I’m very impressed by Deb and Chelsea C-Suites working with us. Beginning with an offsite where Deb’s goal was to help us to continue working as a high performing team. At the beginning of the meeting, the body language was closed down, yet Deb quickly completely converted this to a very open communication among all team members. She facilitated some very hard conversations that were helpful and necessary. She has a great personality that helps every personality type in the room to feel comfortable to participate fully in the discussion. We learned how to be more open and honest about our strengths as leaders in a high performing work team. That evening we participated in an exciting team building cooking event. This was a fun way to get to know each other’s personality styles in a casual environment while also highlighting each other’s roles in a different, creative way. Throughout our time together, Deb’s facilitator skills were completely unsurpassed in every way. It is crystal clear that she has vast experience with top leadership teams. I am looking forward to our future work together.
Deb and her team came highly recommended to us when we were looking to work through some collaboration and communication issues within our division. What impressed me initially was Deb’s ability to dig into issues even before the team offsite. She had fantastic ideas around how to create a two day program that was extremely valuable for our team.
During the off-site, Deb was able to keep the team on task and move us moving forward when we got stuck. By the end of the session, we had a breakthrough in the team dynamic, especially around trust and communication. It wasn’t all theory and models, as she also helped us work through a truly valuable strategic discussion for our business that we implemented immediately when we returned to the office.
Deb is a great communicator and is always open to feedback. In addition, she is really flexible. She is not the type of person who comes in with a slide deck and forces the meeting to follow a pre-determined path. She showed the ability to shift and change direction as the groups needs presented themselves. We were so impressed with Deb and Chelsea C-Suite’s work with us during this offsite, that we have retained them and look forward to our continued relationship.
I have had the privilege of working with Deb Hamby and her team at Chelsea C-Suite for the past few years. During this time I had the extraordinary opportunity to create and co-lead a new organization. Deb has been by my side for much of this time, providing outstanding guidance around topics as important as successfully leveraging different leadership styles, establishing cultural norms, and developing and maintaining a functional leadership team. She has an incredible ability to simplify complex issues and suggests approaches that are well tailored to the situation and individuals involved. In addition, Deb and her colleagues worked with my entire leadership team in an organizational assessment process; helping the group clarify roles and develop team cohesion. All of this was done with a strong focus on the need for agility and performance of the organization. I can say without hesitation that Deb and Chelsea C-Suite have made me a far more effective leader, and have helped established norms that have resulted in a high-functioning organization.
I have had the pleasure of working with both Deb Jacobs and Dave Danesh over the last 4 years and would recommend either one based on their strong skill sets. Deb and Dave helped our company in two key areas – Executive team development and long term strategic planning. We have regularly used the new skills and insights they brought to our company throughout the organization and continue to work with Chelsea C-Suites for ongoing development.
Deb Jacobs has been a trusted advisor to our Executive team and has worked closely with a number of senior people in our organization. She has great interpersonal skillls, is a skilled facilitator and strong thinking partner. Deb is very good at listening and understanding what is going on ‘below the surface’ and has helped our organization work through some tough challenges by asking the right questions and having the courage to challenge us in an appropriate way. We are a better organization and stronger Executive team for having worked with Deb.
Dave Danesh has worked closely with our Executive team and has also worked on an individual basis with some of our senior leaders. Dave has always demonstrated strong integrity and a commitment to producing great work and as such we continue to work with Dave on a number of key projects. Dave is a great facilitator and uses his strong listening skills to understand what the real issues and opportunities are. Dave has moved our business forward in many different areas and his work has always been completed at a very high level.
I am happy to recommend these two strong leaders to other companies – they are both very intelligent, capable, honest people that deliver results and would be a benefit to any organization that chose to work with them.
BerchWood Partners has worked with Deb for over three years. She has become a trusted advisor to us. We value her creativity and insights in finding ways to strengthen our firm and promote its development. Plus, she is always willing to be a “sounding board”. She has been steadfast in working with us towards our firm’s development.
Deb Hamby exhibits a rare combination of intuitive and strategic thinking which allows organizations and individuals to activate against the potential for success. I learned from Deb, first a friend and then as a partner and colleague in developing a group leadership initiative for women at Sony Music, that there are many ways to drive success out of a challenging situation. Whether as an executive coach delivering necessary but difficult feedback to an individual or as a strategic partner in tackling an organizational objective, Deb and her team develop action plans only after deep and meaningful discussion around history, landscape and desired outcome. Everyone leaves the experience feeling improved and empowered, and that includes Deb who uses her learnings to further build and improve upon her best in class client service. Deb continues to be a trusted and valuable advisor and friend and as I have progressed in my career across the for-profit and non-profit sectors, she has continued to provide key insights and recommendations for defining and measuring success.
Deb has been my trusted and valued thought partner, coach and friend for the past few years.
Deb has high integrity, powerful intuition, the courage to take on critical but difficult challenges and an absolute focus on making a positive difference to the teams and organizations she works with.
Deb is a true champion of leadership integrity, trust and transparency. She keeps her promises, tells the truth and operates with absolute integrity in every situation.
Deb has tremendous intuition and is an insightful observer of leadership team and organizational dynamics and challenges. She has a tremendously powerful ability to connect with people, have deep conversations and “read between the lines” to get a rich sense of what’s really happening within a leadership team and organization.
Deb has the courage and confidence to address strategic and operational leadership dynamics and challenges. She is skilled at delivering necessary but difficult feedback, she clearly calls leaders on not doing what they said they’d do, and brings a “can do” spirit and high energy to resolving complex organizational issues and challenging team dynamics.
Finally, Deb has unquestionable focus on making a positive difference to the teams and organizations she works with as a strategic partner. She is always looking for a better way, encourages people to learn and grow and openly shares her knowledge and experiences.
I feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Deb and I give her and the Chelsea C-Suite team my highest recommendation.
I was about a year into a new executive level position in a dynamic and exciting new technology where there was a great amount of challenge and visibility in the organization. The challenges were as much on the organizational and people dynamics front as the technical. I was working closely with partners in the HR organization and they provided me with an opportunity to work with an Executive Coach. They provided me with several high quality options, but after the first conversation it was clear to me that Deb was the right choice. A view that that continued to grow stronger as the process evolved. Deb was able to meet with the other members of the executive team quickly gained a picture of the dynamics and challenges and then was able to help me refine my views of reality, in many cases reinforcing my conclusions, but then helping me devise strategies to effect positive change, and in others to help me modify my conclusions to better align with reality so I could effectively align. Throughout this process and exposure to the executive team, the team decided to engage with her in a broader role working with the entire team for group development. Deb also helped me explore non work related topics and how those things could have either a positive or negative influence and more importantly that properly recognizing and balancing those factors can lead to a win win situation in both areas. All in all, I came out of the experience with additional to analyze difficult situations and devise plans of action to move things forward as well as greater confidence in my ability to do so.
I’ve worked on and off with Deb Jacobs and team on projects from executive coaching to strategic planning. She and her team take the time up front to fully understand the goals & objectives we are trying to accomplish and ensure the approach used is the most effective for that situation. The differentiator for Deb and her team is she focuses the work on how it will impact the business. Typically HR consultants are more focused on the organizational issues and less about the business. Deb and her team focus on both. They speak the same language as HR folks and business leaders. They are also very flexible in their approach and can work with changing dynamics in an organization. I’ve personally selected Deb for an executive coaching role for a very difficult situation. She did a phenomenal job with the participant and the outcome was very positive for the business.
Working with Deb Jacobs Hamby was one of the highlights of my life. As both an executive coach and team development consultant, she brought extraordinary skills to the table. Extremely personable, an excellent communicator, and an insightful observer, she always seemed to know what was needed in a particular situation. Her ability to understand the politics of different organizations made her advice particularly valuable. I feel very fortunate to have worked with Deb, and give her my highest recommendation.
I’ve had the absolute, distinct pleasure and honor of working with Deb Jacobs and Chesea C-Suite Solutions for over a decade spanning individual coaching, group leadership development and personal development. On every level, across every dimension, Deb’s exceptionally broad base of well-honed skills paired with tremendous intuition and situation sensing enable her to evoke a great sense of transformation and goal attainment for individuals and organizations. I would describe the overall experience of working with Deb as: “Awakening” (to an awareness of a deeper skill set, an ability to direct and apply existing skills and organic intelligence to generate more impact with less effort. “Inspirational” from the standpoint of developing greater awareness and understanding of self and impact on space and “Visionary” in terms of being able to draw upon resources (within myself and my organization) to create and attain more cohesion among leadership teams and reinforcement of corporate vision and mission. Working with Deb in any situation is quite easy and she has a tremendously powerful ability to immediately connect with a diverse group of individuals, finding uniqueness and speaking truths in a powerful yet compassionate manner for the greater good of the individuals themselves and the organization. A personal high point of working with Deb is the ability to immediately and directly apply the learnings that she provides and the feeling of satisfaction, gratification and joy that is infused to all aspects of your professional and personal life. Deb Jacobs and Chelsea C-Suite would be the first group I’d call first for both individual coaching as well as creating cohesion, clarity of vision and mission among Leadership teams and most importantly her ability to help organizations embed the learnings deep within the entire organization.
My working relationship with Debra Jacobs Hamby spans over two decades. During that time I have held a number of positions including Chief Human Resources office at Entergy Corp.–a Fortune 500 company. Frequently, during this time period I have used Debra’s consultative services. Her understanding of organizations is both deep and wide. She quickly understands a client’s problems and, just as quickly, formulates a solution that takes into account the various critical dimensions of that problem. I find that ability to translate a problem into a workable solution a rare commodity. In entering into a consultative relationship, she brings an inquisitive and innovative mind; a high level of energy and enthusiasm; and a ‘can-do’ spirit. I know of no client company who has not been pleased with Debra’s work and results. When I have worked beside Debra as a co-consultant, I find her to be a colleague with whom it is easy to work. She listens to ideas; actively engaged in dialogue; and, readily shares credit. Many professionals, like myself, enjoy the experience of working with Debra. When she takes on a coaching assignment she does so with full commitment. She has the ability to be either diplomatic or confrontational depending upon the situation. Her coaching clients consistently develop rapidly and in the right direction. She is one of the best coaches I have had the pleasue to work with. I confidently recommend Debra Jacobs Hamby and her firm, Chelsea C-Suite Solutions without equivocation.
Deb has been providing executive coaching as part of our leadership development efforts. She takes the time to really understand our needs and works with the executives to provide practical, insightful guidance. She has been wonderful to work with and the leaders with whom she has worked sing her praises.