What we do
4S™ for Success and Sanity
According to BusinessNewsDaily.com one of the top four frustrations that drive employees crazy and make them unhappy is when they feel like they don’t have a voice. Everyone wants to feel that their ideas are being heard and that they’re making a difference. But in today’s whirlwind workdays oftentimes there’s a lack of communications and alignment within teams, whether they’re doing work or providing feedback. And when that happens it puts people on the defensive, making them feel like they have to protect themselves. While that may not be the reality, it’s their reality and it quickly becomes the reality of the company. The same is true in university and family life.
That’s where our 4S Conversations® model comes in. It’s a versatile approach that drives dialog to uncover needs and create alignment between people. It can be used for any function, in any company at any level to create a depth of understanding that allows all participants to feel safe, heard, understood and validated.
Companies, universities and families that use 4S™ note that it increases morale, creates a more cohesive culture and motivates business results. We’ve even heard that their 4S™ success transcends the workplace and has strengthened their personal relationships, too. Because when people communicate better, everything’s better.
Who we are
Meet our masters of conversation and Next Gen Advisory Board. Our multi-generational communications crew helps us see things from all sides and tap into all avenues of expertise.
Jill Miller
Queen of Conversation
Jill Miller, Queen of Conversation
Jill Miller’s background in marketing, professional relations and corporate communications includes nearly 30-years experience in executive and consulting positions with national and multi-national Fortune 100 companies.
As an accomplished executive coach and facilitator and the founder of Velocity, LLC, The Conversation Company™, Jill has spearheaded innovative programs for employees from corporations such as American Express, The Walt Disney Company, Elizabeth Arden, L’Oreal, Mary Kay, Donna Karan, Reebok International and Turner Broadcasting. Her approach to employee motivation and wellness has been highlighted at change management best–practices conferences worldwide.
Jill’s focus is to provide leading-edge learning solutions designed to help organizations establish and sustain a performance culture based on a foundation of Conversational Excellence. In addition to helping businesses gain alignment on goals, strategies, and best practices, under her guidance, they also reach new levels of success and profitability.
Melissa Goldstein
Director of Collaboration
Melissa Goldstein, Director of Collaboration
Melissa has over 10 years of program coordination, project management, and quality assurance experience. She has worked in various industries including education and retail with roles in operations, marketing, and copywriting.
She is responsible for the day-to-day operations as well as managing relationships with clients, consultants and partners. She is passionate about exceeding client expectations and is skilled in leading multiple projects from start to finish, meeting tight deadlines and understanding, developing and maintaining brand voice.
Melissa effectively completes operational objectives by contributing to strategic plans, implementing production, productivity, quality, and customer-service standards; resolving problems; and determining system improvements and implementing change.
Leah Takacs
Executive Assistant
Leah Takacs, Executive Assistant
Leah has over 15 years of experience in office administration including executive assistant and project coordinator roles. She has worked for various organizations that offer training and development for both large and small clienteles. Leah prepares well-researched and accurate documents; manages busy calendars, and efficiently provides administrative and business support to the CEO and other members of the management team. She is extremely organized and fosters a genuine sense of teamwork and collaboration in her role with Velocity.
Andrew Connolly
Senior Consultant
Andrew Connolly, Senior Consultant
Andrew Connolly is a dynamic leadership consultant with a rich cadre of global experience that spans every industry from Pharmaceuticals (Sales, Corporate and Manufacturing), to Oil Field, Hospitality, Retail, Finance and Manufacturing. Since 2013, as a Partner in Velocity LLC,he has leveraged his business acumen, consulting experience, and platform skills to help organizations leverage the 4S Model in the pursuit of what we refer to as Conversational Excellence™.
Andrew’s practice is focused on eliminating the gap between training and application – helping individuals integrate the world-class content they have been exposed to and have yet to integrate into their daily work.
Prior to his current role, Andrew spent 11 years asa senior consultant at a global training and development organization where he served as one of an elite groupresponsible for certification of Master Instructors in Situational Leadership®.In that role, he designed and led the rollout of leadership, sales, service, and coaching programs at dozens of multi-national organizations.
Andrew makes his home in Simsbury, CT with his two children.
Michael McGillicuddy
Next Gen Advisor
Michael McGillicuddy, Next Gen Advisor
Michael is a graduate of the University of Connecticut where he received a degree in Economics. During his time at school, Michael interned at various financial services firms and traveled abroad to both China and Kenya. He was also very involved with his fraternity and held the position of treasurer.
These experiences have helped Michael develop his ideas and thoughts on leadership and communication and he realizes the impact that effective communication skills can have in both his work and personal life. The 4S™ model has been a life-changing tool for him to refer to when he is networking, speaking with a colleague or having conversations at home with his parents and siblings.
He is looking forward to helping Hello™ expand and teach the power of the 4S™ model to future generations.
Yvonne Gaines
Lead Consultant
Yvonne Gaines, Lead Consultant
Yvonne is a coach, consultant and facilitative trainer with over 18 years of experience in learning, leadership development, organizational development, and human resources management. As a certified Neuroleadership Coach, she brings the benefits of a neuroscience-based, emotionally intelligent coaching and consulting approach into work environments to transform conversations, improve performance and build leaders. She actively partners with individuals and organizations in order to reach their next level of growth and success. The results: alignment of vision, mission, goals, execution of strategies, effective leadership, enhanced performance, and improved interpersonal and communication skills.
Yvonne has held roles as a Facilitator for Herrmann International, Organizational Development Consultant and Manager of Emerging Leaders for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Divisional Vice President and Leadership Development Program Manager for UBS Financial Services and Change Management Consultant for Accenture.
Yvonne is certified to administer a number of instruments, including Leadership Architect®, Learning Agility Architect®, Team Architect®, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument®, DiSC® Personal Profile System, and various 360° Assessment tools.
Erin Wexler
Next Gen Advisor
Erin Wexler, Next Gen Advisor
Krissi Barr
Lead Consultant
Krissi Barr, Lead Consultant
In its 14th year of helping business & individuals succeed, Krissi works with start-ups to Fortune 50 companies. Her organization, Barr is a results-oriented consulting firm that delivers cultural transformation, visioning, strategy and execution, executive and team coaching, leadership and sales training, keynote speeches and assessment programs. Krissi was featured in Inc. Magazine as one of the country’s top ten “super-efficient”. Between 4-6 clients annually are on Inc’s 500/5000 list and two have received the prestigious Cincinnati USA Chamber Partnership Growth Award recognition and several clients have recognized as a Best Places to Work. A speaker and writer, Krissi co-authored a business/golf fable about getting the right things done called Plugged which is endorsed by Marshall Goldsmith, the late Dr. Paul Hersey, Jeffrey Gitomer, Matthew Kelly and others.
Krissi has been using 4S™ for 13 years as a coaching, strategic thinking, conversational excellence, key account planning, sales generation and implementation tool.
Manufacturing, technology, logistics, consumer goods, insurance, financial, consumer goods, and services companies from Fortune 50 to start-ups are well known to Krissi. Her first job at P&G provided her business foundation. Krissi is certified to teach Velocity’s 4S™ Foundations, 4S™Conversational Excellence, 4S™ Focus Forward and Coach 4 Success™ programs, Marshall Goldsmith’s What Got You Here Won’t Get You There® and Don Brown’s What Got You Here Won’t Get You There – in Sales® program, Paul Hersey’s Situational Leadership™, Situational Selling™, and Situational Services™ and Jim Pancero’s You Can Always Sell More™. Krissi is a Certified Professional Behavior & Values Analyst, and Attributes Index Analyst. Krissi is a member of the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches, Institute of Coaching Professionals, and CoachSource. Krissi is a 2015 recipient of Venue Magazine Women of Influence award and in 2012 was named one of the 100 Mind’s Thought Leadership within the Greater Cincinnati Region.
Berna McCormick
Next Gen Advisor
Berna McCormick, Next Gen Advisor
Berna is a sophomore at Rutgers University majoring in finance and marketing. During her freshman year at Rutgers, she was very involved on campus and is now the Executive of Recruitment for the Rutgers Riot Squad, the spirit club for Rutgers Athletics. Her role in this position is to attend Rutgers’ new student orientations and involvement fairs and encourage them to become members of the Riot Squad. She has already enrolled over 1,000 students in the club.
Berna is also a sister of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority. She was elected as new member class president where she oversaw the Spring 2017 new member class and served as a liaison between the 57 new members and the chapter’s executive board.
Through her leadership positions, she has seen the importance of the 4S™ model and is eager to help Hello™ teach the next generation of learners.
Marc Schwartz
Senior Consultant
Marc Schwartz, Lead Consultant
For over thirty years, Marc Schwartz has trained and coached corporate executives, managers, and sales professionals to identify the motivation and values that authentically drive them to be better. Further, he guides them how to break through the barriers that inevitably stand in the way of reaching their desired next level outcomes. Through a series of powerful tools and processes, he helps managers and leaders further develop their interests, skills and capacity so they can achieve the personal and business goals that have real meaning to them.
Marc is a highly acclaimed speaker and trainer who actively engages the audience in his presentations through the use of experiential learning techniques. Groups regularly report Marc as high energy and able to tie-in pertinent business issues with both organizational and personal development. His humor and passion help participants relax and enjoy presentations so they can naturally retain pertinent information that can help them in many facets of life.
Since 1988, Marc has traveled extensively and has presented keynotes, seminars and workshops to over 47,000 people in twenty-two countries on such topics as Coaching, Generational Leadership, Communication Styles, Sales, Key Account Management, Conflict Resolution and Team Development.
Connor Miller
Next Gen Advisor
Chris Miller, Next Gen Advisor
Tom Kukla
Lead Consultant
Tom Kukla, Lead Consultant
Tom Kukla is the Principal and Founder of Tom Kukla Credere Leadership, a Leadership growth organization. He is a highly experienced Leadership Coach, Speaker, and Trainer. Prior to founding Credere Leadership, Tom spent 38 years in Retail and Medical Sales, Sales Management, and Management and Leadership Development. 31 of those 38 years were in the highly competitive Pharmaceutical industry working for Purdue Pharma. With well over three decades of Leadership, Management, and Training experience, Tom’s biggest accomplishments centered around developing dozens of team members and coaching them to reach their sales goals, their career goals, and their full potential. Tom developed a World Class Management Training Program from the ground up that continues to serve 100’s of Sales and Marketing colleagues today.
Tom is a Channel Partner with Velocity, LLC as well as a John Maxwell Certified Coach, Teacher and Speaker. He offers organizations Management and Leadership workshops, seminars, training, and coaching in order to guide the personal and professional growth of Managers of all levels and tenure.
The two guiding principles that have served Tom very well in highly competitive marketplaces are Belief in Self and Abundant Thinking. Before anyone else can believe in you, you have to believe in yourself. Abundant Thinking is simply focusing on what you have versus what you don’t have. It’s your strengths, NOT your weaknesses that define your leadership capabilities. Tom is passionate about developing leaders and seeing people reach their full potential.
Julie Kimelman
Next Gen Advisor
Julie Kimelman, Next Gen Advisor
Julie is an Account Coordinator at Razorfish Health focused on creating stand-out digital marketing strategies for a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical client. With previous experience ranging from corporate creative project management to legal marketing and event logistics, she has experienced first-hand the benefits of applying the 4S™ Model to interpersonal communication.
Julie was introduced to Hello™ as a teaching assistant at the LeBow College of Business, and helped present the 4S™ Model at a management teaching conference in March. As a client services professional and recent Drexel University graduate, Julie recognizes the importance of solution-oriented conversations from both a business and academic perspective and looks forward to growing Hello™!
Rachel Pawluszka
Next Gen Advisor
Rachel Pawluszka, Next Gen Advisor
Rachel is a Financial Analyst at Clark Hill PLC where she assists the finance team in helping manage the firm’s 500 lawyers and the day-to-day monetary operations. As a recent graduate of Drexel University, she has experience in small business consulting and IT project management which she received through their extensive cooperative education program. She uses Hello’s methods every day at work when she communicates with the accounting department and the lawyers to deliver valuable data for optimized decision making.
Rachel was introduced to Hello™ as a Teaching Assistant at Drexel in the LeBow College of Business where she had the opportunity to present her experience with Hello’s 4S™ model and Millennials at an Organizational Behavior Conference in March 2017. Ever since her training, it has completely pivoted her approach to communication in the workplace and in her personal life.
Diane Chew
Lead Consultant
Diane Chew, Lead Consultant
Diane Chew is a certified corporate business coach and facilitator dedicated to supporting teams and individuals move from stress to success in order to achieve better business results through others. Diane founded Simply Successful Coaching and Consulting in 2006 after 29 years working for Merck and Co. in positions of increasing responsibility in pharmaceutical sales, sales management, management and executive development and organizational consulting.
A champion for integrating personal, professional and organizational success, Diane brings a multi-disciplined focus to her work, drawing from emotional intelligence, positive psychology and neuroscience. She is committed to implementing the principles of Conversational Excellence as she engages with clients to strengthen their personal awareness, build, and apply new skills in the areas of leadership development, team building, employee-manager relationships, employee engagement, corporate culture shifts, and work-life engagement.
Diane is a life long learner and routinely participates in continuing education for coaches, consultants and executives.
Geoff Green
Preferred Channel Partner
Geoff Green, Preferred Channel Partner
Geoff Green has over 30 years’ experience as a facilitator and trainer specializing in leadership, team development, and coaching. He is a 4S™ preferred channel partner and a lead trainer in the UK for Situational Leadership as well as being a certified Master Trainer. He also delivers these programs extensively in Europe and Asia.
In addition, he consults widely on issues around developing company cultures that value and build high performing teams. The design and facilitation of experiential team development programs where the emphasis is clearly placed on process rather than energetic outdoor experiences is a specialty.
He works from graduate to director level and has a wealth of experience that enables him to develop enthusiasm and confidence in attendees to participate and engage in his courses. Feedback from client companies often mentions that they particularly value his ability to both train and facilitate so that by the end of a program the attendees fully “own” their learning.
Companies he has worked with include EBay, Alstom, Motorola, McDonalds, Bank of America, United Nations, Thomas Cook, PowerGen, T-Mobile and Johnson and Johnson.
Maureen Ennis
Client Management
Maureen Ennis, Client Management
Maureen is a dynamic change leader with significant accomplishments in business transformation. She leverages a unique blend of competencies spanning strategic planning, human resources, technology and leadership. Working with leaders across different sectors and industries, she uses effective team building strategies to cultivate agile, lean, and collaborative organizations.
Kim Montoya
Lead Consultant
Kim Montoya, Lead Consultant
As a healthcare professional over the last 30+ years in clinical, academic, and industry settings I found that communication in all of these environments was key to achieving optimal outcomes. While there are many different communications models on the market, nothing was as impactful to me and my career as the 4S Conversation model.
I was first introduced to 4S about 13 years ago while working in pharma. It soon became embedded in my thought process and has been a significant tool in ensuring success in many areas of my life.
While working in sales training at Novo Nordisk, I had the privilege and opportunity to work with John Miller, the founder of Velocity, and learn 4S in even more depth. I facilitated the course to new sales trainees and was part of the launch team for the Diabetes Education program. The most challenging and rewarding part of teaching 4S to this group was as clinicians, Diabetes Educators were used to teaching patients through much more “telling” than “listening.” Watching them grow and succeed in their new roles through utilization of 4S with their patients was so exciting!
I joined Velocity in 2015 as a lead consultant after retiring from a full-time career as I wanted to continue to work in something I was passionate about. I look forward to helping many other business teams discover and learn the 4S Conversation model and achieve even further success.
Caitlin Baker
Next Gen Advisor
Caitlin Baker, Next Gen Advisor
As a healthcare professional over the last 30+ years in clinical, academic, and industry settings I found that communication in all of these environments was key to achieving optimal outcomes. While there are many different communications models on the market, nothing was as impactful to me and my career as the 4S Conversation model.
I was first introduced to 4S about 13 years ago while working in pharma. It soon became embedded in my thought process and has been a significant tool in ensuring success in many areas of my life.
While working in sales training at Novo Nordisk, I had the privilege and opportunity to work with John Miller, the founder of Velocity, and learn 4S in even more depth. I facilitated the course to new sales trainees and was part of the launch team for the Diabetes Education program. The most challenging and rewarding part of teaching 4S to this group was as clinicians, Diabetes Educators were used to teaching patients through much more “telling” than “listening.” Watching them grow and succeed in their new roles through utilization of 4S with their patients was so exciting!
I joined Velocity in 2015 as a lead consultant after retiring from a full-time career as I wanted to continue to work in something I was passionate about. I look forward to helping many other business teams discover and learn the 4S Conversation model and achieve even further success.