about wise old tree
Wise Old Tree helps leaders make sense of complex organizational challenges, make clear strategic choices and build the conditions required to move forward.
Understand. Clarify. Move.
Understand
Start with the real question. Listen deeply, engage the people closest to the issue, examine the surrounding environment and understand what is actually happening.
Clarify
Find the patterns, tensions and organizational conditions shaping the situation. Identify the critical challenge, what matters most and where meaningful choices must be made.
Move
Turn clarity into strategic choices, aligned priorities and coherent action. Build the leadership practices, organizational conditions and implementation rhythms necessary to sustain progress.
We do not prescribe the solution before we understand the problem.
The work is tailored to the challenge.
Wise Old Tree is intentionally small, which allows us to bring the right expertise to each engagement. Kathy leads the work and collaborates with trusted specialists when the situation calls for additional perspective or capability. Clients receive the continuity of a senior strategic partner without being limited to one person’s expertise.
Kathy Wilcox
Kathy Wilcox is an organizational development strategist, facilitator and trusted advisor who helps leaders make sense of complex human and organizational challenges.
For more than 20 years, Kathy has worked at the intersection of customer insight, strategy, organizational development and leadership—first helping organizations understand the people they serve, and later helping them understand the people and systems inside the organization.
Kathy has led strategic planning, organizational strategy and stakeholder discovery engagements involving executive interviews, employee and community input, board and leadership-team facilitation, mission and vision development, organizational assessment and implementation planning. She has partnered with CEOs, senior marketers, leadership teams and emerging leaders across consumer, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, education, nonprofit and public-sector organizations.
Kathy holds an M.S. in Organizational Development and Change from Case Western Reserve University and brings a rare combination of behavioral insight, strategic thinking, facilitation and organizational development to her work.
SELECTED EXPERIENCE
Across Wise Old Tree and prior consulting roles, Kathy’s experience includes work with organizations such as:
Case Western Reserve University • University Hospitals • Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority • Smucker’s • Ravenwood Health • National Interstate Insurance • LYNX Innovation
“Kathy has an ability to lead a structured discovery process, engage diverse stakeholders, synthesize complex information, and translate stakeholder perspectives into actionable strategic direction.” - Marketing Leader, Higher Education