Leadership
Carolyn has led high-performing teams across global enterprises, Fortune 500 organizations, and government environments—guiding cross-functional initiatives that require strategic alignment, operational excellence, and organizational change.
Her leadership philosophy centers on creating clarity, establishing scalable systems, and empowering teams to perform at their highest level. By setting a clear vision, defining measurable objectives, and removing barriers to execution, Carolyn enables teams to deliver high-quality work that produces lasting business impact.
Known for building trust across stakeholders, Carolyn brings together business leaders, technical experts, and project teams to drive alignment, accelerate decision-making, and successfully deliver complex initiatives. She believes exceptional leadership is built on accountability, collaboration, and continuous development.
Carolyn is equally committed to developing people. She creates environments where individuals feel supported, challenged, and empowered to take ownership of their work while continuously expanding their capabilities. This people-first approach fosters engagement, innovation, and sustained high performance.
Whether leading enterprise learning transformations, AI adoption initiatives, digital enablement programs, or organizational change efforts, Carolyn focuses on building teams and systems that scale—creating measurable results for both the organization and the people within it.
Select Leadership Experience
Optimize With Learning Solutions (OWLS)
As the founder and leader of OWLS, a consulting company, Carolyn built and managed a team of instructional designers delivering end-to-end learning solutions for clients.
Carolyn established the operational and quality standards that defined her team's work, resulting in positive client reviews and high-customer satisfaction.
Carolyn:
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Led hiring, onboarding, and performance management of the instructional design talent
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Ensured all projects were completed on-time and within budget
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Created a 20+ page design guide to ensure consistency, scalability, and high-caliber outputs across all projects for instructional designers
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Trained team members on the LTEM evaluation model, reinforcing a focus on measuring learning effectiveness and business impact—not just completion metrics
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Guided designers in developing survey instruments tied directly to performance outcomes, strengthening her team's ability to demonstrate ROI to clients
This experience reflects Carolyn's ability to build systems, not just teams—ensuring that quality and impact are repeatable.
Booz Allen Hamilton
In 2024, Carolyn provided strategic leadership for a multidisciplinary team responsible for developing an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) and 360-degree training solution for U.S. Army National Guard Soldiers. She directed collaboration across Army National Guard leadership, military subject matter experts, consultants, instructional designers, software engineers, and VR developers to align operational goals with technical execution.
Acting as the bridge between executive stakeholders and the development team, Carolyn established project governance, facilitated executive decision-making, managed competing priorities, and ensured continuous alignment from concept through delivery. Her leadership enabled diverse teams to work toward a common mission, resulting in a scalable training solution that combined instructional strategy, emerging technology, and measurable operational value.
Carolyn received the Silver Award and Passionate Service Award from Booz Allen for her work on this project.
Southwire
As Program Lead, Carolyn has played a pivotal role in elevating the quality, consistency, and maturity of the Learning & Development function by establishing enterprise standards, scalable processes, and governance frameworks that enable teams to deliver exceptional learning experiences.
Recognizing the need for greater consistency across projects, Carolyn led initiatives to standardize instructional design practices and improve operational excellence throughout the department. She developed comprehensive standard operating procedures (SOPs), reusable templates, and governance processes that guide learning teams through every phase of the ADDIE methodology—from intake and analysis through implementation and LTEM-based evaluation.
To ensure learning experiences are inclusive by design, Carolyn championed accessibility as a core organizational standard, coaching learning professionals on ADA/WCAG best practices and embedding accessibility requirements into development workflows rather than treating them as an afterthought.
Beyond process improvement, Carolyn serves as a trusted advisor to learning teams and business stakeholders, providing strategic guidance on instructional design, learning technologies, content quality, and enterprise learning initiatives. She has also evaluated and recommended content authoring tools that strengthen the department’s capabilities while supporting long-term scalability.
By creating governance, fostering collaboration, and establishing repeatable systems, Carolyn has helped transform individual projects into a cohesive, enterprise-wide learning ecosystem—raising the standard of the entire function while enabling teams to deliver consistent, measurable business impact.