Leadership
We are students of business and the people who make businesses work. We take time to get to know all of our clients and to understand what makes each of their businesses different. For us, that means that every assignment is unique and each approach distinctive.
TPO’s Leadership team does not fit the mold.
Clients find us curious, open-minded, candid, and courageous. They describe us as “not what we expected,” a “safe harbor”, a “sounding board”, and capable of “making the invisible visible”. Meet the individuals who set the tone and lead the team at TPO: Karen and Dana.
Karen Usher is the Founder and Chairman of TPO, Inc. She leads the firm’s strategic planning and is practice leader for TPO’s succession planning services.
Karen has people leadership in her blood. She comes from a long line of HR visionaries (mother, father and brother – imagine the dinner table!), all of whom have moved out into executive leadership roles. Her career combines change management, HR leadership, and entrepreneurship, founding her first of three companies in 1981. Her unique forte is working with chief executives to help them successfully blend their natural deep-seated drive with the rigors of running a successful business. “Helping to change and grow companies by growing and developing the workforce and the leadership team is the hardest work any business ever undertakes.”
Karen has worked with hundreds of executive teams to help them improve their leadership and achieve their business goals through the people they employ. She has helped leadership teams formulate their people strategies at companies like Futron Corporation and IEEE. She’s worked to help bring about successful company sales at organizations including Trusted Information Systems, OTG Software, The Richards Corporation, and Fieldston. And where mission can be achieved only through the successful and united efforts of people – at The Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth, National Association for Music Education – she has helped these organizations touch thousands of lives.
In her spare time, Karen manages an acre of gardens, keeps company with her husband, a son and a very amusing dog, and always has an eye open for interesting fishing expeditions, particularly to the Everglades. She is an ardent environmentalist, recycles 90% of her household waste, and sources 85% of her family’s food from within 5 miles of her house.
> PDF Karen Usher Bio
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Dana Papke returns to TPO this year as President and CEO. Dana combines extensive hands-on business leadership experience with a passion for driving organizational success by deliberately linking operational and people strategies. Dana first worked at TPO as a Senior Consultant between 2002 and 2004 and takes on her new role on February 1st, 2012.
Dana’s career reflects her commitment to bringing people and operations into strategic alignment to drive business results. Her experience spans start-ups, mergers/acquisitions, rapid growth, reorganizations, and restructurings. Alternating between human capital and operations roles, Dana has led HR and PR for a business unit of Prudential Insurance and worked as VP HR then COO for Health Partners, Inc./Gateway Physician Services. She then served as EVP HR, Quality Improvement & Data Management for ValueOptions, Inc., the nation’s largest independent behavioral healthcare and wellness company. At ValueOptions and Health Partners, she led the people integration strategy for these recently merged organizations. At Gateway Physician Services, Dana was responsible for increasing operational effectiveness and implementing process redesigns resulting in improved financial performance and patient satisfaction.
After her term with TPO in the early 2000’s during which she completed an M.A. in Human Resource Development, Dana returned to practice her special blend of people and operations leadership serving, in rapid succession, as VP HR, EVP and Chief Administrative Officer, and finally EVP, COO & Corporate Compliance Officer at Grafton School. At Grafton, she led during a critical period in the organization’s history and was instrumental in developing and implementing significant business changes and innovations that transformed how the non-profit delivered services to its clients and partnered with its state and local referral associates.
Dana’s strong suit is transforming organizations – working with their leadership teams to make real the age-old maxim ‘employees are our most important asset.’ “Whether a business is launching a new service, implementing a new technology solution, planning a merger, or changing its customer service delivery model, the first conversation has to be about how to shift the workplace so that all employees contribute to maximizing business outcomes. The opportunity to return to TPO and lead this high-powered, diverse team delivering our game changing human infrastructure services to TPO’s wide palette of customers is a fantastic opportunity for me to extend the pursuit of my passion.”
In her spare time, Dana runs, cycles, and plays on several tennis teams. She frequently tries out new fitness, cooking, and art classes to stretch both body and mind . . . and to keep her humble. She also spends time with her top-notch editor/daughter and enjoys nothing better than to curl up with her quirky Jack Russell Terrier (Lucy) and a good (non-business) book.
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