and process improvement. Sheryl has facilitated numerous Jump Start team sessions and data gathering focus groups.
Sheryl's data collection and analysis efforts have helped organizations with business performance improvement, strategic planning, organizational health diagnosis, and medical-marketing integration planning.
She has consulted to a variety of industries, including pharmaceutical, biotech, and call-centers. Sheryl has worked with various HR departments, including the Ford Motor Company in Employee and Labor Relations where she developed and facilitated workshops on employee involvement. She has a B.A. from American University and a Masters in Industrial Labor Relations from Cornell University.
Sheryl is the programming chair for the South Florida Organizational Development Network and a member of the Association for Talent Development (ATD).
Stephen Kontra spent 35 years in the Pharmaceutical industry, most recently serving as Vice President of Global Learning & Development for Pfizer Inc., before joining WLH in 2015. Steve has worked extensively with senior executives and executive leadership teams, bringing broad experience and deep expertise in leadership development, strategy formulation, governance, business acumen, change management, coaching, assessment, performance management, competency development, and other related subject areas.
At WLH, Steve is an integral part of various large-scale change initiatives where he focuses on senior team alignment and execution implementation. Our clients, executives, and learning professionals value his insight, experience, and counsel when addressing learning strategy and leadership development initiatives. Steve is a skilled facilitator and has delivered programs across the globe; having worked extensively in Latin America, Europe, and Asia during his industry career.
Recognized as an innovator throughout his career, Steve combines his significant personal experience with his formal training to develop novel solutions that blend innovation with pragmatism to ensure successful application, sustainability, and results. Steve also performed in both commercial and corporate staff positions during his time in the pharmaceutical industry and has the ability to understand strategic and financial requirements of the business, as well as related human capital needs, challenges, and tradeoffs. Specifically, during numerous merger integrations and organizational redesigns, Steve's leadership in the learning and development function accelerated large-scale change transformation and strategic execution.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Georgia Society for Industrial - Organizational Psychology
Tianna Tye provides project management support and content development for a number of large-scale projects for WLH Consulting, Inc. She often collaborates with WLH Learning Solutions to co-author tools on change management, change agility, and talent retention.
Tianna is a member of the Georgia Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and the American Psychological Association (APA).
Job Titles:
- Founder
- President
- Member of the American Psychology Association
Dr. Wendy Heckelman, president and founder of WLH Consulting, Inc. has over 25 years of experience working with Fortune 100 industry clients. These include pharmaceutical, biotech, health care, animal health medicines, and consumer products, as well as international non-profit organizations and growing entrepreneurial companies.
Clients leverage Wendy's expertise in strategic execution and change management to address complex business performance challenges. She partners with CEOs and their teams to craft, execute, and track the performance of their strategies. She uses a rigorous and scientific lens to diagnose business performance issues, challenges, and opportunities for organizational effectiveness. Wendy leads a team of experienced consultants who develop clear recommendations and custom solutions for each client engagement.
Wendy is a skilled facilitator of executive level teams and has worked with leadership groups in over 20 countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. In addition, Wendy provides executive coaching for improved performance focusing on leadership capabilities, skill development, strategic alignments, defining business initiatives, and influencing excellence.
Additionally, Wendy is a member of the American Psychology Association (APA), the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the Organizational Development Network (ODN), the Association for Talent Development (ATD), Healthcare Businesswoman's Association (HBA), Life Sciences Trainers & Educators Network (LTEN), and the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).
Wendy holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, and a Masters in Education in Counseling from Columbia. She is an active faculty member who serves on Columbia University's Executive Program on Organizational Development.