Tag: transformation

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What Nonprofits Can Learn From Enterprise-Wide Corporate Transformation (And What to Ignore)

Why execution discipline, change leadership, and operational rigor matter more than ever for mission-driven organizations.

As the new year begins, I’ve been reflecting on a pattern I continue to see across the organizations I work with—both in the private sector and in mission-driven nonprofits.

Before founding Red Hills Consulting Group, I spent years inside large, global organizations supporting and leading enterprise-wide transformation efforts. These were environments where change wasn’t theoretical or optional. It was complex, highly visible, and expected to deliver measurable results—often across regions, functions, and cultures.

Today, as I partner more deeply with nonprofits, foundations, and social-impact organizations, I see extraordinary commitment to mission and community. What I also see—far too often—is a gap between ambition and execution.

This isn’t a critique. It’s an observation grounded in lived experience on both sides.

The nonprofit sector does not need to become more corporate. But it does need to be more disciplined about execution, change leadership, and follow-through—especially as expectations for impact, accountability, and scale continue to rise.

Impact at scale requires more than heart. It requires systems that work.

What Actually Transfers From the Private Sector

Execution Is a Capability, Not a Phase

In corporate environments, strategy doesn’t end with a plan or a deck. That’s where the real work begins.

Across enterprise-wide transformations, I’ve supported organizations in different ways—first as a management consultant at Deloitte, PwC, and Capgemini, and later in corporate leadership and embedded advisory roles within global companies including Johnson & Johnson, Revlon, Publicis Groupe, and Pfizer. In each context, execution discipline was treated as a core organizational capability.

That discipline shows up as:

  • Clear ownership and decision rights
  • Realistic sequencing and resourcing
  • Milestones tied to outcomes—not activity

In many nonprofits, strategy is treated as the finish line rather than the starting point. The result is familiar: strong plans that quietly stall under the weight of day-to-day operations.

A strategy without execution infrastructure is just aspiration.

Change Management Is Strategic, Not “Soft”

In the private sector, change management was never an afterthought. It was a funded, staffed workstream with clear accountability.

That experience taught me something I carry into every nonprofit engagement:

Resistance isn’t dysfunction. It’s data.

Yet in many mission-driven organizations, change is still underestimated:

  • Communications are reactive
  • Stakeholder engagement is compressed
  • Adoption is assumed rather than designed

When teams are fatigued or skeptical, leaders are often surprised—despite having asked people to absorb multiple shifts without the time, clarity, or support to do so well.

Change doesn’t fail because people are difficult.
It fails because leaders don’t invest in helping people cross the bridge from old ways of working to new ones.

Data Discipline Protects the Mission

Corporate environments taught me how to use data without losing the human center.

Not vanity metrics. Not dashboards for their own sake. But:

  • Leading indicators that surface risk early
  • Measures tied directly to strategic priorities
  • The discipline to course-correct in real time

In nonprofits, data discipline isn’t about corporatization. It’s about stewardship. When resources are scarce and the stakes are high, clarity matters.

Rigor doesn’t replace values. It protects them.

Where AI Is Raising the Stakes

This gap between ambition and execution has become even more visible as nonprofits rush to explore AI and other digital tools.

AI doesn’t fix broken processes, unclear ownership, or change fatigue. It amplifies them.

Organizations without strong operational foundations don’t become more effective with AI—they become more overwhelmed. Tools move faster than people can adapt, and leadership struggles to keep pace.

The nonprofits most likely to benefit from AI are not the most tech-forward. They are the most operationally prepared.

AI, like any enterprise-wide transformation lever, raises the bar for execution discipline. It rewards clarity and exposes gaps.

What Nonprofits Should Be Careful Not to Borrow

Over-Engineered Frameworks

Some corporate tools are designed for scale, compliance, and uniformity—not agility.

Nonprofits don’t need bloated governance models or overly complex processes. They need fit-for-purpose systems that reflect their size, culture, and mission.

The lesson isn’t to copy templates.
It’s to apply principles.

Top-Down, People-Blind Transformation

Command-and-control approaches may move quickly in some corporate environments. They rarely work in mission-driven ones.

Nonprofits rely on trust, community, and shared purpose. Ignoring staff voice or community context in the name of speed undermines the very outcomes leaders are trying to achieve.

Faster isn’t better if it fractures trust.

The Cost of Ignoring Enterprise-Scale Experience

Here’s the pattern I see repeatedly when execution expertise is deprioritized:

  • Strategy refreshes every 18–24 months
  • Initiatives that never fully land
  • Burned-out teams carrying invisible operational load
  • Boards frustrated by “lack of progress” without clarity on why

When organizations avoid hiring or partnering with leaders who have managed complexity at scale, inefficiency becomes normalized—and impact quietly plateaus.

This isn’t about pedigree.
It’s about pattern recognition.

Enterprise-wide transformation teaches you how systems break, how people respond to change, and where execution most often fails. Those lessons are deeply transferable—when translated thoughtfully.

The Hybrid Leader Nonprofits Actually Need

I don’t bring corporate thinking into nonprofits.

I translate what works—and intentionally leave the rest behind.

That hybrid approach draws on:

  • Corporate execution rigor
  • Nonprofit empathy and mission alignment
  • Global and cross-sector perspective
  • Deep change-leadership experience

It’s not either/or. It’s discernment.

The nonprofits that will thrive in the coming decade won’t reject corporate approaches wholesale—or adopt them blindly. They’ll invest in leaders and partners who know how to bridge strategy and execution, values and systems, ambition and reality.

Because impact at scale requires more than heart.

It requires systems that work.

About Renée
Renée Jones is the Founder and CEO at Red Hills Consulting Group, where she leads strategic, operational, and transformational initiatives for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations. With more than 20 years of experience leading complex initiatives, Renée helps organizations turn bold ideas into lasting impact. Outside of work, she mentors emerging leaders and champions social-impact innovation. 

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Transformation Isn’t a Department—It’s a Culture Shift

In today’s disruption-prone world, the word transformation is everywhere. Organizations stand up “Transformation Offices,” appoint Chief Transformation Officers, and launch sweeping change initiatives backed by sleek dashboards and hefty budgets.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned after leading complex transformation programs across Fortune 500s, nonprofits, and private equity-backed companies, it’s this:

Transformation isn’t a department. It’s a culture shift.

Beyond the Org Chart

Years ago, I supported a global beauty brand in a multi-year transformation initiative. We had the structure in place—program leads, governance teams, and detailed roadmaps. On paper, it looked like a textbook rollout.

But we quickly realized the deeper challenge: the culture hadn’t caught up to the vision.

Employees were still clinging to outdated ways of working. Middle managers quietly resisted new roles. Cross-functional collaboration was more talk than action. The transformation looked good on the org chart—but in the day-to-day rhythm of the business, it had not taken root.

That experience (and many since) cemented this truth: if you don’t shift the culture, you’re just reshuffling boxes.

Mindset Over Mechanics

Too often, transformation efforts lean heavily on the mechanical side—new technologies, reorganized teams, redesigned workflows. These are necessary, but not sufficient.

What’s harder—but far more impactful—is shifting how people think, behave, and engage.

When I worked with a major life sciences client to redesign their global PMO, our biggest wins didn’t come from the processes we implemented—but from the mindset we nurtured. We created safe space for functional leads to challenge old assumptions, encouraged transparency in reporting, and celebrated progress—even when it was messy. Over time, the PMO became not just a compliance engine, but a trusted partner in strategic execution.

What Transformation Really Requires

Here’s what I’ve seen work across sectors:

🔹 Start with Purpose
I always begin with the “why.” When teams understand how the change aligns with their values or mission, resistance melts. At one nonprofit client, we framed a difficult org redesign around impact—what it would allow them to achieve for their beneficiaries. That alignment changed everything.

🔹 Model the Change
Transformation takes hold when leaders walk the talk. In my work leading enterprise-wide change, I’ve partnered with executive teams to shift from command-and-control dynamics toward more collaborative, inquiry-driven leadership—where listening, humility, and curiosity drive better outcomes. Culture change always starts at the top.

🔹 Create Psychological Safety
In a recent diagnostic for a multinational client, we uncovered that fear of failure was silently killing innovation. We worked to reframe “failure” as learning—introducing pilots, retrospectives, and peer coaching. When people feel safe, they grow.

A Living, Breathing Shift

Transformation isn’t something you launch and leave behind. It’s a living process—rooted in behaviors, sustained by belief systems, and reflected in how your people show up every day.

So if you’re leading change—ask yourself: are you designing systems, or shifting culture?

Because long after the project plans are archived, culture is what carries the transformation forward.

About Renée
Renée Jones is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Red Hills Consulting Group, where she leads strategic, operational, and transformational initiatives for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations. With a focus on clarity, collaboration, and measurable impact, she helps organizations turn bold vision into real-world results. www.redhillsconsultinggroup.com

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How I Help Organizations Move from Vision to Value

A behind-the-scenes look at my consulting approach—and why it works.

When organizations bring me in, they’re often standing at the edge of something big: a new strategic plan, a transformation initiative, or a change they know is necessary—but haven’t quite figured out how to execute.

They don’t need more theory.
They need a trusted partner who can bring structure to the chaos, ask the hard questions, and guide teams from talk to traction.

That’s what I do at Red Hills Consulting Group.

Whether it’s a nonprofit trying to scale impact, a PE-backed company improving operational efficiency, or a corporate team realigning after reorg—I help organizations move from vision to value. Here’s how.

🧭 1. Clarify the Vision

Every engagement starts with understanding your “why.”
What does success look like in 12 months? What challenges are in your blind spots? What are we solving for—and for whom?

I help leadership teams align around shared goals and surface the hidden friction points. This clarity becomes our North Star for everything that follows.

🔍 2. Diagnose the Gaps

This is the step most organizations skip—and the one that changes everything.

I bring a diagnostic mindset to every engagement. That might look like interviewing key stakeholders, auditing business processes, or assessing current-state tools and performance indicators. The goal: get a fact-based picture of what’s working, what’s not, and where we need to focus.

When I led a margin optimization project for an advisory firm, for example, it wasn’t just about cost savings—it was about understanding how work was prioritized, where teams were stuck, and how decisions were made.

🗺️ 3. Co-Design the Path Forward

I don’t drop in with a generic playbook.

Instead, I co-create solutions with your internal teams—whether we’re building a project governance framework, standing up a Strategic PMO, or designing an operational roadmap. That shared ownership ensures the plan isn’t just right—it’s real, and it sticks.

⚙️ 4. Activate with Precision

Ideas are only as strong as the systems behind them.

I bring disciplined execution to the table:

  • PMO tools and dashboards to manage progress
  • Clear roles, responsibilities, and routines
  • Change management to engage teams and manage resistance

Whether I’m guiding a global brand through a product portfolio transformation or advising a nonprofit board on strategic direction, execution is where we turn insights into momentum.

📈 5. Measure What Matters

From efficiency gains and ROI to board alignment and stakeholder trust—we define what success looks like early and track it consistently.

I work with clients to identify the metrics that matter most to their mission, their investors, and their teams—and we build a feedback loop to sustain progress.

From Strategy to Impact: What You Can Expect

Across every sector I serve—nonprofit, healthcare, education, consumer goods—clients come to me for structure, clarity, and results.
They stay because I deliver.

I don’t just help you build the plan.
I help you deliver it—with confidence, integrity, and measurable impact.

Let’s Move Your Vision Forward

If you’re at an inflection point and ready to turn strategic vision into reality, Red Hills Consulting Group is here to help.

📩 Let’s talk: Contact Us
🔗 Or explore our work: Services

About Renée
Renée Jones is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Red Hills Consulting Group, where she leads strategic, operational, and transformational initiatives for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations. With more than 20 years of experience leading complex initiatives, Renée helps organizations turn bold ideas into lasting impact. Outside of work, she mentors emerging leaders and champions social-impact innovation. https://redhillsconsultinggroup.com