Our Team

Tom Phillips is a thought-leader in the industry, building on diverse knowledge, practical experience, and proven success. He is a proponent of public/private partnerships that achieve mutually beneficial outcomes and deliver positive results for your customers and the community at large.

Tom is an expert at realizing the underutilized value of existing internal and external assets to achieve an organization’s mission through effective implementation of strategic priorities. His passion, knowledge, and network, can help you and your organization raise the bar and reach your full potential through innovative organizational strategies and collaborative partnerships. His negotiation and communication skills can be leveraged to inspire your staff and your board, build new partnerships, engage external stakeholders, and help you secure new sources of revenue. See below for a better look at Tom’s proven history of success.

• Served as a member and leader with numerous local and national organizations and boards. In many cases, his work directly impacted state programs and policies, resulting in more comprehensive action-plans to achieve long-term solutions.
• Conducted workshops on treating resource development as a core organization priority, as well as the importance of developing strategies and a comprehensive plan.
• Led the effort at Capital Workforce Partners (CWP), with the support of his Board and a Consortium of Chief Elected Officials, to define and implement a less bureaucratic vision and mission for the organization resulting in a shift in focus towards “creating more tax payers” and recognizing the positive cascading effects that result from building a workforce trained to achieve self-sufficiency.
• In Tom’s one-year term as President of the US Conference of Mayors, Workforce Development Council, his direction resulted in shifting the council’s mission to promote their value and impact to key stakeholders while developing congressional champions.
• As one of two Connecticut representatives on the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Community Development Advisory Council, Tom played a significant role in the launch of the Connecticut Working Cities Challenge initiative.
• As Vice Chair of New England’s Knowledge Corridor (NEKC), Tom assisted in the inclusion of the New Haven Metro area along with the Hartford and Springfield Metro areas and to better leverage the collective assets of the 41 higher education institutions and 215,000 students towards the goal of creating a demand-driven talent pipeline.
• While at the city of Hartford, Tom developed and managed a federally funded $8.5M million Community Development Block Grant formula budget along with a $42.5M loan portfolio. He also secured $90M in new grants during a 3.5 year period.
• While at Capital Workforce Partners, Tom successfully managed a $24M annual operating budget that included more than 35 funding sources while also securing $80M in grants.

Robin White is an experienced project director with more than 30 years of leadership in education and workforce initiatives. Robin can design, implement, manage, and evaluate projects, but most importantly, she knows how to secure the funding needed to conduct them. Robin is a skilled facilitator, with long history of bringing diverse groups to consensus. She’s a strong writer and editor, with expertise in creating documents for wide range of audiences and purposes and a creative problem solver with exceptional skills in the development and delivery of customized technical assistance. An innovator and thought leader, she’s also a passionate advocate for educational opportunities.

Here are some of Robin’s major accomplishments:

• Led proposal teams that generated more than $35 million in corporate, foundation, and public grants for education and workforce development in 20+ years of leadership roles in the Academy for Educational Development and FHI 360.
• Directed technical assistance teams that helped 25 institutions of higher education obtain more than $90 million in grants through two major foundation-funded initiatives to transform university-based teacher education.
• Helped workforce development practitioners in Hartford, CT and Providence, RI secure more than $31 million in funding from U.S. Department of Labor.
• Led proposal teams that generated a $28 million Youth Opportunity grant, a $3 million Rewarding Youth Achievement grant, a $2 million welfare-to-work grant, and the resources needed to launch a new Job Corps Center.

Ken McGovern is a seasoned executive and entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience creating and managing diverse teams and building dynamic cultures. Prior to becoming an executive search and recruiting consultant, Ken owned and managed organizations where he faced the same talent-related challenges as his clients – identifying, hiring, onboarding, training, compensating, and retaining key employees. As important as experience, background, and skill sets are in assessing a prospective new employee, Ken believes that fit and culture are equally critical components to identifying and hiring the next team member who will positively impact an organization. His experience includes management search assignments within the market sectors of Higher Education, Not-for-Profit, Healthcare, Financial Services, and Manufacturing, among others.

Services:

• Established a consortium of subject matter experts to provide the full spectrum of talent management services, including; Recruiting, Onboarding, Coaching, and Outplacement.
• Created a deliberate and thorough search process to assure that the most qualified and best fitting talent are identified and presented to a client organization.
• Facilitates prospective employee assessment tests to determine organization fit.
• Assist clients with outplacement and career guidance services to support numerous employees in transition.

• Recent not-for-profit searches include – Chief Financial Officer, Director of Major Gifts, Vice President of Programs, Director of Title IX & Equity Compliance, Director of Data & Digital Systems, and Dean of Libraries.

• Recruited an executive for the newly created role of Vice President, Online Education and Digital Strategy on behalf of a higher education client. Timing could not have been more prophetic, as the placement was made just weeks prior to the COVID pandemic.

• Member of numerous not-for-profit boards, including Junior Achievement and Church Homes.

Nick Phillips is a Communications and Public Relations professional with more than 10 years of experience working for Fortune 500 companies across multiple high-tech industries. Nick is a communications swiss-army knife with experience in employee and executive communications, media outreach, and corporate philanthropy. Having led community outreach and philanthropy for Alexion Pharmaceuticals (now an Astra Zeneca company), Nick knows what corporate funders want to see when you deliver a proposal. He’s also led communications on massive transformation projects including full corporate rebrands and global corporate headquarters relocation, so whether you need to spiff up your day-to-day comms or build a plan from the ground up, Nick can get it done.