About Brenda
🎯Professional Summary
I’m a talent and organizational development leader dedicated to helping people learn, grow, and transform. I support individuals and organizations by leveraging skills in learning, change management, and collaboration. My work experience includes building the learning function from the ground up in tech startups, scaling teams, and driving transformation. My master’s degree in Adult Education, ongoing professional development, and diverse work experience have helped me build deep expertise in instructional design, facilitation, and talent development strategy. My CliftonStrengths Top 5 are Strategic, Learner, Arranger, Achiever, and Individualization.
🧭Leadership Philosophy
As a leader, I create relationships built on trust, growth, and honest dialogue. I’ve led in-person, remote, and hybrid teams of up to 20 direct reports and overseen the training, instructional design, and organizational development functions. I’ve led cross-functional groups, volunteer teams, and project-based collaborations without formal authority. I believe in the principles of Radical Candor, and I challenge directly while caring personally and empowering others through compassion and accountability. I strive to remove barriers and coach toward success.
🔄Change Management Expertise
As a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner, I help people navigate change with clarity and confidence. I leverage the ADKAR model and Prosci’s change management methodology to deliver manager enablement, targeted communications, and learning to reduce change resistance and drive adoption. I’ve led change efforts to support digital transformation, culture shifts, and employee experience initiatives. My goal is to enable change by helping people build awareness, spark desire, grow knowledge, strengthen ability, and reinforce new ways of working.
📚Passion Project
In addition to my full-time career, The Layoff Lady is my passion project. As a 7-time layoff survivor, I use this platform to share my lessons learned to help others navigate unplanned job losses. I wrote "Seven Lessons from Seven Layoffs: A Guide" to help people navigate from layoff day to the first day of their new job. At TheLayoffLady.com, I share my insights on layoffs, job transitions, and career resilience.
I’m a talent and organizational development leader dedicated to helping people learn, grow, and transform. I support individuals and organizations by leveraging skills in learning, change management, and collaboration. My work experience includes building the learning function from the ground up in tech startups, scaling teams, and driving transformation. My master’s degree in Adult Education, ongoing professional development, and diverse work experience have helped me build deep expertise in instructional design, facilitation, and talent development strategy. My CliftonStrengths Top 5 are Strategic, Learner, Arranger, Achiever, and Individualization.
🧭Leadership Philosophy
As a leader, I create relationships built on trust, growth, and honest dialogue. I’ve led in-person, remote, and hybrid teams of up to 20 direct reports and overseen the training, instructional design, and organizational development functions. I’ve led cross-functional groups, volunteer teams, and project-based collaborations without formal authority. I believe in the principles of Radical Candor, and I challenge directly while caring personally and empowering others through compassion and accountability. I strive to remove barriers and coach toward success.
🔄Change Management Expertise
As a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner, I help people navigate change with clarity and confidence. I leverage the ADKAR model and Prosci’s change management methodology to deliver manager enablement, targeted communications, and learning to reduce change resistance and drive adoption. I’ve led change efforts to support digital transformation, culture shifts, and employee experience initiatives. My goal is to enable change by helping people build awareness, spark desire, grow knowledge, strengthen ability, and reinforce new ways of working.
📚Passion Project
In addition to my full-time career, The Layoff Lady is my passion project. As a 7-time layoff survivor, I use this platform to share my lessons learned to help others navigate unplanned job losses. I wrote "Seven Lessons from Seven Layoffs: A Guide" to help people navigate from layoff day to the first day of their new job. At TheLayoffLady.com, I share my insights on layoffs, job transitions, and career resilience.
Getting In Touch With Brenda
About This Portfolio
This portfolio includes work samples to give potential employers insight into the types of materials I create to improve employee and organizational performance. Please do not download these documents or use them outside of the context to better understand my skillset. Thank you for your cooperation.
Presenting a Solution: Outlining and Building Support for a New Program
I created these documents to pitch a learning solution to decision makers to get initial approval.
Blended Learning Strategy Onboarding Proposal for [Company] is a PowerPoint presented to a client interested in finding a more effective solution for new employee and contractor onboarding. The presentation would be delivered to the company's decision-makers and key stakeholders, and a high-level course of action would be proposed to address their key concerns. The goal of this presentation was to outline the proposed blended learning solution, including self-paced eLearning, and virtual instructor-led training, to address varying start times and the desire to also start to build strong organizational ties at a distance.
ATD-Nebraska (ATD-NE) Career Development SIG Proposal outlines key components of a special interest group I created for the Nebraska Association for Talent Development (ATD) chapter. I outline the rationale behind the group, the benefits of the group, and logistics, including meeting topics, meeting dates and times, and communication points. The goal of this document was to outline the proposed group, outline key logistical details, and garner buy-in for the creation and ongoing support for this new member-focused special interest group.
Blended Learning Strategy Onboarding Proposal for [Company] is a PowerPoint presented to a client interested in finding a more effective solution for new employee and contractor onboarding. The presentation would be delivered to the company's decision-makers and key stakeholders, and a high-level course of action would be proposed to address their key concerns. The goal of this presentation was to outline the proposed blended learning solution, including self-paced eLearning, and virtual instructor-led training, to address varying start times and the desire to also start to build strong organizational ties at a distance.
ATD-Nebraska (ATD-NE) Career Development SIG Proposal outlines key components of a special interest group I created for the Nebraska Association for Talent Development (ATD) chapter. I outline the rationale behind the group, the benefits of the group, and logistics, including meeting topics, meeting dates and times, and communication points. The goal of this document was to outline the proposed group, outline key logistical details, and garner buy-in for the creation and ongoing support for this new member-focused special interest group.
Making a Business Case For Change: Influencing Attitudes and Actions
I often partner with leaders and key stakeholders to assess the current state, identify areas for improvement, and reccommend a course of action. This process typically involves creating a written reccommendation, helping to lead implementation, and driving change management to promote organizational adoption. Here are examples of materials to support the early stages of driving change.
Business Case: Rethinking SME-Delivered Quarterly Training Sessions includes background information and data to help an organization evaluate a current learning program and determine if, when, and/or how to continue the program in the future. The document includes original goals, a high-level outline of the current process, an list of key program components, and statistics on program creation and utilization. My reccommendation is to rethink the current program and considering more time and cost-efficient learning solutions. My goal with this document is to give decision-makers additional context for making a sound business decision about what started as one person's passion project.
Learning Options for New Implementaton Success is a customer-facing presentation that outlines the learning process for onboarding new SaaS customers as part of a software implementation project. I created this presentation when I was new to a training leadership position at a software company and received several “special training requests” from new clients. After investigating, I discovered we did not have a process for salespeople or other training team members to describe our training plan for onboarding new clients. This presentation is intended to build new client confidence in the organization, outline learnign options, and garner buyin for their participation in this new program. It also includes robust notes to enable other team members to present this information as needed.
Business Case: Rethinking SME-Delivered Quarterly Training Sessions includes background information and data to help an organization evaluate a current learning program and determine if, when, and/or how to continue the program in the future. The document includes original goals, a high-level outline of the current process, an list of key program components, and statistics on program creation and utilization. My reccommendation is to rethink the current program and considering more time and cost-efficient learning solutions. My goal with this document is to give decision-makers additional context for making a sound business decision about what started as one person's passion project.
Learning Options for New Implementaton Success is a customer-facing presentation that outlines the learning process for onboarding new SaaS customers as part of a software implementation project. I created this presentation when I was new to a training leadership position at a software company and received several “special training requests” from new clients. After investigating, I discovered we did not have a process for salespeople or other training team members to describe our training plan for onboarding new clients. This presentation is intended to build new client confidence in the organization, outline learnign options, and garner buyin for their participation in this new program. It also includes robust notes to enable other team members to present this information as needed.
Trainer Guides: Facilitation Notes for Instructor-Led Training
I created these two facilitator guides to help technical trainers deliver instructor-led software training sessions to end users at customer organizations. Notes included help ensure a high-quality, consistent learning experience across facilitators.
Adult Learning 101 Facilitator Guide supports a facilitated virtual learning experience for new learning and development professionals. This presentation is intended to be facilitated by one or two people new to the field of talent development gain a better understanding of core adult education principles. This 45-minute session includes content on adult learning theory, popular learning models, and best practices for creating educationally sound learning experiences for adults. This guide includes a copy of each slide, talking points, and activiites to promote learner engagement.
[Class Name] Trainer Notes supports a training consultant to ensure consistent delivery of an advanced software end-use class. The guide includes PowerPoint slides, a list of key topics to cover in that platform, points for interaction, and robust trainer notes. In addition, this guide has facilitation reccommendations for delivery as an in-person instructor-led session or as an instructor-led webinar with multiple points for attendee interaction. To help this guide stay current with an ever-changing SaaS software platform, trainers are expected to stay current on software functionality so they are able to use the provided prompts to demonstrate features without detailed step-by-step directions.
Adult Learning 101 Facilitator Guide supports a facilitated virtual learning experience for new learning and development professionals. This presentation is intended to be facilitated by one or two people new to the field of talent development gain a better understanding of core adult education principles. This 45-minute session includes content on adult learning theory, popular learning models, and best practices for creating educationally sound learning experiences for adults. This guide includes a copy of each slide, talking points, and activiites to promote learner engagement.
[Class Name] Trainer Notes supports a training consultant to ensure consistent delivery of an advanced software end-use class. The guide includes PowerPoint slides, a list of key topics to cover in that platform, points for interaction, and robust trainer notes. In addition, this guide has facilitation reccommendations for delivery as an in-person instructor-led session or as an instructor-led webinar with multiple points for attendee interaction. To help this guide stay current with an ever-changing SaaS software platform, trainers are expected to stay current on software functionality so they are able to use the provided prompts to demonstrate features without detailed step-by-step directions.
Short Videos: Product Overview and Celebrations
I designed, wrote, created, and edited these two videos.
CHANGE card Training Video for Talent outlines key benefits of a new paycard product for employees who will be encouraged to receive their paychecks this way. The first part of the video outlines key benefits for paycard users. Then, the video covers how to activate the card and an overview of the available features for paycard users to manage their money. The goal of this video is to give new and potential users insights into how this product works and the advantages of using the paycard. I also narrate this video.
Product Launch Celebration Video is a fun internal video to celebrate the launch of a new product. The core audience for this video is internal employees who had a role in the launch project. This video was also shared with key stakeholders in other area of the organization as an example of a fun way to acknowledge people's contributions, and drive employee engagement. All people featured in the video are employees, and they had the option to help determine how their team would celebrate this company achievement in a fun way. When I met with each group, I came with a few ideas and I worked with each group to bring each idea to live using their preferences for how to do that well. For some groups, based on my previous working relationships with participants, I suggested ideas that fit their personalities (like the group of introverts with coffee cups). Technologies used included video footage recorded on an iPhone, Teams webinar recordings, and effects added in Camtasia.
CHANGE card Training Video for Talent outlines key benefits of a new paycard product for employees who will be encouraged to receive their paychecks this way. The first part of the video outlines key benefits for paycard users. Then, the video covers how to activate the card and an overview of the available features for paycard users to manage their money. The goal of this video is to give new and potential users insights into how this product works and the advantages of using the paycard. I also narrate this video.
Product Launch Celebration Video is a fun internal video to celebrate the launch of a new product. The core audience for this video is internal employees who had a role in the launch project. This video was also shared with key stakeholders in other area of the organization as an example of a fun way to acknowledge people's contributions, and drive employee engagement. All people featured in the video are employees, and they had the option to help determine how their team would celebrate this company achievement in a fun way. When I met with each group, I came with a few ideas and I worked with each group to bring each idea to live using their preferences for how to do that well. For some groups, based on my previous working relationships with participants, I suggested ideas that fit their personalities (like the group of introverts with coffee cups). Technologies used included video footage recorded on an iPhone, Teams webinar recordings, and effects added in Camtasia.
