SME Strategy Consulting was founded in 2011 to help organizations and their people create and implement their strategic plans. We do this by facilitating strategic planning meetings, leading corporate training, and providing executive coaching and expert advice to senior leaders.
We are passionate about providing exceptional and adaptable service, which means working alongside our clients so we can get to know your organization’s culture. We take a people-first approach, making sure our strategic planning is valuable, enjoyable, and sustainable for your teams. You need processes and frameworks that are accessible and easy to understand, so we deliver solutions that empower you to become proficient in strategic planning and thinking so you can continue executing solutions in the future.
As a global brand and enterprise, we work with non-profit and for-profit organizations spanning various sectors and industries across the world. Our mission is to provide managers and leaders with the tools, frameworks, and expertise to help create and successfully execute their strategic plans that benefit their employees, stakeholders, and communities.
CEO & Senior Facilitator
Anthony Taylor is the CEO a senior strategic planning facilitator at SME Strategy. He holds a degree in business administration (BBA) as well as his Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) from the Project Management Institute.
Anthony has an entrepreneurial background, with more than 10 years of experience running his own small businesses in various industries. In his book I Wish I Knew, he shares his best tips for being an entrepreneur.
In 2016, Anthony was chosen as a Global Entrepreneurship Week Ambassador for Canada, and SME Strategy was awarded the Palme Blue for "Microenterprise of the Year" from the French Chamber of Commerce.
Anthony speaks fluent French and loves soccer, basketball, and drinking scotch.
Place of origin: Vancouver, Canada
Specializations: Marketing, Strategy and Project Management.
His big goal: To receive the Order of Canada.
Favourite quotes: “Ride the spiral to the end, you may just go where no one has been.” – Tool
“It’s not about the years of my life, but the life of my years.”
Chief Client Officer and Senior Facilitator
Jenna has been with SME Strategy since 2013. As a Senior Facilitator and Chief Client Officer, she spends her time partnering with our clients from onboarding through to strategy development and execution. She has worked with organizations spanning a variety of sectors including: non-profit and/or membership based, natural resource management and development, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, insurance, education, HR, tourism and hospitality, and health care.
Jenna has a Master of Arts Degree in Intercultural and International Communication from Royal Roads University (RRU) as well as certifications in Change Management, Agile Project Management and Advanced Facilitation focused on Adult Learning. Due to her passion for teaching and learning, she also holds a contract teaching position with RRU as an Associate Faculty Member within the Department of Communication and Culture. She has worked with an array of courses including: Organizational Communication, Strategic Communication, Ethical Communication, and Global Communication.
Outside of work, she enjoys activities such as rock climbing, cross training, and hiking. She is also passionate about playing piano, reading, spending time with friends and family, and watching just about anything Sci-Fi. However, her favourite activity will always be drinking that first cup of coffee in the morning.
Place of Origin: British Columbia - However, she considers herself a global citizen, traveling to many countries and spending nearly four years living in Norway and Sweden, while gaining conversational abilities in both languages.
Specializations: Strategic Planning, Corporate/Organizational Communication, Change Management, Project Management, Strategy Implementation
Her big goal: To hike Mt. Fuji!
Favourite quote: “If you're always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be”. Maya Angelou
Senior Facilitator
Jen Scumaci is a Strategic Planning Facilitator at SME Strategy. She holds an MBA and an M.Ed. in Higher Education.
Jen’s background is diverse, with seven years of administration in colleges/universities, 10+ years in people + operations + client management in supply chain services, and 20+ years in non-profit work.
In 2014, Jen fulfilled a lifelong dream of learning to DJ and has been providing the soundtrack for community events, restaurants/bars/clubs, and weddings along the Northeast Seacoast ever since. In her downtime, Jen loves nothing more than hanging out with her amazing wife and two crazy pugs.
Place of origin: Queens, NY | Current location: Portsmouth, NH
Specializations: Facilitation, Strategy Development + Implementation, People Operations, Project Management. (Also, dropping funky fresh beats…)
Her big goals: To Marie Kondo her house and to master vinyl DJing.
Favourite quote: "Dear Humans, you’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and that is where you will return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal Love, messy love, sweaty love, crazy love, broken love, whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of messing up often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love in truth doesn’t need any adjectives. It needs no modifiers. It doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It is enough. It is plenty." - Courtney Walsh
Implementation Facilitator
Godslove Adagbonyin is a Facilitator with SME Strategy. With a rich professional experience spanning 12+ years, Godslove has made significant contributions in both the private and public sectors across North America, Africa, and Australia.
Her expertise includes Strategic Planning, Development, and Implementation, Stakeholder Management, Strategic Communications, Change Management and Transformation, as well as Corporate Communications.
Godslove holds a Master of Science Degree in Public Relations and Corporate Communication from New York University and certifications in Business Management and Business Analysis from the University of Toronto and Harvard Business School (online).
Outside of work, she enjoys travelling (does not mind long layovers), spending quality time with friends and family, and planning events and activities, especially house parties. Recently, she took up painting and has already created a one-of-a-kind masterpiece in a super fun, judgmental-free environment :)… of course, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
Place of Origin: Benin City, Nigeria. However, Godslove has had the opportunity to call several other countries home, including Australia, the USA and now Canada.
Specializations: Strategic Planning, Development, and Implementation, Stakeholder Management, Strategic Communications, Change Management and Transformation, as well as Corporate Communications.
Her big goal: Invent/develop a “wow idea” that will go global!
My favourite quote: “Do unto others what you want them to do unto you, and a good name is better than riches.”
Partner Facilitator
Micah Lorenc is an expert facilitator and exceptional coach with over a decade of experience at a Fortune 100 company. During that time, he facilitated strategic planning workshops for senior leadership, as well as strengths-based development workshops for teams across the company. Micah has experience working closely with various functional disciplines, including strategic planning, business architecture, experience design, change management, and process management. His last role as a Director leading a team in the corporate environment allows him to empathize and connect with teams and leaders. He loves to inject fun and energy into events he facilitates, and he finds satisfaction in taking conceptual development principles and making them practical and productive for leaders and organizations.
Place of Origin: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
Specializations: Strategy, Business Architecture, Strengths-Based Development
Favorite Quote: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Partner Facilitator
Carl is a facilitator for SME Strategy. He is passionate about designing great strategic plans and getting them done. In 2016, he founded the U.S. office for an Australia-based strategic planning software company, Cascade Strategy, which has since grown to over 300 clients. Carl’s expertise is in designing strategic plans that are built to be successful. With a focus on purpose, alignment, and key performance indicators, he works with leaders to provide them confidence to execute. After the plan has been designed, he follows up to assure they have developed best practices to evaluate status and prioritize goals.
Prior to joining Cascade, Carl was an executive leader for several growth companies that have tripled in size, with a focus in accounting, finance, and operations. Carl started his career at Coopers & Lybrand in public accounting after earning his Bachelor of Arts in business administration with a concentration in accounting from the University of Washington.
Carl has been married for more than 20 years and has four children. His favourite hobby is coaching football, basketball, and baseball for a combined 25 seasons. Carl resides near Portland, Oregon.
If you're a small non-profit that's having great impact in your community but would benefit from greater alignment and clarity, apply for our non-profit program.
For qualifying non-profit organizations we'll subsidize $7000 of your strategic plan creation.
If you're a larger or well-established non-profit, you qualify for a 10% discount on all strategic planning sessions and stakeholder engagement.
What it looks like for you:
SME Strategy has developed an outcomes focused curriculum for our client programming, from strategic planning, to educational workshops, to executive coaching.
We do this first by guiding clients to align around a common vision, or One Destination, so that the entire team is working towards a shared purpose and end result.
Additionally, all of our programs and workshop modules are designed to have a clear and explicit outcome each time, so that all of the information you learn can be applied immediately.
Everything we do is to help get you where you want to go.
What it looks like for you:
SME Strategy is committed to developing true partnerships with our clients, and the foundation is built on strong communication.
We do this through our robust and organized project management process for each stage in the project lifecycle. We recognize the needs for both asynchronous and synchronous communication, and we aren’t afraid to pick up the phone to connect in real time.
When working towards our joint timelines, communication is the bridge to meeting everyone’s expectations.
When guiding our clients through team-based work such as the strategic planning process or educational workshops, we foster strong communication within the session and help the group develop the capacities to cascade strong communication systems and processes throughout their organization.
What it looks like for you:
SME Strategy is available for virtual and in-person facilitation times to meet the needs of organizations in all North American (and many global) time zones.
We are focused on delivering quality strategic planning and implementation programs and achieving critical outcomes for all clients we work with, and we are able to adapt to changing situations to maintain focus and ensure delivery of client outcomes.
What it looks like for you:
We are passionate about strategy, leadership and people.
When working with the SME Strategy team, from sales to facilitation to support, each of our team members strive to deliver the best client experience throughout each step of the customer journey.
We want you to win - we want to win together.
Our goal is to bring the best out of your team, and we’ll push you as far as you want to go. We’ll bring our passion to the process, because we’re passionate about what we do.
SME Strategy is committed to embedding our EDI values into our program design, curriculum development and facilitation practices. We do this by incorporating multiple ways for different people to share their perspectives both synchronously and asynchronously, verbally or in writing, throughout the entire process of their project. As facilitators, we employ the “Socratic Method” by asking clarifying questions to foster equity of voice and critical thinking around specific issues within each session. We recognize that while it is difficult, if not impossible, to create a safe space (as each individual is the only person who can say whether the space is safe for them) it is our responsibility to foster equity, accountability and inclusion with the aim of psychological safety for all participants.
In addition to applying this to our program and facilitation style, we also embed this practice internally within our organization. We proactively seek to develop a diverse workforce that recognizes diversity goes above and beyond race, gender, disability, and sexuality and includes elements such as socioeconomic status, religion, neurodiversity, and more. We strive to have critical conversations, challenge our biases, as well as to embed the internal systems and processes to allow all of our people to arrive at work as their authentic selves, regardless of their identity.
Get in touch with our team today to help set your people on the path towards alignment, execution, and achievement.
