Meet Barbara,
Founder of Projects Pivot
Barbara once dreamed of sailing the world, delivering boats to their new owners. But after graduating from the Michener Institute for Applied Health Sciences in Toronto, and St. Mary’s College of California for her BA in Health Care Administration, her nautical career aspirations were set aside for more lucrative and less risky endeavours.
She became a healthcare provider, in the field of medical diagnostics. While working in nuclear Medicine and sonography, Barbara quickly learned that she was more skilled than most at translating radiologists’ instructions to patients and explaining their diagnoses in plainer language than medical speak.
Her aptitude for that role pulled her towards a career in information technology, where – despite her lack of computer background – she began building large-scale electronic medical record systems as a Systems Analyst. In the process, she became a different type of translator, helping physicians and other medical staff to understand the systems created by computer programmers.
“Known as the C-suite whisperer amongst her clients”
Buoyed by her success in these endeavours, Barbara furthered her education at UC Berkeley in California, where she acquired a Project Management Certificate then ultimately her Project Management Professional (PMP) with the Project Management Institute (PMI). She is now a well-seasoned project manager, bringing her wealth of experience to a wide range of industries, including: IT; M&A; medical research; downtime process development; construction planning; QC; marketing; agriculture; food supply management; academics; strategic planning; global distribution strategies; analytics; training and mentoring programs; construction planning; insurance; grant writing; fundraising; non-profit initiatives; and start-up accelerators and incubators. The more uncertain the problem, the more she thrives on helping to solve it.
“There isn’t a project she can’t tackle – she has seen it all!“
Barbara’s strengths include an ability to extract the true nature of a problem, while working to release the barriers that prevent solving it. Collaborative discussions are a keystone of her work. These discussions are always followed by the creative application of techniques both traditional and innovative, to overcome the identified issues and address the clients’ ultimate needs. Barbara has the skills – and the spark – to move companies from what they are already doing into what they’ve only been talking about doing. She makes long-term goals a reality, with tangible value, by helping identify the what and the why, before jumping into the how.
When she’s not helping companies, institutions, organizations and charities to evolve and grow, Barbara enjoys a number of hobbies in her spare time – and she’s still an avid sailor to this day. She also loves kayaking, cycling, and is a more-than-amateur photographer. She is also an aspiring, and often awkward Latin dancer.
Every business needs project management, but not every business owner knows what that looks like.
Barbara knows…
- Projects get messy quickly.
- Not everyone wants to be a project manager, but everyone can get better at managing projects.
- Great project management enables business growth.