Meet Our Team:

(Click on the images below for more on our team)

Preferred Partners:

We are thrilled to be collaborating with skilled practitioners and coaches who share the same passion for client impact.

Thank you For Being in the work With Us!

We are a team of unique individuals who share the same love for meeting our clients at the point of impact. We are so fortunate for the community we find within our clients and extended network.

My life’s work is to enable organizations to build great things from within. 

Anthony Ewing - Co-Founder, CEO

anthony@thoughtium.com

Anthony is an industry leader in Learning & Development. As a seasoned practitioner, this includes the design and delivery of high-impact learning experiences, often involving cutting-edge technology. In his role as a consultant, he builds Learning & Development teams and functions from the ground up. Given his background and experience in Marketing and Communications, Anthony brings a design thinking approach to the communications and creative aspects of his work.

Anthony has worked with a broad range of organizations in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, diagnostics, and health tech. Most recently, Anthony has spent several years in Silicon Valley building and leading new Commercial Learning & Development teams within several high-growth start-up organizations. This has culminated in an extreme passion for innovation and challenging the status quo.

Education & Certifications

• MBA in Marketing

• Design Thinking Principles

• Design Strategy: Design Thinking for Business Strategy

I believe culture starts with people working through each other. This is my passion for building teams.

Norm Ralph - Co-Founder, COO

norm@thoughtium.com

Norm has a proven ability to lead large cross-functional teams and initiatives. He has played a critical role in evaluating talent to build high-performing teams, and in analyzing and implementing right-sized repeatable processes that scale. Norm brings creativity and collaboration into the problem solving process and holds leaders to a high level of accountability in driving for results.

During his 11+ years at CME Group, Norm played key cross-functional leadership and change management roles in the firm's significant ‘grow and build’ phases, including two major acquisitions, three international office openings, and several major reorganizations. Amidst all of this change, CME Group’s core business model was challenged with significant shifts in the areas of risk management, market expansion, globalization, and financial regulation. This included building and scaling Product Teams & Software Development Processes using Kanban, Scrum, Scaled Agile, and Lean principles.

Education & Certifications

• MBA in Leadership and Change Management

• Certified Business Analyst Professional (CBAP)

• TypeCoach Certification

• Leadership Circle Profile 360 Certification

I help leaders at all levels start with the end in mind and build the confidence to do, fail, learn, and do again.

Grift Krehnbrink - CCO

grift@thoughtium.com

Grift is a firm believer in tapping into collective genius and perspective. He is a respected and proven leader of people and his clients’ highest stakes initiatives. He has an insatiable appetite for learning, both about new innovations and from new connections. At Thoughtium, Grift works with companies in all stages to build sustainable learning and development capabilities that deliver results. He has spent years working with organizations to develop both strong business acumen and core people skills needed to lead today.  

Grift and his teams have worked with clients to deliver on a wide range of initiatives ranging from building core first-line leadership skills at massive scale to improving strategy alignment at the executive level. He has additional experience in onboarding, M&A and integration, and design thinking and innovation. Grift has worked with organizations in different growth stages particularly in technology, healthcare and financial services. He is passionate about connecting people to opportunity and achievement.

Amanda Lobo - Director, People & Ops

amanda@thoughtium.com

Amanda has spent her career as a Chief of Staff at successful, early-mid stage startups across multiple industry verticals. This deep experience offers her the ability to cut through the noise to identify root issues and develop solutions where people, process and business all thrive. Organizational health and efficient operations are Amanda’s north stars and she is at her best when in-service to others and on a quest for transformational growth.

At Thoughtium, Amanda is the advocate of our commitment to fostering a human-centered, inclusive organization. She works at the cross section of Thoughtium’s people, operations and community to ensure a thriving business and culture of high performance and impact.

Education and Certificates:

• Bachelor of Arts - University of Northern Iowa

• Certified Paralegal - University of Georgia Center for Legal Studies

I partner with organizations to build sustainable solutions that foster alignment towards their long-term goals.

Michael Nordstorm - Director

michael@thoughtium.com

An out-of-box thinker with an appetite for building impactful learning experiences, Michael has a knack for creating unique solutions that disrupt and excite his audience. With a breadth of experience within L&D, business development, early-stage tech startups, and investments, Michael brings a unique perspective — and fun — to the table. 

Whether it’s forming a new roadmap for an organization or designing a leadership development program, Michael partners closely with clients to understand their core values, culture, and needs in order to build world-class solutions that drive workforce alignment and execution around their strategic priorities.

Education and Certificates:

• MBA, ESADE Business School

• BS in International Political Economy, Colorado College

• Tuck Bridge Program, Tuck School of Business @ Dartmouth

• Brandon Hall Award Recipient (Gold)

A prolific design thinker, I thrive on finding innovative solutions to various real-world business problems.

Aishani Gupta - Director

aishani@thoughtium.com

Aishani's interests lie at the intersection of Business and Innovation. She has been working as a Strategy and Innovation Consultant advising startups, corporate clients, and nonprofits, across cultures and industries, on go-to-market strategy and product innovation. She naturally likes to balance her structured and intuitive thinking, and often occupies herself with projects that require an entrepreneurial bend of mind.

Aishani has experience with scaling operations at a high growth startup in India and understands what goes into building a business and the challenges of scaling operations and company culture. She has extensive experience managing service operations, and designing thoughtful user experiences and products. She combines her business acumen with solid conceptual thinking and creative imagination to find innovative solutions to various real-world business problems.

She’s a prolific Design thinker and has designed and conducted multiple Design thinking workshops for corporations helping them address innovation and sustainability challenges. A Forte Fellow, she is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Business with a focus on Strategic Leadership.

Education and Certificates:

• BBA in Marketing, NMIMS, Mumbai, India

• MBA in Business and Social Innovation, Babson College, Boston

• Design Thinking Certificate

I create the space for curiosity, reflection and intentionality.

Nicole Diehl - Senior Consultant

nicole@thoughtium.com

Nicole is an experienced learning practitioner eager to support organizations that want to invest in their most important asset - their people. Nicole brings a whole person approach to developing individuals and teams that starts with cultivating a stronger sense of self-awareness and other orientation. Nicole has experience supporting small businesses and startups to Fortune 100 companies to federal departments and agencies.

Education and Certificates:

• BS & MA in Industrial-Organizational Psychology

• Trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

• Certified Change Practitioner, Prosci

• Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC)

I co-create with clients to address their most pressing business needs.

Faith Stull - Senior Consultant

faith@thoughtium.com

Faith is a learning practitioner passionate about helping organizations navigate new opportunities and challenges. At Thoughtium, she collaborates with individuals, teams and organizations–big and small–to generate innovative learning and development solutions. 

From past roles, Faith’s practitionership has been shaped by her work with diverse stakeholders in a variety of sectors. She has partnered with local government departments, school districts, industry leaders, and nonprofits to drive sustainable change. With a focus on community building, she looks forward to simultaneously investing in the personal relationships and creating measurable outcomes.

Education and Certificates:

• MS in Organizational Leadership-Human Resources Concentration

• BA in Psychology

I create the space for authenticity and connection, empowering teams to drive change forward with passion and purpose.

Azmin Gowa - Senior Consultant

azmin@thoughtium.com

Azmin leads with both the head and heart, putting authenticity, empathy and connection at the forefront of her work. Throughout her career, Azmin has served mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies in both Canada and the US, in various industries and across diverse capacities such as change management, talent development, program management, and L&D. Whether designing a strategy or facilitating a workshop, Azmin balances structure and process with agility and flexibility to ensure clients feel supported, empowered, and equipped to drive their organizations forward.

Experience and Education:

• MBA in Organization Studies and Entrepreneurship

• Certified Change Practitioner, Prosci

• Mindfulness Training from Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute

• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt

• BBA in Accounting and CPA Designation

I take a holistic approach designing for capability, business need, and culture to drive lasting transformation.

Mary Monastyrsky - Consultant

mary@thoughtium.com

Mary, an experienced learning and leadership development practitioner, believes that effective solutions for people and organizational challenges are rarely one-dimensional. She leverages her background of examining people development from various angles to create well-rounded solutions. Mary works across altitudes, whether that looks like creating a multi-level enterprise capability framework or a bite-sized, self-paced learning pathway.

Mary has experience designing, executing, and facilitating across various industries for mid-sized to Fortune 100 companies. She approaches her client relationships with enthusiasm for the shared goal of unlocking their people’s potential.

Experience and Education:

• MILR, HR and Organizations Concentration, Cornell University

• BA in Management and Society, UNC Chapel Hill

I create the space for vulnerability and personal growth to drive organizational change.

Leila Mohaddes - Consultant

leila@thoughtium.com

Leila is an experienced learning and leadership development practitioner who strives to enable organizations to do their best work. Leila’s creative and human-centered approach has empowered individuals to shift mindsets, align to strategy, develop new skills, and become more effective leaders.

Throughout her career, Leila has designed and delivered impactful learning experiences for clients of Fortune 100 companies across a variety of industries. An adept facilitator, she brings openness, authenticity, and inclusion to all of her engagements.

Experience and Education:

• B.S. Business Administration (with Honors), UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

• Minor in Music

I empower others to feel comfortable being experimental in order to find and test new solutions to any problem.

Aly Massoud - Consultant

aly@thoughtium.com

Aly comes from a background of 10+ years working at startups and has always loved working at smaller organizations where he can focus on improving processes and the customer experience. He's most comfortable being experimental, building scalable solutions, and thinking big picture, and does it all with a design-thinking approach, which he describes to his parents as "arts and crafts for business."

He's a strong proponent of the Yvon Chouinard philosophy of business: if you focus on building a great product and treating your people well you'll be successful; or as he famously puts it, "Let my people go surfing." In his experience in the startup world, Aly has developed tools and processes and leveraged analytics to create double digit growth in ARR and NPS for the teams he's worked with. He credits his success to always putting people first and connecting on a personal level with those he works with.

Experience and Education:

• MBA in Entrepreneurship and Business & Social Innovation

• Certificate in Data Analytics

• Certificate for Humanitarian Response to Conflict & Disaster

I create impactful visuals at the cross-section of design and strategy.

Molly Sutherland - Sr. Designer

molly@thoughtium.com

Molly is passionate about design, strategy and storytelling. With a background in graphic design and eye for strategic visual creation, she excels at taking in information and outputting it in an organized, highly visual format. At Thoughtium, Molly collaborates across the team to elevate the Thoughtium brand and create strategic, visually-compelling deliverables for our clients.

With experiences from Fortune 500 companies to startups to nonprofits, Molly has delivered meaningful designs across platforms and audiences. She practices design thinking and strategic decision making in every creative endeavor to develop impactful visuals that build connection.

Education & Certifications:

• BA in Graphic Design

• Minor in Entrepreneurship

I build relationships and enhance capabilities around me.

Nora Egan - Associate Chief of Staff

nora@thoughtium.com

Nora is passionate about growth, community, and service. With a priority on finding balance and wellness for those around her, she excels in communication and business management.

With experience in healthcare, private equity, and CPG start ups, she has continued to seek out discomfort to learn and grow personally and professionally.

Education and Certificates:

• BS in Dietetics and Nutrition

• Licensed Registered Dietitian

My calling is to shine a light on the heart and soul of every leader so that they become aware of their own power.

Michelle Thomas - Managing Consultant

michelle@thoughtium.com

Michelle is a seasoned leadership coach and business leader who integrates her front line business leadership experience into her coaching philosophy.  Her experience leading a large multi-national team through change enables her to bring both a strategic and empathetic lens to the real challenges leaders face. She passionately believes in taking a whole-person approach to coaching to ensure leaders show up fully integrated and authentic in all aspects of their lives.

After 20+  years in client facing roles, Michelle saw a real need to provide leaders customized support during times of transition.  With a like-minded colleague she launched an internal leadership coaching practice inside of a large media agency.  Together they coached 100’s of executives to improved levels of leadership effectiveness.

Michelle is inspired to expand the practice of leadership so that  leaders realize and confidently step into their full potential.

Education and Certificates:

• Graduate Certificate - Organizational Psychology

• Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coach Federation (ICF) 

• Certified Professional Co-Active Coach through the Co-Active Training Institute

• Leadership Circle Profile 360 

• Gallup Strengths Coach 

• ORSC Intelligence

• ORS @ Work