What We’ve Done

Proven Solutions & Results

For almost two and a half decades, we’ve been providing management consulting and executive coaching services to organizations and leaders in a variety of sectors, addressing a variety of challenges. All our projects share a strong desire for change, innovation and improvement. We bring to you a sampling of our best work with the hope that you will see what is possible when people rally around a common objective.

  • York House School

    “Spark”-ing Purpose, Shaping Tomorrow Through Strategic Planning

    In 2023, York House School embarked on a transformative journey to create a bold, new strategic plan. With a new Head of School and a collaborative approach involving the Board, Leadership Team, and the broader community, the school aimed to reflect its evolving vision and position itself for ongoing success. The result was the launch of “Spark,” a strategic plan designed to ignite curiosity, inspire purpose, and empower change. This is the story of how we helped York House School bring their vision to life.

  • Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills

    Public Consultation on Credential Recognition: Removing Barriers for Internationally Trained Professionals in British Columbia

  • St. Paul’s High School

    From Plan to Action: The Implementation Advantage

    St. Paul’s High School in Winnipeg, an independent Jesuit Scholl with a history dating back to 1926, is committed to educating young men as whole persons, inspiring them to become ‘men for others’ and leaders in their communities. After completing a major strategic planning project, St. Paul’s re-engaged us to support the next phase of implementation, focusing on sustainability and leadership development. Our collaboration helped refine tactical plans, engage staff, and ensure measurable progress, ensuring that the strategic plan continued to drive success.

  • St. John’s-Ravenscourt School

    Shaping Vision, Mission, and Values for the Future

    St. John’s-Ravenscourt, a well-known independent school in Winnipeg, partnered with Berlineaton to refresh its vision, mission, and values as it approached the close of its current strategic plan. The goal was to ensure these foundational elements aligned with the school’s evolving aspirations and the needs of its community. This collaborative process set the stage for the next chapter of St. John’s-Ravenscourt’s journey, providing a strong foundation for future success. Read on to discover how our partnership helped shape the guiding principles that will drive the school forward.

  • St. George’s School

    Uniting Voices Through Community Consultation for Strategic Planning

    St. George’s School, a leading independent boys’ school in Vancouver, engaged Berlineaton to lead external consultations for its internally driven strategic planning process. By gathering valuable insights from students, parents, faculty, staff, and alumni, the school ensured that its vision was directly aligned with the needs and aspirations of its community. This collaborative approach laid the foundation for a bold and impactful strategic plan. Read on to explore how our partnership helped shape a clear, future-focused direction for St. George’s School.

  • Havergal College

    Using Community Insights to Shape Strategic Direction

    Havergal College, an independent girls’ school in Toronto, embarked on a transformative strategic planning journey with Berlineaton, driven by community input and a new Head of School’s leadership. The resulting strategic plan, “Empowering Excellence,” reflects the voices and aspirations of the entire school community, from students and parents to staff and alumnae. This collaborative approach sets a bold and clear vision for Havergal’s future as a leader in education for young women. Read on to discover how our partnership helped shape this powerful plan.

  • Stratford Hall

    Strategic Alignment: Strengthening Board Leadership at Stratford Hall School

    On September 21, 2024, Stratford Hall School conducted a critical Board retreat with the assistance of Berlineaton, focused on setting board priorities for the coming year. The session aimed to strengthen the Board’s effectiveness and clarify roles, with key outcomes centered on fundraising, governance, and aligning the Board with the school’s strategic vision. By gathering input from Board members and engaging in facilitated exercises, Stratford Hall reinforced its commitment to clear goals and actionable plans, ensuring a unified direction moving forward.

  • Southridge School

    Strengthening Governance for a Bold Future: Southridge School’s Path to Excellence

    In 2020, Southridge School engaged Berlineaton to administer a Board Governance Self-Assessment, followed by a facilitated session at the Board retreat to debrief the results and identify key gaps. This strategic project aimed to provide the Board with a clear understanding of its governance strengths and areas for improvement, ensuring that Southridge’s leadership was well-prepared to meet future challenges. With a strong focus on aligning governance practices with the evolving needs of the school, this initiative contributed to a robust foundation for future success.

  • Vancity

    Igniting Corporate Innovation

    In 2015, Berlineaton was asked by then Vancity President and CEO, Tamara Vrooman to provide a diagnostic analysis and report of recommendations regarding organizational and cultural improvements that would enable Vancity to attain its ambitious 2020 goals as stated in Vancity’s business plan: Redefining Wealth.

  • Southern Alberta Flood Recovery

    Streamlining Flood Recovery Applications for Thousands of Alberta Citizens

    Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) needed to streamline the approval process for flood recovery applications by a dramatic margin to deal with a huge increase in the number of applications due to the flood.

Berlineaton helped staff redesign their processes, and build a stronger team, with the result that turnaround times were reduced from four to six months to seven days for most applications.

  • Balmoral Hall School

    Be BOLD!

    Berlineaton has helped Balmoral Hall School (BH) design, develop and execute its strategic plan since 2009. In 2016, BH re-engaged Berlineaton to do a major refresh, setting in motion the priorities, activities, support and energy needed to realize a bolder future for the school, building on its strategic planning success to date.

  • BC Investment Agriculture Foundation

    Investing in the Future of BC’s Agriculture and Food Sector

    We partnered with the BC Investment Agriculture Foundation – an industry-led, not-for-profit organization that creates funding opportunities to support a thriving BC agriculture and food sector – to develop its first strategic plan.

  • Canadian Accredited Independent Schools

    Using Data to Inform Strategic Planning

    In late 2019, and through COVID, the Canadian Accredited Independent Schools embarked on a strategic planning process that resulted in a bold new strategic plan, launched on Oct 19th at the Heads and Chairs Conference. Berlineaton provided end-to-end consulting support from rethinking vision, mission and values to reporting templates that measure progress. In addition, our Data and Insights Team designed and administered a Member Survey to all members nationally.

  • Canfor Pulp

    Leading Supply Chain Transformation

    As part of a large-scale strategic planning project, our team undertook the design, administration and reporting of a nationwide survey for a leading Canadian association.

  • City of Vancouver

    Planning for Future Vehicle Technology

    We worked closely with another consulting firm and City staff, delivered focus groups and large team events to frame out a draft plan and toolkit, and then ground-truthed and improved it through various engagements with functional groups within the city staff envelope.

  • Online Learning

    Understanding the Online Learning Experience

    In March 2020, COVID-19 disrupted all our lives in myriad ways — with the education of our children being particularly impacted. Having worked with Canadian independent schools for nearly 25 years, we watched and were impressed by how schools pivoted so quickly from delivering in-person to online education in a physically distanced world. Berlineaton surveyed a handful of schools to gain feedback about this experience and to create actionable insights to improve the experience of students, parents and teachers.

  • Our Place Society

    Gauging Employee Engagement

    Our Place Society, in pursuit of its goal to be an employer of choice for team members aligned with its Vision of “Nourishment, hope, and belonging for all in Greater Victoria”, partnered with Berlineaton to design, administer, and analyze an engagement survey of its 193 staff in six locations.

  • Pacific Blue Cross

    Building a Technology Road Map

    Pacific Blue Cross, British Columbia’s leading benefits provider, had developed an ambitious Corporate Strategic Plan to improve its products, create a digital organization and know its customers better — each of which have a technology component.

  • UnionWare

    Charting a Course for the Future

    UnionWare, a Winnipeg technology company providing membership system for nearly 150 unions representing 4.5 million employees in Canada and the US, reached out to Berlineaton to help them chart their course for the future.

  • Upper Canada College

    Strategic Directions – TOWARDS 2029

    We assisted the new Head of School, Board and Senior Leadership Team at Upper Canada College (UCC) with the development of the school’s 10-year plan, culminating in 2029—their 200th anniversary. This work included an end-to-end strategy project with extensive stakeholder consultation.

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    • The emphasis on Strategic Management was important to us, since we didn't want a plan that sat on the shelf after several months of strategic thinking. I found that Berlineaton didn't come to our organization with a preconception of what our strategic plan would look like, but they made an authentic effort to understand the people in our community and be in tune with its ethos, its goals and its people. They gained trust and confidence and continue to work with us on the implementation of our tactical plan.

      Head of School in Victoria,

      British Columbia

    • I have engaged Berlineaton over the years to support a few different initiatives. I have found they bring very strong skills and tools in the areas of strategic planning, change management, facilitation, problem solving, project management, engagement management and team building.

      Associate Deputy Minister,

      BC Government

    • Your efforts in guiding the robust planning process that has resulted in UCC’s Strategic Directions were quite simply extraordinary; your partnership was integral to any success achieved. Thank you. I hope you are as proud of the final product as we are.

      Sam McKinney, Head of School,

      Upper Canada College

    • Overall, I would highly recommend Berlineaton for anyone seeking superior results in the field of facilitated, team-based process improvement that blend a focus on more task focused business results with the team, and overall people, engagement required to promote higher levels of ownership and execution success.

      Executive Director,

      BC Government

    • Berlineaton helped me work through staffing changes and a significant workload immediately following the COVID-19 outbreak. Our coaching sessions were very much appreciated, and I was able to re-focus on the strategic goals of our organization, while still leading my team and day-to-day operations. Being able to improve my leadership competencies and navigate the last few months was invaluable to say the least.

      Executive Director,

      Not-for-Profit Organization in British Columbia

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      Shelly Berlin

      BA, MBA, FCMC, ACC
      Strategist, Confidante, Entrepreneur.

      Shelly Berlin brings over 30 years of strategic insight and transformational leadership to Berlineaton as co-founding and managing partner.

      She began her consulting career with Andersen Consulting and Price Waterhouse – global experience that led to the launch of Berlineaton in 1996. She holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Alberta, an MBA from UBC, is a Certified Management Consultant and an ICF-certified Executive Coach. In 2017, Shelly and her partner Richard Eaton were named Fellows of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants and were later honoured with CMC’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. She also holds an ESG governance designation from Competent Boards.

      Throughout her career, Shelly has worked with more than 1,200 clients across government, not-for-profits, independent schools, and private sectors. She is known for her inclusive, collaborative approach and her ability to help clients execute strategy that achieves significant impact.

      As Chair of the St. Michaels University School Board, now in her fourth term, she led the global Head of School search that resulted in Dr. Jeff Aitken’s appointment and co-led the development of the Floreat 2020–2030 strategic plan.

      Shelly lives in Victoria with her family, including two teenagers, husband Richard Eaton, two cats, and a frog named Froakie.

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      Mackenzie Farrell

      BSC, MMgmt, CMC
      Collaborator, Community Builder, Go-Getter.

      Mackenzie is an Engagement Lead and Independent School Practice Lead at Berlineaton. Known for her experience in strategy development and execution, she brings an innate sense of curiosity, meticulous attention to detail, and a strong interpersonal focus to all aspects of her work.

      Mackenzie specializes in working with independent schools, helping them to navigate unique challenges and build stronger, more sustainable institutions. She has worked with over 20 schools across Canada.

      With a deep-seated passion in helping organizations foster visionary futures for themselves, Mackenzie excels in guiding organizations through an engagement and people-centric approach on growth and improvement. Her strategic insights and commitment ensure that her clients achieve sustainable success.

      Outside of the office, she can be found taking advantage of all the world-class access to nature that the West Coast of Canada has to offer, including her favourite past times, skiing, surfing, and hiking with her husband and dog Molson.