“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”
~ Phil Jackson
The MK Strategy Group team of associates are highly skilled professionals and effective. Strong, but flexible. Analytical, but creative. As a team of highly skilled professionals, we are motivated, objective, innovative and realistic.
Hand-picked by company founder and senior consultant, Monica E. Kohlhammer, each associate brings special strengths and perspectives to the table, developed over many years of experience. Our team members have worked in both the public and private sectors.
We have expertise in:
- visioning and generating ideas
- critical, strategic, and systems thinking
- facilitation and engagement
- building partnerships and networks
- research and qualitative / quantitative analysis
- communication + marketing
- project and team management
Depending on client and project requirements, associates are mixed and matched to provide the strongest skills foundation for the project. Click on the links below for more details about our team members.
President and Senior Planning Strategist Email:
Monica established MK Strategy Group in 2000 for one reason: to make a difference – in society, in the community, and in the organizations she serves. On top of this strong commitment, Monica is also an energetic leader, an insightful strategic thinker, and an inspiring community builder. She is passionate about creative thought.
With more than 25 years of diverse experience, managing challenges and growth in the public and private sectors, it’s not surprising that Monica is often called upon for her expertise in planning, community engagement, implementation, and evaluation of programs and services related to community, business, health, and wellness. Monica believes in a holistic and flexible approach, but also brings the keen edge of a strategist and entrepreneur to every project. A real gift is her ability to listen and help others envision what is possible believing in the synergy of connectivity. Monica’s practice of engagement with individuals or communities is strengthened by her certification with the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2).
Monica’s capacity for outside-the-box thinking and careful, analytical management style are showcased in the successful outcomes of complex projects. She demonstrates innovative problem-solving skills and natural and effective leadership. As a planning strategist, rooted in operational experiences, Monica uses her entrepreneurial skills, creativity, and process-oriented approach to create successful results; she brings individuals, groups, and organizations together in business transactions, collaborative initiatives, and partnership development towards the realization of new ideas, new outcomes. At the cornerstone of Monica’s values and the root of her insight into leadership is the belief in people and vision of a community and organization’s well-being and economic growth.
Monica is an active contributor to the community and her professional practice groups. With her Institute of Corporate Director Accreditation (ICD.D), she has served as a corporate director of Calgary Economic Development, a lead agency in Alberta for business and investment attraction. In addition, Monica has been a representative member of the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP), focused on inter-municipal collaboration to regional growth and planning. In addition, she held the position of corporate director with Mount Royal University Foundation. and a corporate trustee of the Glenbow Museum, an organization providing leadership in visual arts. Monica’s directorship committee experience includes audit, stewardship, capital development, and government relations providing leadership as chairperson for the committees. Monica also served as an Adjunct Clinical Associate of the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary. Her teaching focused on leadership and system thinking with undergraduate and graduate students.
Elizabeth is a professional engineer, a mathematician, and a medical doctor as well. She has the combination of training and experience that equip her to be a leader in the development of innovative solutions, with a keen project design focus, and a methodical approach to research foundational to projects.
Her academic credentials are truly impressive: a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, both with distinction, both accompanied by significant awards and scholarships, and both from Dalhousie University in Halifax. She received her medical degree in 2013 from the University of Calgary and started her residency training in family medicine.
In addition to raising a young family, Elizabeth’s work experience has given her a well-rounded perspective that strengthens her focus on projects of MK. She worked in the oil and gas industry for close to a decade. As a production engineer, her responsibilities included identifying opportunities for optimization of natural gas assets, then developing the technical programs to develop those opportunities, and overseeing the teams that were carrying out the multi-million-dollar projects. In recent years she has become involved in teaching adult education classes, ranging from prenatal education to standardized test preparation courses.
Elizabeth is not ‘just’ an academic; she’s also very much engaged with the Calgary community. She’s a tutor at the U of C, she has previously held positions as a youth mentor with Big Brothers/ Big Sisters; an ESL instructor with the Calgary Immigrant Educational Society; and a volunteer with the Food Bank, and the Calgary Seniors Resource Society. Plus she’s helped out with causes ranging from a teenage girls’ rehabilitation centre, a camp for youth with disabilities, and various fundraising programs to benefit kids in need.
As a member of the MK Strategy Group, Elizabeth will be bringing her diverse academic experiences and community minded engagement to help to design the frameworks guiding our research, facilitate community engagement, and develop innovative solutions to challenging projects in community, health, business, environments with which MK is involved.
Tricia has more than 30 years as a professional marketing communicator, doing everything from strategic planning to product positioning, and political speech writing to website scripting.
She has created and produced multi-media campaigns to position and market such professional groups as the Alberta Medical Association, the Law Society of Alberta, and the Society of Management Accountants. She has also planned and managed special events for the Calgary Stampede, the Olympic Winter Games, and the Calgary Folk Festival, and developed marketing communications for products as wide-ranging as ski hills, supermarket chains, newspapers, SUVs, GPS systems, and cell phone plans.
After decades as a writer, creative director, and agency owner in the advertising business, Tricia segued into advocacy communications, specializing in complex and topical public information pieces. She uses multiple tools to get her clients’ messages to their intended audiences: press releases, speeches, videos, formal/annual reports, “paid” and “earned” media, and issues-based government communications.
Claire is a professional technical writer and editor, with more than 20 years of experience as an independent contractor. A quick study in new knowledge areas, she has worked for clients in a broad range of industries, including oil and gas, medicine and health care, biomechanics, education, computer hardware and software, international development, and the arts.
To the MK Strategy Group team, Claire brings solid writing, editing, and analysis skills. After years working with diverse clients and projects, she is both flexible and efficient. A particular strength is her ability to quickly ascertain the essential issues within a complex set of information.
While her specific expertise is the use of written language to achieve clear, correct, and effective communication, Claire is also a comfortable and accomplished speaker, and has presented many hours of training and seminars on writing/editing topics.