CEO Kathryn Wood regularly responds to specific questions and requests for advice from clients. These can range from “What economic impact multiplier should I use for ‘x’?” to “Should I respond to this letter to the editor about our organization?” Clients often say this fast turnaround advice is one of the biggest benefits of working with our firm.

We also serve as advisors on “what to do” with results of research, feedback from customers or colleagues, and what recommendations should be formulated to act on an opportunity or address a problem. Often, we can put an issue ‘on the table’ more easily than those working in an organization full-time, and we can offer advice in a neutral way. We don’t consider our job ‘done’ until we helped you move to action or implementation.

In addition to these roles, Kathryn is a member of the Board of Advisors for 8020 Info Inc., has mentored several service industry entrepreneurs, and is frequently invited to special-purpose consultations on specific issues or strategy development processes.

Most of our assignments involve some degree of coaching for leaders within the organization or of significant projects. This is one way our clients have come to know that we are committed allies. We have coached clients through extremely challenging times --- from labour disruptions and major facility damage to bad news media announcements and significant speaking engagements. We’ve been called in to emergency board meetings to advise on internal and external communications strategy for serious internal disruptions to service delivery, some of which have posed possible existential threats to the organization.

Kathryn has been retained through the Ontario Centres of Excellence to serve as a mentor/coach to a start-up in the agricultural research and processing industry in Eastern Ontario.

Kathryn has also coached women’s hockey (as a playing coach and on the bench); the lessons learned travel back and forth between personal and professional life.

We have trained healthcare professionals on a new care coordination software specifically designed to securely share patient information among service providers who were formally designated as part of the care team. Assignment included working with a Steering Committee to plan and execute processes related to system access, preparing and scheduling on-site training sessions across multiple health care offices in the pilot region.

PMI developed and delivered the first computer-based/in classroom training program for an ICI water conservation software known as AquaAudit developed by an Eastern Ontario firm under the auspices of the Ontario Ministry of Energy.

Kathryn has facilitated multiple group discussion sessions for multiple clients related to the impact of digital technologies within specific organizations and across communities. Other sectors include economic development, health care, and education.

PMI has organized and executed business-oriented discussion groups in support of the development of a 2014 regional economic development strategy; also assisted with online survey of business community, and in 2018, organization of consultation sessions for a 'refresh' of the original strategy.

Responsible for facilitating two municipal government restructuring processes, one involving 13 municipalities consolidating into four. Another assignment explored the opportunities associated with shared service arrangements across a group of municipalities, rather than full amalgamation. In another case, Kathryn led a four-person, internal-external team that assembled an across-the-board compilation of service delivery data for a new municipality that emerged from three predecessor organizations.

CEO Kathryn Wood is currently serving as project coordinator for the Eastern Ontario Leadership Council, a regional coalition that is focused on implementing a series of initiatives to improve the economic vitality of the region. The focus of these efforts is on a) workforce development and deployment, b) technology integration and innovation, and c) integrated, intelligent transportation systems

Kathryn is also currently serving as project manager for the Low Carbon Building Skills project; led by St. Lawrence College, this is a multi-stakeholder effort to develop and implement ‘greener’ building practices into our construction sector through skilled trades training.

Much earlier in Kathryn’s career, she was a Project Manager in the Standards and Information Systems Group of the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services. She also coordinated the moves (over several weekends) of more than 400 employees of the Ontario Ministry of Health into the newly-constructed Macdonald-Cartier Building in Kingston.

CEO Kathryn Wood has been retained to undertake a wide range of feasibility studies, business cases, business plans, strategic plans, operational plans and program evaluations. This work has taken her across southern and northern Ontario (particularly the Algoma District) as well as Western Canada (especially Alberta). She has also been retained by clients in Quebec (ex. Alcan Rolled Products and Alcan International) as well as in the U.S. (ex. Destec Energy). Kathryn also worked for the Urban Transportation Development Corporation, later acquired by Bombardier, and worked at manufacturing facilities in both Lennox and Addington County and Thunder Bay.

Kathryn has been directly involved in more than 100 research projects of all types --- from one-on-one expert interviews to focus group moderation, exit interviews, online and telephone surveys, literature reviews and secondary data analysis. She has also developed custom economic impact models for both construction and operating phases municipal infrastructure as well as private sector investment in residential intensification construction.

We are often retained to serve as researchers, writers and editors for multi-stakeholder reports. Recent examples include the Principal’s Commission on the Principal’s Commission on the Future of Public Policy at Queen’s and the Advisory Committee on Divestment of Fossil Fuels at Queen’s University.

Kathryn was the lead principal investigator for a federally-funded (ERB-approved) randomized controlled trial on the Economic Value of Community Paramedicine, studying whether access to community paramedicine would reduce use of healthcare services among patients living at home with chronic health conditions.

In addition to being co-founder of Wood and Wood Communications Inc. with her brother Rob, Kathryn was a partner in a decade-long technology development initiative related to biofibre processing. She later became secretary to a new technology development firm in the biotech space.