Ellen has spent more than 20 years facilitating conversations and leading trainings in cultural diversity, conflict management, communication, and personality style. She brings a rich blend of experience from municipal government, private industry, and entrepreneurship, most recently as the co-founder and business development driver of The Bolder Company.

Ellen is a lifelong entrepreneur and changemaker. In 1997, she launched Solutions PR & Marketing, LLC, specializing in public relations and event marketing. A few years later, she founded the first iteration of The Next Peace, a consulting practice focused on group facilitation around diversity and inclusion, unconscious bias, personality type, conflict styles, and cross-cultural communication.

She later served as the Consulting Education Director for LiveKind™, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching empathy and kindness-building skills as an antidote to bullying and aggression in schools. Through her work on “Cops & Kids,” she helped foster stronger relationships between police officers and young people in New Haven, CT.

At Bolder Company, Ellen and her partner built a 10-year business that combined their love of applied improvisation with research-backed workplace and leadership skills. Their programs centered on emotional intelligence, public speaking, networking, customer service, and team building—particularly for clients in manufacturing, architecture, engineering, and construction.

Before stepping into facilitation and training, Ellen worked in urban planning, economic development, and community relations/marketing for a large regional retailer.

She holds a Master’s degree in Urban Planning, is fluent in Spanish, and is a certified trainer in both Myers-Briggs (MBTI)® and the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program®. Ellen has deep experience facilitating DiSC® & the Five Behaviors of Cohesive Teams® and is a certified facilitator in Mindful Listening®.

For fun, Ellen loves storytelling, skiing, travel and exploration. She’s passionate about social justice and creating equity in the world.