ABOUT ANNE GEMMELL
I’m Anne Gemmell, a consultant specializing in bringing collaborative methods to the greatest challenges of 21st-century leadership.
As a consultant, I’ve helped over 100 organizations reach their goals with collaborative leadership tools.
As Director of Special Initiatives, I served as Philadelphia’s first pre-K director and then led the “future of work” policy response.
I hold an BS degree from West Chester University, where I was also a guard on a D-1 varsity basketball team. I earned an MA from Villanova as a James Madison Fellow.
“Diverse work groups achieve stronger and longer-lasting gains.”
Here are 4 examples of the way I work with clients:
CONSULTING:
DEVELOPING A FUTURE OF WORK STRATEGY FOR THE STATE
Pennsylvania’s outgoing governor, Tom Wolf. directed his Department of Labor and Industry to develop a Future of Work strategy. With less than two years to go on his final term, Wolf decided to move directly to a strategy rather than create a new commission.
The Department originally invited me to lead the development of the strategy. However, we realized it was important for the various stakeholders to take ownership of the new program. Therefore, we began with a Future of Work workshop where we introduced the group to the SchellingPoint technology.
We brought together insights from technologists, academics, business leaders, unions, workforce development professionals, government policymakers, and workers themselves. Ultimately over 60 individuals contributed over the course of 8 weeks.
Governor Wolf’s team began implementing the strategy immediately. The written documents and recorded dialogues became transition resources for the next governor
WORKSHOP:
REBUILDING A CORPORATE CULTURE
TechImpact delivers innovative technology solutions and support to the nonprofit/non-government sector.
During the pandemic, TechImpact grew from 75 to 140 employees over three cities. Most wanted to work remotely.
As the pandemic ended, CEO Patrick Callihan wanted to rebuild a corporate culture that would motivate and retain its most valuable employees. As a first step, he asked me to set up a customized Future of Leadership workshop to help the company’s leaders collaborate across departments.
He reported, “The workshop gave us a cohesion we could build on. We’re spending less time and money with recruitment, because people feel part of the culture and remain longer.”
CONSULTING:
OBTAINING ACTIONABLE DATA FROM DIVERSE STAKEHOLDERS FOR A SCHOOL DISTRICT
In 2021-2022, Superintendent Robert Fisicaro was leading a Philadelphia-area school district with 2500 families. The district wanted to prioritize the goal of preparing graduates for a dynamic workplace supported by fast-changing technology, yet they faced significant budget constraints and limited staff capacity.
School leaders wanted to begin with a detailed opinion survey of the stakeholders – school board members, parents, teachers, community residents and students. Earlier surveys had yielded off-topic, emotional, wordy responses.
We began by identifying the project as the first step in an eight-year strategy. We scrapped the previous surveys and build a new instrument that would yield actionable quantitative and qualitative data. In just 3 weeks, we had over 600 useable responses from all groups of stakeholders.
Our data identified a small minority of vocal people who were highly visible. We also found a number of common misconceptions about allocating public funds. We were able to address resistance to change by focusing on the most widespread concerns and promoting accurate information to gain support of the skeptics.
School leaders were able to communicate more effectively and create a valuable strategy with the data and confidence about the support from all stakeholders.
EXECUTIVE COACHING:
LONG-TERM ADVOCACY FOR A COALITION OF INDEPENDENT MEMBERS
Alex Hillman founded the 10K Independents project of Philadelphia, ano create 10,000 new entrepreneurs within the city. Alex knew he would need the support of city government. He’d enjoyed strong relationships with an earlier administration but found those ties didn’t transfer to the next city government team.
With a mayoral election on the horizon, Alex wanted to begin building relationships that will help him smoothly transition to working with a new administration.
We are helping Alex and the tech community build relationships to the next administration. We work together to brainstorm approaches and to clarify what’s important to the group, regardless of who wins the election. Our approach is based on advocacy rather than lobbying: we aren’t emphasizing a particular piece of legislation. We’re identifying ways to collaborate with the new administration, so Alex will be poised for action with the new mayor and several new City Council members.