Over the past 10 years, I have had the opportunity to engage Jacqueline on a number of projects while working in various positions at a major healthcare company.

The initial engagement was to develop a three year strategic plan for the Canadian Nutrition business. Prior to the engagement, we had very little structure or process for planning, and strategic plans were primarily financial exercises. Jacqueline (via Tandem Consulting), did an excellent job of leading the project. The insights from this engagement identified gaps in our market knowledge, resulting in a cycle of quality strategic planning. The strategic planning engagement identified opportunities to improve our brand planning.

Jacqueline and Tandem were also engaged to analyze and recommend whether we should continue to distribute our Nutritional Products to the grocery channel via the incumbent food broker or move to a direct sales model. The results of this engagement led to a complete re-structuring of the retail sales and marketing organization. The new organization was very successful and accelerated our revenue and dramatically improved customer relationships.

In 1996, in my new position as General Manager of another division, we also worked with Jacqueline to implement a strategic planning and brand planning process. We introduced many changes to our marketing approach, resulting in accelerated sales and increased market share.

When I was promoted to SVP Commercial Operations for a US division, I once again asked Jacqueline to help with strategic and brand planning engagements. The programs were not only successful for the business I was managing, but the quality results of the engagement led to Jacqueline working with several other international affiliates.

Jacqueline does an excellent job of project management. In every project, we met the timelines and implemented improvements in our planning, branding or sales execution. In addition to extracting insights from the participants, she does an excellent job of building consensus on the recommendations and action plans.

The fact I engaged with Jacqueline on successive projects over a 10 year period confirms the confidence I have in her ability to take on critical projects that had significant impact on the business I was managing. If I have the opportunity to do additional work with her in the future, I would not hesitate.

Jeff Smith, General Manager, NxStage Medical, Inc.