Our team

Jean Labadie, President  Jeff Williams, Client Principal
Peter Krammer, Managing Partner  Debbie Dickinson, Client Principal
Stephen Hamilton, Partner  Vickie Nubel, Project Director
Mary Lee Shalvoy, Project Manager
and Marketing Director
 Sue Dunlap, Master Facilitator
Linda Merriweather, Director, Business
Development and Client Principal
 

Jean

Jean Labadie

President

916.645.7787   labadie@elaconsultinggroup.com

Jean Labadie co-founded ELA in 1980 and helped build the company into one of the San Francisco Bay area’s most successful sales and management training firms. Jean became president of ELA in 2001.

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Peter

Peter Krammer

Managing Partner

707.252.8880   krammer@elaconsultinggroup.com

Peter Krammer joined ELA in 1999, and became the managing partner in 2003. Since 1992, he has consulted with a wide range of clients on strategic business development and organizational training challenges. He managed projects that include salesforce and market development; client retention; profit improvement; process improvement; employee turnover reduction; strategic executive alignment; and succession planning. Before 1992, Peter was an executive search consultant for nine years.

Peter has a strong working knowledge of many industries, including computer hardware and semiconductor, software, staffing, banking and financial services, consumer products, heavy manufacturing, food service and processing, distribution, music, and film. He currently serves on the board of directors of Business Solutions Network International.

Peter lives in Napa, California. He is active in improving local community housing and mental health services. He is a past board president for Family Service of Napa Valley.

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Stephen

Stephen Hamilton

Partner

650.347.2438   hamilton@elaconsultinggroup.com

Stephen Hamilton joined ELA in 2004 and became a partner in 2007. He has helped his clients build sales and sales channel processes and systems, and assisted organizations through post-merger integrations with a focus on building responsive IT and corporate shared services. Client industries include the full spectrum of high tech, mining, agriculture, staffing, and direct marketing.

Stephen has over 30 years of professional experience in all aspects of small & large businesses. His clients benefit from his world-wide experience in managing sales, marketing and customer support functions for public companies including Agilent, Pinnacle Systems (Avid), and Hewlett-Packard.

At Pinnacle Systems, Stephen was the vice president of sales marketing and customer support for the professional solutions division. Before that, he was the general manager for the Video Communications division at Agilent Technologies, at the time a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard.

Stephen held a variety of manufacturing, financial, sales and marketing management positions in his 20 years at Hewlett-Packard. He helped define and build the Internet strategy to support large account selling and deployed the new sales processes for HP’s enterprise account sales organization.

Qualified as a Chartered Accountant in England and as a Certified Public Accountant in the US, Stephen has worked in a number of industries, ranging from industrial chemical production to commercial aircraft assembly. He earned his Bachelors degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from the University of London. Stephen has authored several articles for books and trade publications and is a frequent conference speaker.

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Mary Lee

Mary Lee Shalvoy

Project Manager and Marketing Director

510.749.7134   shalvoy@elaconsultinggroup.com

Mary Lee Shalvoy joined ELA Consulting Group in 2007. As a published writer, marketing consultant and market analyst and project manager, Mary Lee brings more than 20 years of experience writing for multiple media outlets, tracking trends, analyzing events, detailing and creating sales and marketing programs, crafting and executing Internet and social media strategy and programs, as well as managing major project implementations. In her role as Project Manager, Mary Lee works with both internal and external resources to plan, execute, and complete projects on deadline and within budget. As ELA Marketing Director, Mary Lee oversees the corporate marketing strategy, all communications, the ELA Consulting Group website and TheSalesCafe.com.

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LindaM

Linda Merriweather

Director, Business Development and Client Principal

650.766.8174   merriweather@elaconsultinggroup.com

Linda Merriweather brings more than 25 years experience and a wealth of energy and passion to the mission of helping customers enhance their competitive position by solving business challenges.   

Her experience covers a vast area of solution-focused, results-oriented opportunities. She has worked for a number of technology companies, including Hewlett Packard, addressing a diverse customer base that has included small, medium and large corporations. She knows that fully understanding a customer’s challenges is the key to developing appropriate solutions. Linda has held customer-facing roles in many areas of marketing and enterprise sales environments. Linda has a wealth of channel experience and has worked closely with organizations, covering a wide range of vertical markets including clean technology, retail, healthcare, insurance and information technology. She has been successful in evaluating and implementing programs that help an organization run more efficiently.  

Linda’s accomplishments include developing training programs for both sales and marketing teams. She has traveled the country for seminars, tradeshows and speaking engagements with successful/measureable results.

Prior to joining ELA, Linda was with General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Barracuda Networks and ArcMail Technology.

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Jeff

Jeff Williams

Client Principal

650.704.8685   williams@elaconsultinggroup.com

Jeff Williams brings 30 years of leadership experience in sales operations, marketing, customer advocacy, business development and strategic planning to clients. Jeff’s claim to fame is bringing order to the chaos of business, effectively bridging functional and cultural chasms by building strong teams, trusted relationships, and practical processes. He has extensive international business experience, having been directly responsible for multinational field operation organizations in companies ranging from a $40 billion global networking leader to a $1 million startup. Jeff especially relishes leading a management team through the process of developing a long-range vision, building a set of compelling and differentiated strategies, and then connecting the dots from vision to strategies to execution that aligns the organization for success.

At Cisco Systems, Jeff was in charge of North American service sales operations, enabling record sales growth in this $4 billion business unit. He also directed global services alliances with partners such as Fujitsu, Nokia Siemens Networks, and EMC. 

Prior to Cisco, Jeff served as vice president of marketing for eBoomerang, a software startup specializing in reverse logistics solutions. Before that, he spent six years at ILOG, Inc. (a French enterprise software company recently purchased by IBM), serving as vice president of worldwide operations and vice president of product marketing. While at ILOG, Jeff lived in Paris and drove a new product direction for the company which resulted in 10x revenue growth and #1 market share. 

Before joining ILOG, Jeff held progressively more responsible management positions at Hewlett-Packard, including field operations, strategic planning, product management, quality, training, business development, and sales. He finished his 20-year career at HP as director of operations and planning for the worldwide computer sales and marketing organization, responsible for strategic planning and performance management of this $18 billion business.

Jeff’s consistent focus during his career has been to drive competitive advantage through an imaginative understanding of customer needs, while producing products and services that are environmentally sustainable. In his free time, Jeff enjoys donating his expertise to non-profit organizations such as Companions in Courage, a foundation building interactive playrooms inside hospitals for seriously ill children.

Jeff graduated from San Jose State University with a BA cum laude in Computer Mathematics and Statistics, and holds a Masters in Business Administration from Santa Clara University.

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Debbie Dickinson

Client Principal

770.783.9283   dickinson@elaconsultinggroup.com

Debbie Dickinson joined ELA in 2007. Her expertise is in executive leadership—uniting sales, service innovation and organizational leadership to rally entire organizations around growth initiatives. 

Debbie's accomplishments include: opening five new revenue streams at Walt Disney World and leading the highest revenue benchmark in Disney Seminars history; helping launch quality service at Disney Cruise Lines; global work with Ford Motor Company, leadership 360 assessments, culture change, and service innovation; AT&T Channel Market and Mid Market sales nationwide; service innovation, performance standards and new hire orientation for HomeBanc Mortgage Company; culture revitalization through pride in quality, recognition, and partnership at American Airlines; sales culture reinvention at Spartan Staffing; and supplier quality management and negotiating skills for Hormel.

Debbie is the author of Next Steps: Changing the Way We Do Business and has a book in progress on Guest and Host Cultures. She led the development of Building Great Partnerships, Entrepreneurs in the Workplace, and Who Are Our Guests. Universal Studios, Darden Restaurants, Lockheed Martin, Nokia and American Airlines were some of the early adopters of these creative change management approaches.

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Vickie

Vickie Nubel

Project Director

253.851.0438   nubel@elaconsultinggroup.com

Vickie Nubel joined ELA in 2007. She is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in solutions-based selling, operations, and sales management, training and recruiting. Vickie served in key management roles in the staffing, healthcare, training, employment law, high-tech, and telecommunications industries. She is recognized for her ability to manage complex projects supporting the development and implementation of operations and sales systems, product development and training methodologies. She was employed with national companies including Norrell Corporation, Employment Learning Innovations, Comsys Information Technology Services, Silicon Graphics, and Miller Heiman. Vickie takes pride in developing sustainable relationships based on mutual trust, responsiveness, and accountability. She has managed accounts and projects for companies including Microsoft, SBC Communications, Cigna, Advantica, ConAgra Foods, Hospital Corporation of America, and Hewlett-Packard.

Vickie has co-authored, produced and delivered customized courseware for branch operations, sales and account management, recruiting strategy, and profitability for self-study, instructor-led and on-line deliverables. She is an expert facilitator at all levels.

Vickie holds a Masters in Public Health from the University of Tennessee. She is certified in learning programs from Wilson Learning Corporation, One Page Business Plan, Sales Xccelerator, and Scenario Planning.

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Sue

Sue Dunlap

Master Facilitator and Lead Designer

540.454.0988   dunlap@elaconsultinggroup.com

Sue Dunlap joined ELA in 2011. Sue brings more than 30 years of business experience to helping organizations improve sales performance. She is a highly effective facilitator, certified in many nationally known training programs. Sue has designed and developed sales, sales management, customer service team building, and coaching programs. Sue has consulted extensively with clients in the insurance, telecommunications, financial services, high tech, biotech, manufacturing, staffing and hospitality industry sectors.

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