SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY
Michael Hughes is a managing director with West Monroe and a member of the executive team. He leads the firm’s Operations Excellence practice, including the ERP, Organizational Change Management, Program Leadership, Business Analysis & Architecture, and RPA offerings. Michael has over 25 years of experience navigating all facets of change to deliver process and technology-enabled business transformation programs across an array of industries. Michael Hughes is a highly regarded business transformation executive with expertise in the areas of strategy, leadership development, performance management, change management, organizational design/alignment, training, culture change, business planning, IT strategy, and process design/improvement. An accomplished senior consultant with a unique blend of business and technology acumen, he has substantial experience coaching and mentoring management teams and executives through business planning and through the process of leading change and transformation. Michael joined West Monroe Partners from NTT DATA/The Revere Group where he was senior vice president and national leader for the Business Transformation practice. In nearly 20 years as a consultant and practice leader, he worked with clients in an array of industries, including the healthcare, professional services, airline, utility, distribution, and other sectors. As a practice leader, he directed creation of service offerings, methodologies, and tools, as well as business development and account management. Michael began his career as a consultant with Litigation Sciences, Inc. in Chicago and also was a senior consultant in the Change Management Services practice of Andersen Consulting. He is a recognized expert and accomplished speaker on the topics of change management, organizational alignment, transformation, behavioral/culture change and business/IT alignment. Michael earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational/Corporate Communication and a Master of Arts degree in Communication Studies with emphasis in Organizational Behavior & Communication from Northern Illinois University. He has served as an instructor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northern Illinois University and as an adjunct professor in the Center of Business and Economics at Elmhurst College.
Jane is a versatile leader with a strong focus in change management, process improvement, and business transformation. With over 18 years of Change Management experience, she is a creative and strategic thinker with significant experience preparing organizations to navigate through and embrace business critical changes. As the Director of Change Management at AbbVie she is responsible for the strategic direction, development, coordination and execution of change management and communication, as well as role-based training for AbbVie’s global operating model supporting commercial affiliates, plants and AbbVie’s customer service, distribution, global trade and compliance centers. Ensuring all impacted AbbVie employees have the skills, knowledge and information needed to transact business in SAP and supporting systems to perform their jobs according to the operating model.
Kathi Kraft is a senior human capital professional specializing in helping leaders successfully manage complex organizational change and communications. Her professional experience, includes a blend of corporate and consulting positions and has spanned a number of industries including energy and utilities, manufacturing, healthcare, aviation, logistics and transportation, and food manufacturing. Over the course of her 35 year career she has evolved from employee engagement to a recognized leader and developer of people-focused change management and leadership programs. Kathi has held change leadership positions at a number of Fortune 500 companies including State Farm, Duke Energy, Tyson Foods, United Airlines and Crowley Maritime. She is currently Director, Organizational Change Management at Stericycle, leading a team driving the change efforts for an ERP business transformation program (SAP, Salesforce and SuccessFactors are the key tools.) A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Kathi is a founding member of the Association of Change Management Professionals. She is completing her CCMP certification and holds certifications in Prosci, Birkman, and Fierce Conversations. She is also a certified advanced trainer for Prosci. While she has lived in 6 states and has moved 17 times, Kathi is a new resident of Chicago and lives in the Humboldt Park area with her pointer/American bulldog, Jax.
Eric Freshour is a senior manager in West Monroe Partners’ Chicago Operations Excellence practice. He has more than seven years of experience focused in organizational alignment and organizational change management. Eric Freshour is an experienced manager and consultant with a passion for helping people understand and navigate through complex change and a strong track record for delivering solutions that drive business value during times of transition. Eric leverages skills in change impact and readiness assessment, change management strategy, organizational alignment, communications planning, training, business process redesign and optimization, and program management to lead large, transformational initiatives and cross-functional teams. For example, he has recently led a transformational program for a healthcare provider, ensuring alignment among key stakeholders on vision, future-state processes, and desired outcomes. He also supported enterprise-wide training, communications, and value definition/tracking. Previously, Eric led an end-to-end change management and organizational alignment project for a company navigating a large, multi-year technology project that touched every major department of the organization. Eric has also led and contributed to numerous IT projects, including designing IT organizations, assessing and selecting software, and enabling transition to Agile methodologies. Notably, Eric also led a multi-year custom application development project to build an eCommerce platform from scratch for a large healthcare payer. Since joining West Monroe following college, Eric has worked with clients in an array of industries, including healthcare, energy and utilities, distribution and logistics, private equity, banking, and insurance. Eric earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from DePauw University.
Andy Tracy is the Director of Organizational Change Management at Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) Blue Cross Blue Shield. He leads the OCM center of excellence within HCSC’s human resources team, responsible for driving change agility across the business based on the Prosci/ADKAR methodology, building a high-performance consulting team, while defining and delivering scalable change management solutions to support key transformative initiatives. His vast consulting experience includes working at large-enterprises – Kraft Foods, McDonald’s Corporation, PepsiCo, and SAP America where he established his expertise in education & training engagement, change readiness, strategic communications and process transformation. Andy is a highly accomplished and results-driven business transformation and change management leader with extensive experience in global change enablement & deployments, leadership alignment & engagement, organizational effectiveness & development, service delivery assessments, performance management, curriculum & training development, process frameworks, continuous improvement, program management, business & culture integrations, and software/technology solutions. Andy is originally from St. Louis. He attended Tulane University and is a proud father of two teenage girls.
