Who we are -
Amy Schwab

About Amy

Amy's experience with successful projects began long before she became acquainted with formal project management. Her first special assignment, re-designing a department-wide workflow management and reporting system, set the pace for a series of successful operational special assignments. As she worked her way through the organization, Amy gained hands on experience with pricing, contract writing, financial analysis, risk management, and strategic management. As an internal consultant she led the company's customer satisfaction measurement, developed a company-wide balanced scorecard performance measurement system, implemented divisional process improvement projects, and led a major corporate change initiative.

A voracious student of how businesses operate, including the sometimes difficult lessons about the difference between textbook functionality and operational and political effectiveness, Amy sought to understand the factors that differentiated high performing operational and project cultures. In her search she was briefly hobbled by formal project management training which bore little resemblance to the practices that she knew to be successful in her real world initiatives. Ultimately Amy met David while attending a Weinberg and Weinberg Problem Solving Leadership seminar and was introduced to the high impact effectiveness of experiential, systemic methods.

Learning about True North's project approaches convinced Amy that this was the practical approach for which she had been searching. In addition to the practical and political approaches she had learned were essential to succeeding inside a large organization, she discovered here the keys to operating effectively in the less than ideal conditions of the real corporate world.

Ten years ago she joined True North to extend her learning to a broader base of organizations focused on innovation, collaboration, and growth. From product development teams at Nike and Intel to teams of scientists at Los Alamos National Lab and the Department of Homeland Security, she has learned the key lessons that make or break projects and organizational change work. Focusing on the underlying human issues - culture, leadership, and motivation - Amy has distilled a highly effective approach that has proven successful with clients including Nike, the New York Stock Exchange, and Lloyd's of London.

Active in her broader community, she serves on the board of the Washington Economic Development Finance Authority (WEDFA), and recently served as chair of the City of Walla Walla's Comprehensive Planning Steering Committee, where she designed and led an award-winning citizen engagement effort that tripled participation and developed a world-class plan.

Amy is author of "Taming Wicked Projects" (Multi-Media Publications, 2006). She has authored articles for regional and national journals on topics ranging from insurance and motivation to projects and leadership. Her presentations inspire people to access the motivation that keeps them pursuing real excellence!

To learn more, contact us at (509)527-9773 or by email at

Design and Website by Amy Schwab