Development Strategies Plus: About Susan Newton

Behind the success of Development Strategies Plus stands an experienced professional with over nineteen years helping organizations and people work more effectively. Susan has designed and conducted programs and interventions for a variety of groups, from presidents, boards of directors and entry-level managers to church groups and research scientists.

Susan, equipped with a master’s degree in business management and organizational behavior from the University of Michigan, has consistently created change by bringing together smart capable people, in a way that creates vision, focus and action. She is a catalyst for organizations and leaders who want to make the change from traditional to high performance organizations, providing key leaders with information that frames and focuses critical decisions. She assists strategic and operational planning, executive team development, leadership training, and organizational design. All of her efforts exude consistency with her clients’ values and stages of growth. Susan's background includes management and organizational development consulting, organizational and growth strategy definition, executive coaching, and leading both Organization Development and Organizational Learning departments at companies such as Nordstrom Product Group and Automatic Data Processing (ADP). She has successfully led several large-scale reorganization efforts, possesses extensive experience in designing change strategies customized to an organization’s needs, and has been active in setting up team based organizations.

Susan’s master’s degree, from the University of Michigan, is in business management and organizational behavior. Her undergraduate degree and first master’s studies are in French literature, from the City University of New York and University of Michigan. Susan founded DSP in 1988 and has been in consulting for over seventeen years. She is past Board Chair for a number of nonprofit organizations, including Neighborhood Senior Services, Center for Independent Living, Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW), the HIV/AIDS Resource Center and The Giraffe Heroes Project. Susan is also a member of the United Way King County Consulting Consortium and past Board member of the Lifelong AIDS Alliance, the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE) and the Northwest Entrepreneur Network (NWEN). She has recently co-authored a chapter in “The Integration Imperative” on breaking down silos in professional service firms, to be published in early 2009.

About Susan L. Newton