Testimonials

Gretchen DiFante has provided leadership and business skills consulting/training for Genesee's BEST Center over the past years. Applying her multi-level business management experiences, her credentialed conflict and facilitation skills with her personal style and demeanor; Gretchen is able to offer a winning combination in ensuring positive consulting and training outcomes for local organizations who have utilized her expertise.

Barb Shine, former Director of Workforce Development and Assistant
Professor of Business Entrepreneurship, Genesee Community College

John and I worked together on an order-to-cash business process reengineering project and found him to be very knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with. He has that rare ability to make people want to work together and achieve greatness; a true change agent!

Gary T. Long, Principal, A. T. Kearney

I had the pleasure of working with Gretchen for over 2-1/2 years. Her ability to analyze existing processes, identify problems and bottlenecks, and redesign and improve processes to increase customer satisfaction and reduce costs is incredible. Gretchen has extensive knowledge in Strategic Planning, Balanced Scorecard, Product Development and Market Research and Strategy. Her interpersonal skills and strong communications would be invaluable to any organization looking to go through the hard work of change.

Greg Galemore, Vice President, Operations, P. W. Minor & Son

John Hogg is a seasoned executive with broad supply chain experience in global manufacturing and distribution environments. John has a successful track record in strategy development, process transformation, systems implementation and organizational design in the consumer products industry. He has the unique ability to analyze key performance metrics, incorporate business complexities and propose complete solutions resulting in improved corporate performance. John is a resourceful decision-maker that combines strong leadership and organizational skills with the ability to direct strategic and tactical business affairs. Mr. Hogg also has experience in establishing business alliances and joint ventures in both accelerated growth and profit improvement business scenarios.

Matt Sullivan, Senior Vice President, Supply Chain, Rocky Brands, Inc.

Gretchen’s results while at P. W. Minor were many. She increased our advertising reach and the achievement of more media placements than we had seen in company history, while at the same time achieving a significant reduction in our advertising expenditures. She also led a branding initiative and involved our customer base in the positioning of our product in the marketplace.

As a result, we have reduced our brands from four to one and for the first time have consistency in our trade show space, advertising and marketing pieces, product packaging and website. In addition, as a result of Gretchen’s leadership in product development, we are beginning our development process six months earlier. In her early analysis of our business as a consultant, she identified the need for us to institute a product quality process, and when we instituted one, we saw an instant drop in discrepant product quality.

She also identified weaknesses in a go-to-market process that had served us well for decades but was no longer taking advantage of the change in our industry and in the present economy. She made recommendations for a new structure and put together a plan to test-market the change.

Lastly, Gretchen helped me see the current way we were working with our Asian manufacturing partners had been a contributing factor to us having inconsistency in our new products and in our planned deliveries. She researched alternative ways in which we might work with our overseas partners, found and hired an individual and then led the organization through a process to convert to a direct business relationship with our Asian manufacturers. During this period, a good portion of our business was at risk, and Gretchen stepped out of her area of responsibility and provided excellent leadership to the entire organization holding daily meetings with the team in China, involving the leaders of every functional area at headquarters, documenting daily action items and ensuring that every action was followed through to completion.

As a result, our transition was smooth as could be expected and risks to our business were minimized. Gretchen has outstanding strategic business skills that she translates into logical and practical approaches to problem-solving and process development. In addition, she has a keen eye for talent and for managing others to achieve their potential.

Henry H. Minor III, Chief Executive Officer, P. W. Minor