A HIGHER PRESENCE
Consulting firm gets bigger
Kepner- Tregoe is a management consulting firm with 50 years’ experience offering improved business outcomes to top international companies. For 40 of those years it has advised companies in Calgary, where it opened an office in 2014.
The office was led by Kevin Duffy, who has gone on to become a global vice- president concentrating on North America. He realizes the significance of the economic climate in Alberta and has appointed Jeff Robinson to the position of regional managing consultant responsible for directing Kepner- Tregoe’s business across Western Canada from the Calgary office.
Robinson has more than 27 years’ experience in marketing, communications, business management and management consulting.
A native of Sydney, Australia, he was a production manager in a large and well- known advertising agency. After meeting and marrying a Calgarian the couple moved to Calgary in 1991 and Robinson found work with MacLaren Lintas as an account executive. He later moved to the Calgary office of MGM, a Saskatoon- based agency that did well with accounts such as Enmax and Big Rock. With other agencies he was also involved in adding value to other high- profile companies such as WestJet Airlines and GE Harris.
Joining Robinson in the Calgary office is senior consultant Ryan Thornton, who recently moved from Sydney where he worked at Kepner- Tregoe for three years. Thornton has worked for the company for 10 years, primarily out of its Chicago office.
He wanted to return to the North American market and when the head office in Princeton, N. J., indicated it had a new strategy for western Canadian growth, Thornton says he jumped at the chance to relocate to Calgary where he had worked on projects earlier in his career.
The majority of the firm’s work here has involved serving many of the major companies in the oil and gas sector. It also has experience here in a variety of other industries such as mining, manufacturing and industrial, and has experts on call from offices around the world in other sectors including airports, telecommunications, automotive, life sciences and financial services.
The heart of Kepner- Tregoe’s approach is in training executives to run their organizations more efficiently, using its research in how people think, solve problems and make decisions.
The methodology helps teams think clearly and collaboratively when under pressure to achieve shared enterprise goals. Robinson said that when employees at all levels of a company follow the same thinking and issue resolution processes, it results on increased productivity, improved efficiency, superior quality, increased morale, and a unified sense of purpose with a reduction in costs.
The Calgary office will provide the company’s tools and methods for causal analysis, decision- making, risk management, and project management to create performance and cost improvements for clients. The immediate focus is on those firms headquartered in downtown Calgary but training can either be with in- house workshops or on- site. ( Thornton recalls working on a multi- year contract to improve safety at a mining site in Utah and was more recently on a two- week project management training contract for a company in Amsterdam.)
Besides the new staff in Calgary, Kepner- Tregoe has a representative in Edmonton and three staffers in Vancouver.
NEWS AND NOTES
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like on the wrong side of the law, you can find out Saturday April 18 by viewing the prison cells and state- of- the- art high security courtroom at the Calgary Courts Centre. The tours are part of the 33rd annual Law Day activities when centre staff, police officers and others in the justice system volunteer their time for the family- oriented day that draws about 4,000 people every year. Law Day is a chance to learn about our justice system, attend demonstration trials — including Batman versus Robin — and check out the amazing collection of items that security has confiscated.
Tabetha Boot, account director at Hill + Knowlton Strategies, has been given added responsibilities as group leader in the Calgary office, assuming the management and mentorship of her team.