Testimonials

Executive Coaching

Training/Facilitation

Consulting

Speaking

Executive Coaching

"I recently completed a coaching journey with Rachel and I encourage anyone who is afforded this opportunity to take full advantage of it. As a professional who has spent 20 years plugging away at a career, through coaching I was amazed to find how many functional issues we never take time to fully understand or explore. Rachel helped me to further hone my interactional skills. She did so by providing guidance and information,while allowing me to come to my own conclusions. This provided the best possible result as I maintained "ownership" of my goals and outcomes."

Manager,
A California Health Philanthropy

I have been working with Melissa for over four months. Through our work together, I was able to clarify my career strengths, skills, values, and interests. This input was invaluable as it allowed me to crystallize a better vision of my long term career path in addition to defining the ideal job profile for the next step in my career. We also worked together to identify my management/leadership strengths and growth areas. In defining and implementing improvement plans for my growth areas, I believe I have substantially improved my effectiveness as a manager and leader. Melissa also helped me to understand the importance of my personal network in helping to build my business, in landing new career opportunities, and in creating a human resource, which I could employ to gain sage advice in my professional dealings and career progression. We worked together to build out my network and better exploit its value. She helped me focus on my unique strengths to develop my personal brand and messaging so that I could better promote myself within this network. Thanks to Melissa, I have more than doubled the network of resources available to me and I have energized this network to help me land numerous interviews and open doors to other opportunities, which would have otherwise not been available to me. I recommend Melissa to anyone wishing to improve himself or herself professionally or personally.

Vince Hu, High Tech Executive

As an HR Manager, I am trained to listen, solve the conflicts of others, and create a motivating environment for our employees. Rachel worked with me to identify my career and personal goals, learn how to integrate those goals into my current position, and most importantly, how to satisfy my own values to create a positive work balance environment.

The coaching experience opened my eyes to the areas in my professional and personal life that needed more attention in order for me to be fulfilled. The experience also brought to light ways I could better manage my own team, my boss, and colleagues by changing to focus of change to myself rather than trying to change others.

Kara Scamardo, Human Resources Manager

Melissa provided a powerful combination of analytical exercises and workbooks to discover my strengths and leadership skills, together with her personal sessions where she is supportive and intuitive in her approach. My sessions and exercises with Melissa have had an immediate impact on energizing my networking ability with associates and friends, and my enhanced leadership skills at my current job where I have gained a much higher profile for the value that I contribute to the organization. I have been inspired by learning how Melissa discovered her own strengths, skills, and values and has synthesized them into her own unique and successful career, company and life. I definitely recommend Melissa extremely highly and I have referred several of my professional associates and friends to her.

Phil Heller, Executive, Jambotech

The daily tasks of living – obligations of work and family – keep a person busy. But like a mouse on a treadmill, there can be motion but no sense of progress. I came to Rachel for coaching because I wanted to avoid drowning in my never-ending to-do list. Rachel is helping me to uncover where I want my life to move towards on a deeper level.

Coaching has given me a better sense of my values and what “makes me tick.” I’m consistently surprised by Rachel’s ability to find connections that I’ve never thought of. In these “aha!” moments, I discover where another piece of the puzzle fits, and I feel more complete.

Rachel is guiding me past the arbitrary “shoulds” of my life to find a more authentic pathway. What’s this mean on a practical level? I plan and take actions that leave me feeling happier. Greater fulfillment becomes attainable because I can envision it first. It’s no longer a hazy, abstract concept.

Rachel is my personal compass pointing me towards “true north.” She helps me remain focused on my journey, despite the many distractions that can pull me away. I am greatly indebted to her.

Nancy Peponis, Marketing Consultant

I have been working with Melissa for less than a month and have already benefited heavily from her coaching. She has helped me focus on what is most relevant to the development of my business, and identify ways to use my skills to facilitate my business dealings. Results from working with Melissa so far have greatly surpassed my expectations."

Marie-Laure Leglise, Partner, Archmont Group

When I started working with Rachel, I thought I knew what mattered most to me. It wasn’t until I wrote my values on paper and prioritized them, that I saw I was not doing what mattered most to me. With the system that Rachel Karu showed me, I was able to prioritize and do what mattered most to me. It was a life changing experience. In the process I was able to come to grips with my Gremlins, as we call them. I set goals and learned how to accomplish them using intermediate steps. The process of scheduling them into small manageable steps with deadlines was an incredible experience. I would recommend Rachel to anyone who wanted to take the next step in a Life changing experience.

David Lee, Chicago Title Sales Representative

Working with Melissa helped me identify, very early on, ways I could "maximize" potential at the job I then held, as well as evaluate my priorities during my job search. I was particularly impressed with her structured format, which allows for quick, yet thorough analysis of our work styles and ways we can infuse optimal work habits into our job. Melissa's coaching was a key element in my finding a new position (basically, my dream job) offering me a lot of insight into avoiding poor habits and working smart. I've since recommended her to several of my closest friends and would recommend her to anyone who feels they could be performing better at their current position or wants to identify and succeed in his dream job.

Senior Product Manager, Mattel

Working with Rachel has helped me become more focused in every aspect of my life. Through Rachel’s guidance, I have been able to determine what’s really important to me by defining my values and keeping those values in mind as the guiding principles in my life. I’ve always been a hard working and highly driven individual with high expectations of myself and others. I’ve realized that my expectations were often too high and at times very unrealistic. Rachel has helped me work smarter and not necessarily harder by guiding me to focus on what’s really important and meaningful to me. I’ve developed a foundation for personal and professional effectiveness and am now able to achieve greater balance between work, leisure, significant other, family, friends, and the other priorities in my life. I am now more satisfied with my life as a whole. As a result of working with Rachel, I truly feel that I’m living up to my full potential and achieving more both personally and professionally. Rachel is a true confidante. She’s warm, compassionate, listens with empathy, and gives me honest feedback. She has helped me be more accountable to myself and my intentions so that I can find greater success and fulfillment in my life.

Michelle Dusig, Ph.D., Organizational Development Consultant
top

Training/Facilitation

My staff of 11 recently attended the Communications Styles Workshop presented by KRUZ Consulting.  We each took the Strength Deployment Inventory and together as a team we worked together to learn about the strengths, motivations, and values of our team.  Rachel was an easy facilitator that kept us all on an even keel, quietly leading and steering us toward understanding and productivity.  Since that day, I've seen the team work with greater understanding of how each of us responds and communicates to one another according to our own personal strengths.  Thank you KRUZ Consulting!
 
Rebecca Martin
Director, Grants Administration
The California Endowment

In the midst of a difficult situation at work, Kruz Consulting was called in for consultation with my new boss and me. He had never worked with anyone like me and had difficulty in understanding my work style. Kruz Consulting was able to discern even the subtle things that contributed to the situation and assist us in navigating through them. The guidance, suggestions, and mediating were very helpful and I would request their assistance again if given the opportunity. I found Kruz Consulting to be very professional, personable, and knowledgeable. They know how to do what they do, and they do it well.

Associate Business Analyst,
The California Endowment

Rachel Karu participated in the creation and delivery of Mattel’s corporate university. As part of this process she effectively facilitated a planning day and numerous pilot sessions with various levels of leaders throughout our organization in order to seek feedback and build ownership for the new program.

Rachel has been facilitating leadership-training sessions with Mattel for over one year. She creates a fun, interactive environment. Her energy is contagious and she is able to get people excited about their professional and personal development.

Rachel is strong at comprehending the big picture while maintaining a keen attention to detail. She understands how to modify material to meet the organizational culture as well adjust her approach to meet various learner’s styles and needs.

Rachel has a strong client service orientation and is willing to go the extra mile to build a win-win partnership. She continually provides valuable feedback to assist us with our continuous improvement. Our leaders are benefiting greatly from working with Rachel.

Ann Johnson, Manager, Leadership Development Center Human Resources, Mattel

This was time extremely well spent. Melissa’s workshop provided me with absolutely critical, and timely information of my strengths and weaknesses. Because the materials and workshop were so masterfully structured, the discovery process was incredibly fruitful.

Michele Luna, Director Arbogast/Taylor and Associates

Rachel, having had a few days to reflect, I just want to highlight what made the training workshop that you conducted so worthwhile.

We really appreciated your open communication and enthusiasm for the material. It certainly energized the group and the fact that there were no 'wrong answers' kept participation at a high level. Everyone felt comfortable openly communicating.

Additionally, you displayed a mastery of the Key Principles throughout the training session and did an exceptional job of enhancing individual self-esteem.
You knew and understood your audience and listened to individual professional challenges and successfully guided the person to a positive solution.

We look forward to having the opportunity to work with you again.

Val Burger, Retail Services Director, Mattel

Your workshop gave me tangible actionable steps to take to improve my effectiveness today and they were specific to my work situation!

Arlene Petrush, Account Executive, George P Johnson

I have known Rachel Karu for over 3 years. She was initially the Manager of Training and Organization Development at Easton Sports, Inc. and has been continued consulting with Easton for the last years. I have seen Rachel perform several important roles: Facilitator, Coach, Trainer, Organization Development and Human Resources professional.

Rachel is a creative professional devoted to assisting individuals in achieving their potential personally and professionally. She has the unique ability to conceptualize the big picture while possessing the organizational and attention to detail skills to implement a plan and deliver results.

In a relatively short period of time Rachel was able to develop and deliver a corporate university, implement organizational competences and partner in the creation of new performance management system. These programs are still running effectively today.

Rachel’s interpersonal skills assist her with communicating effectively at all levels ranging from executive to production worker. Her compassion for people comes across loud and clear.

Rachel is able to adapt her style to her audience while always creating an atmosphere that invites participation and if fun. I highly recommend working with Rachel for any training and development projects.

Jamie Doud, Vice President Human Resources,

Claire Robinson, Executive Director

I wanted to take a moment to thank you for facilitating such an informative workshop. I came out of the workshop with a wealth of information that I can apply to everyday business."

Lisa Rose, Business Service Representative
top

Consulting

We contacted Kruz Consulting to put together a proposal for a "Management Offsite" for our managers.  During the proposal phase, they demonstrated excellent questioning and listening skills to pinpoint exactly what "success would look like" for our Offsite.  They put together a thoughtful proposal and priced themselves reasonably.  They were without question the first choice of consultants with whom we wanted to work of the several we interviewed.  They were incredibly responsive when it came to tailoring programs to meet the needs of our business.  An example of this was meeting a request we had to deliver the 360 Feedback survey in a Web-based format vs.. its current electronic form.  They acted quickly and found a way to have our needs met.  Additionally, they were able to bring their previous experience and programs and weave-in Company specific needs to put together a focused 2-day program that met the deliverables we had initially set out.  During the delivery portion of the Offsite they demonstrated a great deal of poise, professionalism and flexibility.  The information that they presented was a balance between theoretical and practical.  They had a great deal of activities to keep the group engaged.  They were able to effectively interact with the participants during the session.  If you are looking for a Management Training solution that relies on solid, fundamental experience delivered in a professional, engaging manner (all at a good value), I would highly recommend utilizing Kruz Consulting.
 
 
Senior Human Resource Manager,
Fortune 500 Financial Services Company

Thank you for your expert facilitation and change-management work leading up to the facilitation. We all agreed that the visioning and strategic planning facilitation was extremely productive and overall a great success. We also agreed that the role you played and the way you "managed" us was also a major contributor to the success. I am very stimulated and excited about where this is all going.

CEO, Sinaiko HealthCare

We contacted Kruz Consulting to put together a proposal for a "Management Offsite" for our managers.  During the proposal phase, they demonstrated excellent questioning and listening skills to pinpoint exactly what "success would look like" for our Offsite.  They put together a thoughtful proposal and priced themselves reasonably.  They were without question the first choice of consultants with whom we wanted to work of the several we interviewed.  They were incredibly responsive when it came to tailoring programs to meet the needs of our business.  An example of this was meeting a request we had to deliver the 360 Feedback survey in a Web-based format vs.. its current electronic form.  They acted quickly and found a way to have our needs met.  Additionally, they were able to bring their previous experience and programs and weave-in Company specific needs to put together a focused 2-day program that met the deliverables we had initially set out.  During the delivery portion of the Offsite they demonstrated a great deal of poise, professionalism and flexibility.  The information that they presented was a balance between theoretical and practical.  They had a great deal of activities to keep the group engaged.  They were able to effectively interact with the participants during the session.  If you are looking for a Management Training solution that relies on solid, fundamental experience delivered in a professional, engaging manner (all at a good value), I would highly recommend utilizing Kruz Consulting.

Senior Human Resource Manager,
Fortune 500 Financial Services Company
 
  
top

Speaking

I invited Rachel to make a presentation to our office as part of our Lunchtime Seminar Series during the holiday season because our employees had requested information on “Finding Balance in their Lives.”

Rachel’s presentation, particularly The Balance Wheel, helped the participants recognize those areas of their lives that were not in balance with their values. One participant said: “I have certain career aspirations and personal goals that are not being fulfilled and participating in this seminar helped me focus on what I need to do to make them happen.”

Rachel made it a point to include all members of the group in the discussion and facilitated the exploration of those areas that could be enhanced.

Rachel’s presentation style was lively and entertaining and encouraged all to participate—even those who started out by being shy and retiring. She created a safe environment in which to do some inner work.

Lorene Sarne - Senior Analyst, GAO/Acquisition Sourcing Management

Rachel is amazing! In one short session, she transformed a group of high powered entertainment executives. Through a few fun and introspective exercises and discussion groups, we began to see the individual paths we needed to take. There was a shift that occurred in all of us, as we realized that it was possible to live differently. I would recommend Rachel to anyone who is looking for a more balanced and rewarding life.

Lauren Sands - Producer

Our Sales Team saw tremendous value in Rachel Karu's "Trusted Advisor" session. The presentation was creative and interactive. Rachel effectively communicated several new ideas and tactics that can be utilized on a daily basis to improve personal and business relationships.

Michael Sabourian - President, CorpInfo Services
top

Kruz Consulting • 8489 W. Third Street •Los Angeles, CA 90048

Contact Us