Jazz as a Metaphor for Life and Leadership

Our name has its roots in music because music is a metaphor that speaks to the rhythms of life. Each note, in and of itself, has a beauty and presence of its own. The challenge is to arrange the notes in our organizations, our communities, and in our lives in ways that inspire and move us toward higher levels of performance and impact. That’s easier said than done.

Our approach borrows many of the principles and lessons from jazz as a method to better understand how to bring out the best in people, despite the circumstances. Jazz represents the harmonious combination of disparate elements, and the combinations change as the environment changes. That, at its core, is the definition of a symphonic strategy.

Since our founding in 2004, Symphonic Strategies has been a trusted partner for leaders in the public and private sectors. We have worked with government agencies, small businesses, foundations, and non-profit organizations around the world.

We started out with a focus on building the capacity of non-profit leaders, particularly leaders of color. We then branched out into training and development programs for the Federal Government, where we built and delivered programs for the USDA, Department of Defense, Customs and Border Protection, Health and Human Services, and more.

As our reputation grew, we were asked to lead full scale strategic planning projects for organizations and sometimes for entire networks.

Today, we’ve evolved into a comprehensive professional services firm with a deep and diverse bench of talent at our finger tips.

We have a proven track record of accomplishment in a variety of fields and with a diverse array of clients. Our goal is, and has always been, to help you make decisions today that will position you to do extraordinary things tomorrow.

This work has included leadership development/executive coaching, team improvement efforts, conflict management, organizational assessment and change, strategic planning, design of performance management processes and techniques, design and validation of personnel selection systems, and workforce diversity efforts. It has also included extensive development and delivery of training programs in such areas as leadership, coaching, conflict management, team effectiveness, customer service, communication, organizational assessment, critical thinking, project management, etc.

Ms. Itzbeth Menjívar has been creating value for organizations around the globe, through relationship building, for more than 20 years. She is the Founder & Chief Bridge-Builder of BridgePeople LLC, a boutique consulting firm equipping people and organizations to lead dialogue about racial and gender equity. She also helps philanthropists integrate racial and gender equity principles into their investments and grant-making.

For the first half of her career, Ms. Menjívar advised executives of the world’s largest multi-national corporations and financial services firms on assessing and mitigating internal and reputational risk. She led international and cross-cultural teams at organizations such as Ernst & Young, Deutsche Bank, and Grant Thornton. A strong mid-career calling to serve people living in poverty drove her towards a master’s degree in International Development and joining the global fight against poverty and injustice. Her international work eventually developed a focus around women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion. Ms. Menjívar was instrumental in strengthening donor relationships at her last employer, where she led philanthropic engagement and the advancement of internal and external gender equity practices.

Since January 2017, she has been serving as Board Chair for Service Never Sleeps, a non-profit equipping allies for social justice through anti-racism and anti-discrimination workshops. Through this experience, she has developed a deep passion and expertise about issues of racial and other types of discrimination, and regularly facilitates dialogue towards equity and reconciliation. A consistent thread throughout Ms. Menjívar’s career has been the cultivation of meaningful relationships to achieve lasting impact. She developed her relational gifts by working with diverse groups of people in more than 40 countries, and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and proficient in French.

Trang Nguyễn is a management consultant and leadership coach who specializes in providing strategic advice, implementation support, facilitation, training and coaching to organizations and individuals seeking to strengthen their leadership, culture, values and ethics in the workplace, with a particular emphasis on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and harassment, bullying and sexual harassment.

Her clients have included leaders and teams from international development organizations, private sector companies, a US-government agency, non-profit organizations and academia.

In early 2020 after a 20-year career, Ms. Nguyễn left the World Bank Group – one of the world’s largest international development agencies – committed to reducing poverty, increasing prosperity and promoting sustainable development. She was most recently the Manager for Outreach and Training in Ethics and Values, where she led a multi-year effort to revise the WBG’s Core Values and Code of Conduct across the Institution’s 130+ offices globally. She also oversaw the development and delivery of training programs and other initiatives that reinforced values-based leadership, a respectful and ethical organizational culture, and preventing and addressing bullying, harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace. Beginning in 2013 up until her departure, Ms. Nguyễn either led or significantly contributed to major corporate initiatives on organizational transformation, culture change, diversity & inclusion, ethical leadership and leadership development at the WBG.

Prior to shifting her career towards corporate priorities, Ms. Nguyễn held progressively senior positions over 13 years with the International Finance Corporation (the private sector arm of the WBG) where she managed complex, matrixed, global teams in emerging markets delivering advisory and consulting services to government and private sector companies. At IFC she was Global Operations Manager for Sustainability Advisory Services and, before that, General Manager for Advisory Services in Southeast Asia based out of Vietnam. Early in her career, Ms. Nguyễn helped design and evaluate several micro-finance programs as a consultant to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Vietnam.

Ms. Nguyễn’s Master’s thesis was a comparative analysis of early micro-finance models, and she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Vietnam to carry out field research. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University, and a coaching certification from Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership.

Rodolfo Olenchuk brings more than 15 years of experience in Account Management, Financial Planning, Project Management, Strategy and Business Planning. Mr. Olenchuk built his professional and academic background in three different cities: Buenos Aires, Washington DC, and Paris.

In 2001, Mr. Olenchuk joined the Corporate Executive Board, in Washington, D.C.; a strategic research firm delivering best management practices to over 2000 corporations worldwide including 75% of the Global Fortune 500 He served as Director of the Account Management Team of the Latin American and Iberian Peninsula. He traveled intensively to Europe and Latin America advising and delivering corporate strategy to C-level audiences (CEO, CMO, CTO, etc.) from companies such as Endesa, Telefonica, Cemex, PDVSA, Petrobras, Perez Companc, Techint Group, Aeromexico, Televisa, Grupo Vitro, BBVA, IDB, La Caixa, amongst others.

Mr. Olenchuk entered the corporate world at The Techint Group of Companies, a group that comprises more than 100 companies operating worldwide. He participated in the project management team of a complex solar energy project in joint venture with General Electric (GE). While in Buenos Aires, he developed and lectured courses in Project Management, both at Techint Group and at the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (ITBA).

Mr. Olenchuk was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he received his Industrial Engineer degree from the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (ITBA). He holds a master’s in Business Administration (MBA-2001) from George Washington University with a merit-based tuition Scholarship. He is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian.

Rosie Robinson holds a master’s degree in education from Tuskegee University and a bachelor’s degree from the same institution. Throughout her career, Ms. Robinson has worked with leaders in the public and private sectors. Her clients have included such names as NASA, Hewlett-Packard, and the U.S. Department of Labor. She began her career at the Northern Virginia Community College as manager of the “Developmental Studies” curriculum. In this role, she used assessments and career planning tools to advise adult students and prospective students regarding career and educational choices. She created the first Women’s Resource Center for the campus to support women returning to an academic environment, interpreted and evaluated college transcripts from other institutions and assigned credits for transferring students.

Ms. Robinson has also worked at Hewlett-Packard as a human resources generalist and specialist. She served as a strategic business partner, curriculum and training manager, and workforce development specialist for HP’s Accelerated Leadership Program. At HP she also focused on development and succession planning, performance management and executive coaching.

She has also served as Knowledge Sharing Program Manager for NASA’S Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership/ASRC. Ms. Robinson was tasked with planning and implementing bi-annually highly interactive learning forums designed to share knowledge and best practices related to specific project management competencies for 60-80 selected members of the NASA project management community. Additionally, she provided leadership to a team of 5 to produce quarterly, the Academy’s distinguished ASK Magazine which featured engineering best practices and project management lessons learned in a storytelling format.

Ms. Robinson recently served as the Training and Development Program Manager at the U.S. Department of Labor. She worked closely with the COTR to provide program management expertise for a training and development contract with the Department of Labor. She partnered with DOL Regional Training Coordinators across the US to assess needs and performance gaps, create/publish annual training schedule, update course catalog, and deliver training courses. She managed staff and oversaw the development of new courses and conversion of existing courses to computer-based.

Natalia Victoria has more than 20 years of experience in business strategy in both private and public sectors, with extensive knowledge in the areas of Business Strategy, Project Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, Private-equity, Corporate Finance, in different industries such as Food & Agribusiness, Insurance & Banking, Retail, FinTech, e-Commerce, and Energy, among others.

Over the last couple of years, Ms. Victoria has worked as a strategy consultant challenging, designing, developing and monitoring business and corporate strategies, corporate strategies, as well as leading their implementation for different companies. Those roles often required Ms. Victoria to perform her activities in different countries in the Latin American region such as Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay and Paraguay, in addition to her home country, Argentina, which led her to develop the necessary skills to adapt to a wide array of cultures and diverse environments.

Since 2019, Ms. Victoria has applied this expertise working for PWC in the design of an integration strategy for a leading Argentinian consumer bank. In 2012, Ms. Victoria joined Zurich Insurance Company as a Regional Strategy Manager, responsible for designing and coordinating the integration of different business areas as a result of the joint venture between Zurich and Banco Santander along Latin America. She also developed and executed strategic Life Insurance Projects and community-related initiatives.

Previously, Ms. Victoria acquired 12-years of experience in private equity and financial services firms, participating in the analysis and structuring and execution of numerous M&A transactions in the Latin American.

Ms. Victoria holds a Bachelor in Business Economics from the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT), where she participated in an Exchange Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has also worked as Corporate Finance Professor at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, where she worked closely with local innovation leaders. She is fluent in Spanish, English, and French.

Camile D. Williams is an accomplished Senior Executive and Board Member with demonstrated success spanning healthcare, government administration and technology strategy. Leveraging extensive experience transforming sustainable change and improving performance, Camile is an invaluable asset for any company albeit an organization encountering a period of stagnant or declining revenue and needs to implement short- and long-term strategic initiatives while engaging employees and partners to improve cross-functional communication, reinvigorate growth, and drive profitability or that is forward-thinking and looking to take things to the next level.

In her career, Camile has served under three different Mayoral Administrations and served in both the executive and legislative branch of Federal government with some private sector experience as well. Leveraging her extensive experience driving organizational-wide culture change and improving organizational performance, the District of Columbia Department of Corrections has begun to rethink the Corrections culture through a public health and equity lens while also successfully implementing rehabilitation and reentry efforts to successfully prepare formerly incarcerated individuals to become productive members of society as they return to their communities. She is committed to the importance of rehabilitation, rather than harsh punishment, and believes the research is clear from a public health and safety point of view.

Prior to this, Camile served as the Vice President, Strategy and Operations as internal consultant with VMT Long Term Care Management. In this role, she was responsible for visionary leadership and all strategy and operational activities as well as the implementation of integrated healthcare solutions for three different business verticals: nursing home, home health agency, and education center. In her earlier career, she has been responsible for providing fiscal leadership, accountability, efficiency, and transparency to several cabinet-level health and human services agencies at one time with a total annual operating budget of $1.9B.

She has advised on program policies, grant programs, initiatives, and operational improvements while managing staff, grantees and non-profits, performed large-scale analytics, interpreted and enforced federal laws and regulations, and provided technical support on the local, state, and national level. She also completed the Executive Leadership Program from George Washington University, obtained her Strategic Management Performance System Certification from George Washington University and LBL Strategies and is an American College of Health Care Administrators Fellow. Camile is currently pursuing the Associate Diversity Coaching (ADC) designation from Coach Diversity as well as the Strategic Management Professional (SMP) certification from Association for Strategic Planning to complement her other education and experience.

Cheryl Pruce is a connector, bridge builder, and change maker who supports people and organizations through transformational change. She does this by being a people-centered curious listener and facilitator who supports people in feeling seen and heard in ways that honors their humanity.
Having spent the last 13 years working with school districts, social justice non-profits, and policy advocacy organizations, Cheryl enjoys both playing with data and building authentic relationships that drive towards insights, strategic visions, and actionable pathways to a newly imagined future.
Whether building out a new grantmaking portfolio and team, proto-typing and implementing a data system redesign, building the capacity of a state agency to engage stakeholders in the creation of a state policy plan, spearheading a new internal initiative, or helping build out a new policy center, she has helped organizations navigate new and often thorny terrain in successful ways that also mleaves them with the infrastructure and capacity to continue the work moving forward. Her life is grounded in health and wellness practices that support her work with a variety of clients. Ms. Pruce received a Fulbright Scholarship, U.S. Student Research Grant, in Israel where she lived from 2008 to 2009 and holds a Masters of Arts in Sociology and a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies from Stanford University