Greater Washington, D.C. Area
Co-Founder and CEO
Catherine Allen is Co-founder and CEO of AO People Partners, a company dedicated to inspiring and supporting the conscious practice of people development in the workplace. Catherine is passionate about helping leaders and organizations lean into the power of developing people to drive business success and meaningful social contribution.
With over 25 years of experience working as an organizational and people skills development practitioner and executive coach, Catherine specializes in helping executive leaders and teams Own, Model and Drive business and people development integration in their organizations. Skilled in conflict resolution, communications, business strategy and change management, Ms. Allen has extensive experience working with executive leaders seeking to take their business to the next level of conscious growth and senior leaders transitioning to executive level roles in private sector organizations in a range of industries.
As AO’s CEO, her focus is on guiding her team to build the full suite of capabilities to help leaders design and build integrated and holistic people development cultures that are sustainable, practical and cost efficient. Catherine holds an M.S. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University and is a certified professional coach.
Catherine is also co-author with Ed Offterdinger of the book: Conscious, Capable and Ready to Contribute: How Employee Development Can Become the Highest Form of Social Contribution. Catherine writes and speaks regularly on leadership and people development integration and why people development in the workplace should become a recognized and incentivized form of social contribution.
“Everything is perfect, and we get to figure out why”. Over the years, this phrase has served me well by reminding me to look at everyone and everything as a teacher – a source of learning and growth. This way of thinking has made all the difference in how I navigate every aspect of my personal and professional life. Hang around me long enough and invariably life will dish up an opportunity for me to ask, “what might be perfect about this situation?”
Encountering a very angry elephant while doing wildlife management research in Zimbabwe and living to talk about it.
Embrace the opportunity to grow your brand and reputation as a company that truly invests in helping employees grow their capabilities – even and especially during an employee off boarding experience. When viewed through the development lens, this is a valuable opportunity for employers to learn and improve organizational and people development practices, build brand ambassadors, and enable departing employees to reflect on gains in skills and capabilities.
“Build it so they will want to come, flourish, and stay, knowing that someday they may leave.
Thus, it is imperative to define what you want them to say about their growth experience with your organization and what you want the outside world to say about how you invest in and contribute capable people to society.”
-Ed Offterdinger & Catherine Allen
Conscious, Capable, and Ready to Contribute. (p. 173)
Integrate practices, principles, and tools to better evaluate a candidate’s orientation to continuous learning and development as a factor in their overall fit for a position. This provides:
