About Susan Hoffer, Ph.D.

• Johnson Wax
• El Camino Hospital
• Kaiser-Permanente
• Grubb & Ellis Company
• Levi Strauss & Company
• Hewlett-Packard
• Intel
• 3Com
• Taligent Corporation
• Clarify, Inc.
• Alza Pharmaceuticals
• East Bay Municipal Utilities District
• Pacific Gas & Electric
• Pacific Bell
• University of San Francisco
• Mills College
• California Academy of Sciences
• Stanford University Libraries
• Human Factors, Inc.
• Organizational Diagnostics
• Acumen International
• Benjamin Cummings Publishing
• Fairmont Hotels
• Polaroid Corporation
• MasterCard
• Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Education

Susan received her Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Stanford University, where she undertook a multidisciplinary program with the Stanford Graduate School of Business emphasizing organizational and group behavior, organizational and individual change, and organizational and psychological research. She also holds a Masters of Science in Counseling and Guidance from the University of Wisconsin and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota.

At Stanford, Susan held research appointments at the Graduate School of Business (GSB), the Stanford Heart Disease Prevention Program, and the Center for Educational Research. As a teaching assistant in GSB courses in Leadership and Interpersonal Dynamics, she helped MBA students understand and modify their behavior for greater effectiveness in their work and relationships. For seven years during and after her Stanford tenure, she served as facilitator and coach for the Executive Program in Organizational Change, a summer program for senior executives offered by the Stanford GSB.

Organizational Assessment, Coaching and Research

Susan has consulted in organizational settings for the past 25 years. Before that, she counseled individuals, couples, families and groups. Combining a psychology background with a rigorous research and organizational systems focus, Susan is uniquely qualified to combine the sometimes-messy "human side" of organizational effectiveness with a data-based systems perspective.

In the course of hundreds of organizational assessment projects, both qualitative and quantitative, Susan has conducted thousands of interviews and designed scores of customized research instruments, separating the important data from the noise to help clients identify the most effective levers for change. She has also trained and advised other consulting firms in assessment strategies, interviewing techniques, and instrument development.

Susan has coached scores of executives, managers and individual contributors to the advantage of both individual and organization. Many times, she has coached pairs or groups in conflict, successfully resolving discord that threatened to lead to litigation, unwanted resignation, and/or serious disruption of departmental performance.

Susan's working style is thorough, thoughtful, and caring. Motivated to make a significant and lasting difference, she chooses to work with a few clients at a time so that she can give her full attention and best effort. With this level of care, things almost never "fall through the cracks."