Barbara Elsberg
Leadership Challenge Certified Facilitator
Barbara Elsberg has over 30 years experience leading Human Resources and Organizational Effectiveness teams around the world. Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Barbara held executive positions, including Global Head of Development for DHL Worldwide, located in Brussels, Belgium, and Vice President of Human Resources for Gap, Inc., with HR responsibility for the Gap Brand stores.
Driven by her belief that organizations can achieve more with committed people whose capabilities and interests are matched to work they want to do, she has assisted executives in shaping their leadership and driving supporting cultures. Barbara has worked with leadership teams during times of intense change (turnarounds, mergers and acquisitions, organization restructuring) to implement strategies that accelerate the transformation process. As both internal practitioner and external consultant she has designed, developed and delivered complete talent management processes and introduced business-driven action learning.
Her recent and related work includes:
- Developing and delivering a series (over 4 years) of action learning programs for senior executives to support their transition to a new business model.
- Extensive feedback and coaching to multinational executives. Coaching sessions ranged from one hour in program sessions to six-month engagements.
- Working with executives to develop their approach to leadership and message to support a new business strategy.
- Consulting on leadership strategy and structure to align diverse operating divisions into a common framework.
- Designing a leadership competency framework and fully integrating it into talent management systems.
- Redesigning the Performance Management process for a global retailer to better align it with corporate performance and related talent processes.
- Co-developing and delivering an HR Business Leader 360 assessment and an action learning program to develop HR skills in organization diagnostics.
- Designing and managing organizational transformation projects.
Barbara received a B.A. in Political Science with a focus on International Relations from UCLA. Her graduate studies focused on organization and management, culminating in a Masters of Public Administration from California State University at Los Angeles. She has also completed course work at Babson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her certifications include MBTI, 5 dynamics, Insights Discovery, and PDI Profiler.