Turknett Leadership Group

Susan Hitchcock is currently vice president of client services for the Turknett Leadership Group, an Atlanta-based management consulting firm. Turknett works with both corporate and entrepreneurial organizations to develop strong leadership teams and highly adaptive cultures - cultures designed to survive the bad times and thrive in the good times through ever-changing business conditions. Susan is also an independent researcher, writer, and speaker on women and leadership. Before joining Turknett in September 1992, Susan had over 20 years business experience in telecommunications with BellSouth. During her career, she held various positions of increasing responsibility primarily in Network Operations and Executive Support which supported a four state area and over 30,000 employees. At the senior executive level, Susan specialized in internal and external communications, preparing over one hundred major speeches and officer presentations. She also served as a liaison for visiting dignitaries and for BellSouth International. In addition, Susan published several articles and delivered Network Architecture presentations in both local and national forums.

Sandra Hofmann is an innovative and inspiring executive who understands and drives the value of alignment across the enterprise and has successfully provided leadership to technology and manufacturing professionals for over 25 years. Sandy 's broad management experience, including 14 years with IBM, has enabled her to effectively guide teams to realize goals and deliver desired results. Particularly adept at addressing issues associated with acquired and merged businesses, Sandy has frequently been recruited to address the most difficult and challenging environments. Sandy has repeatedly demonstrated her exceptional strength of character and leadership, as well as her ability to serve as a change agent. She led the transition activities for one of the first application spin-offs from IBM. She faced the unique challenge of breaking the gender barrier at Simplex, while concurrently transforming the way service was delivered. She joined MAPICS, their first woman to be a member of the executive team, as the Vice President and General Manager for a newly acquired business unit and was then a lead participant in the company's re-engineering as a functional organization. She then stepped into the unique dual role of CIO and Chief People Officer and established the company's organizational model for the "virtual office" which provided extraordinary results in enterprise efficiency and expense benefits. Her introduction of information liberation, a project management office and portfolio management allowed the company to rapidly assimilate acquisitions (doubling in size) and then obtain full integration in less than six months. Sandy's management philosophy, leadership characteristics and business results have been acknowledged by numerous industry recognitions: Georgia CIO Leadership Association (GCLA) selected Sandy as the Georgia CIO of the Year in the 2003 regional category. The award honors individuals who have demonstrated outstanding technology leadership in Georgia and excellence in managing their organization's enterprise wide information systems. In 2003 she was selected as one of five finalists for Woman of the Year in Technology by Georgia Technology Association and again in 2004 she was one of seven finalists. Articles highlighting Sandy 's results have been published in CIO and CFO Magazine, CIO Insight, and Human Resource Executive. Able to present and discuss information and strategies in a way that establishes rapport, persuades others, and gains commitment, Sandy is an often requested speaker and panelist for technology and community events. Sandy's influence reaches beyond her professional undertakings and she is very engaged in her community with the promotion of technology and ethical leadership. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for AAA Auto Club South, AkroMetrix , TechBridge, Women in Technology, and is the chairman for the Board of Directors for Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM-Atlanta chapter). She is chairman for the AeA Southeast Council Board of Directors and also a member of numerous advisory boards including TechLINKS, and Kennesaw State University Cyber Crimes Institute. Sandy graduated from Georgia State University with a bachelor of science in education and has completed an intensive program for executive management at Stanford University . A self-proclaimed "biblioholic", Sandy has an extensive personal library, enjoys herb gardening, weaving, and target pistol shooting. Currently Sandy is serving as "CIO-in-Residence" with the Advanced Technology Development Center . Headquartered at Georgia Tech, ATDC is a nationally recognized science and technology incubator that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. Sandy is also the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Turknett Leadership Group. Turknett Leadership Group is a character-based management and consulting firm that focuses on aligning strategy, leadership and culture by...

Steve O'Brien joined Turknett Associates in 1995 after working thirty-one years in a variety of leadership positions with General Electric (GE) and two years as CEO of a $200 million sporting goods company. He started with GE in manufacturing, proceeded into sales and moved on to general management, including responsibility for leading one of the company's thirteen major businesses reporting directly to the CEO. While at GE he was actively involved in the company-wide "Work-out" initiative. Steve graduated from Yale University in 1960 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and participated in a variety of executive development activities at GE. He is active in a variety of educational and community organizations and serves on the board of Make A Wish Foundation.