Organizational Development, Strategy & Change Initiatives

When MSH launched its seven-year organizational strategy, one of its foundational cross-cutting pillars was "Localize" — a commitment to more local partnerships, funding of local offices, and empowerment of local leadership. Achieving that pillar required more than a policy statement; it demanded a new way of operating across the entire organization. I was brought in to build and lead the practice area — Local Capacity Strengthening — that would be a primary vehicle for making that happen.

Starting with a small group of long-standing but fragmented technical contributors, I aligned the team around a shared vision and scaled it threefold within one year. Within 18 months, LCS had become MSH's second most recognized technical area according to an external stakeholder survey — the result of deliberate thought leadership, strategic communications, and external networking.

Internally, I spearheaded the establishment of an interdisciplinary Localize Coordination Committee, which I co-chaired, to align practices with the corporate strategy across all departments. I led a highly participatory process to develop an organization-wide Localize Communication Strategy, launched an in-house Community of Practice to spread good practices across 40+ countries, and facilitated sessions at MSH's global leadership conference and various virtual fora to drive cultural and operational change. This was a proactive and sustained, leadership effort to shift mindsets, align systems, and build internal capacity in order to make locally led development (LLD) a reality at MSH. 

This multi-phase consultancy supported AGRA—a pan-African agricultural alliance—in auditing its existing partnerships, mapping future influencers, and co-designing a stakeholder engagement strategy aligned to its corporate refresh. Extensive pre-work informed the workshop design: a literature review, a desk study of 133 past and present partners, online surveys of AGRA staff and external stakeholders, and face-to-face interviews across eight countries. Rather than delivering findings to participants as a finished product, I designed the workshops so that this data was presented back to staff as a catalyst for reflection and debate, ensuring the strategy emerged from their collective analysis, not just ours.

Along with CIDT's Deputy Head, I co-facilitated two participatory workshops in Kenya. The first (2.5 days) guided ~25 staff through a structured, cumulative process—building from foundational concepts to honest examination of AGRA's reputational risks before moving into stakeholder prioritization and analysis. Techniques included carousel exercises, problem trees, theory of change mapping, and a reputational continuum to surface difficult conversations productively.

The second workshop (2 days) brought staff back together to validate preliminary findings, refine guiding principles, analyze strategic and influencer partnership opportunities, and develop a concrete roadmap for action—with sessions led by different members of the facilitation team depending on content area. The result was a strategy built on real data and genuine organizational buy-in.

"Kim is very specialised in organizational development (OD) and learning & development (L&D). In her 3.5 years with us at CIDT, she continually impressed with her meticulous approach and very high standards of delivery and organization to clients."

Across Rwanda, Senegal and Zambia, I designed and facilitated participatory country strategic planning processes for FHI 360 — bringing together country office staff alongside regional and headquarters representatives to develop the strategies they would actually implement.

As part of a global working group, I helped shape the strategic planning framework, curriculum, and workshop materials, then facilitated a three-day session in each country to collectively analyze the landscape, build consensus on the vision and priorities, and develop strategies and action plans. Based on outputs from the workshop and inputs from the teams, I then drafted the country strategies and action plans. In Senegal, I worked in French; in Zambia, in English; and in Rwanda, in both languages.

The goal in each context was the same: a strategy that people owned rather than received. That meant creating space for brainstorming while also guiding groups through the harder work — sorting competing priorities, surfacing disagreements, and landing on decisions everyone could get behind.

"Kimberly is a top-notch professional. She provided expert support in finalizing the country strategy for FHI 360 in Zambia. During the process, Kimberly displayed excellent facilitation skills. She is a strategic thinker, pays close attention to the details, and is a pleasure to work with."

~ Mike Welsh, former FHI 360/Zambia Country Director