Susan Rutz

I’m the principal and owner of LKR Associates, the coaching and consulting practice I founded in 2009. For more than 20 years I have worked alongside senior leaders in banking, investments, healthcare, higher education, and state government, sometimes as an embedded executive advisor inside the organization, more often as the outside partner brought in when something needs to change.

I started in organizational effectiveness inside a global investment management firm, where I spent sixteen years directing worldwide training for an 1,100-person finance division, advising a divisional chief operating officer on leadership and change, and designing the 360-degree feedback and competency programs the firm adopted enterprise-wide. That grounding in how large organizations actually develop their people is still the foundation of how I work.

Since founding LKR Associates, I have been a direct advisor to CEOs, CHROs, CIOs, and state executives, coached more than 100 senior leaders, and led multimillion-dollar portfolios and programs serving millions of Californians. I have run change on a statewide pension system replacement, built the governance a bank needed to satisfy federal regulators, stood up a program management office for the state’s community college system, and helped a health insurer modernize how it enrolls members. The industries differ. The pattern doesn’t.

In every one of those rooms, the technical problem was rarely the hardest part. The hard part is brokering alignment among senior leaders with conflicting priorities, translating a complex initiative into clear priorities people can act on, and staying a trusted partner across leadership, operations, and technology while the change is still uncomfortable. I fix the problem in front of us. Then I build the capacity for your team to run what’s left behind without me. When I leave, the processes, structure, and reporting stay.

I hold an MBA in International Finance and am a certified Project Management Professional, a credential I value because you cannot advise on programs and portfolios without understanding how they actually work. I am also a Prosci-certified change practitioner and a SHRM Senior Certified Professional.

I live and work in Sacramento, California, and partner with clients nationally.