More Testimonials

"I want to tell you that your session was the most well received of all the sessions we scheduled for our conference. Given the amount of time we gave you to prepare and the overall last minute nature of this, I was so grateful that you were willing to work with us. We are much better for it. We continue to discuss what we learned today, and I see no sign of the lessons learned being wasted. You were excellent."

Senior Leader, Federal Agency

"Liz is a talented presenter and trainer, who always has command of the subject matter. Additionally, and more importantly, she has the ability to perceive her audience and seems to intuitively anticipate where the training needs to go. She is a valued consultant and trainer to our organization. "

Kate Davis, Director of Learning and Development, Montgomery General Hospital

"Liz recently facilitated our annual departmental retreat. She was able to hone in on the areas of interpersonal and team dynamics where our team most needed to focus and present the information in a way that was accessible to employees at all levels. Most importantly, Liz made it informative, relevant and fun. One participant commented that this was our best retreat yet. Thanks, Liz!"

Heather Beach Hochberg, Senior Director, Human Resources, The Washington Post Company

"I worked with Liz in the past and knew she was the person to help pull our new leadership team together. She helped us all get on the same page, and gave us specific strategies we are currently using to continue to work on what we learned. The whole staff is looking forward to having her back in 6 months to take us to the next level."

Karen Linscott, COO, National Business Coalition on Health

"Dr. Berney worked closely with me to personalize our off-site retreat to include a variety of team building activities. My staff was very skeptical about attending an off-site meeting with a consultant for a day of team building activities; the feedback from staff after the retreat was extremely positive. She made the day enjoyable with her keen sense of humor and her innate knowledge of relating to a variety of different personalities."

As we have grown as a company, we have asked Dr. Berney back repeatedly to help us continue our team development and offer Myers Briggs consultation to our new employees.

Dr. Berney’s high energy, vast knowledge, and can-do attitude make her a pleasure to work with."

Kelly Fredrick, Chief Operating Officer, DBC Public Relations

"Liz moved our senior team to a significantly greater level of communication, problem solving and overall performance."

Jason Paterniti, Managing Partner, Global Risk Capital

"Liz is very experienced working with academics and scientists. She's very smart, experienced, insightful and effective helping clients develop new leadership skills and behaviors."

Dr. Katherine Klein, Edward H. Bowman Professor of Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

"I appreciate everything Liz did to make our strategic planning retreat a success. Our feedback from the staff has been extremely positive. More than a few have said it should have been longer, which is very surprising given the level of skepticism we faced prior to the meeting.

Liz's strengths include:

    Liz's experience and flexibility in tailoring the sessions to our needs during the planning phase
    Liz's ability to sense a need to change direction/schedule during the meeting and implement it "on the fly"
    Liz's overall facilitation skills, which allowed her to take command of the room when necessary to get us back on track"

Jim Berlow, Division Director, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

"Liz immediately captured my attention by her approach in finding out exactly what the client wanted, who the audience was, and what the purpose was. As a result, she conducted a full day of meaningful, objective, interactive and fun learning. She is able to related to a broad range of personalities, has an upbeat and engaging approach and delivery, and a great sense of humor."

Deanne Johnson-Anderson, Corporate Director of HR, Crestline Hotels & Resorts

"I unreservedly recommend Liz's services to any organization wanting thorough, smart and effective public speaking, training, consulting and coaching for better individual and group performance. She is refreshing for her straightforward and very human approach, but her power comes not only from her persuasive abilities, but from her honesty and integrity. It is a rare and extraordinary combination. Her effectiveness is predicated on two simple things: she has the tools and knowledge to assess a person, situation or audience, and the superb and subtle interpersonal and counseling skills to help individuals and teams find a path to actualize assessments, learnings, or feedback to changes in everyday behavior. She is very energetic, dynamic, practical and articulate."

Tom Nagle, Partner, Statler-Nagle LLC; VP Marketing, International Dairy Foods

"I first met Liz when she was a consultant to the Director of the Office of HIV/AIDS at the US Agency for International Development. Liz coached several managers including the Director, did a needs assessment of the office, and facilitated a variety of office and division-level meetings and retreats. I was struck by Liz's energy level, "can do" attitude and comfort level with large groups. She was able to take charge when she needed to and step back when the meeting was going in the desired direction.

When I took a position at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and had an extremely challenging meeting to run, Liz was the first person I thought of to facilitate this meeting. The meeting brought together a group of international experts from different viewpoints together to provide the foundation with feedback on our strategy around a particular issue. Because there were many sensitive issues to be discussed, I knew I needed someone skilled at group dynamics, meeting design and facilitation.

Liz and I collaborated to design the meeting and I found her responsive, extremely knowledgeable and hard-working. While she wasn't familiar with the substantive issues that were being discussed, she quickly picked up on the important nuances of the issues at hand. In her role as meeting facilitator, her skills were highly evident as she navigated muddy waters moving the group from subtle and not so subtle conflicts to goals accomplishing the meeting goals.

Following the meeting, she provided insightful feedback as to next steps for this group and for some of the follow-up tasks. Participants were very pleased with her facilitation efforts and found her very skilled as well as very high energy, inspiring, down to earth and highly knowledgeable."

Gabrielle Bushman Fitzgerald, Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

"Liz has an incredible capacity to listen, to make connections between people, and to effectively facilitate and coach individuals and groups. As a result of her Myers-Briggs Type Indicator training, I have learned to appreciate different perspectives and have incorporated different ways to communicate with my staff and peers. Her recommendations helped improve day-to-day interactions by building trust and understanding."

Susan Berndt, Assistant Director, Market Compliance Office, Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau

"Just wanted to thank you for a terrific training experience. As you know, one of my principal goals was to assure that everyone would feel that their time was well spent, and that they wouldn't get bored. You kept the pace fast, the interest level stayed high, and I believe everyone took away valuable and useful information from the session. What's more, I think they enjoyed it!

I was sure from your impressive resume that you would have thorough command of your subject, which you certainly do, but I was especially pleased by your ability to make difficult concepts easy to understand and apply. You also managed to make seamless adjustments in our planned agenda to respond more effectively to the group dynamics.

I also feel really good about the way you have helped frame the follow-up work. I have already begun planning our next session, and think it will reinforce the realization that this training is going to be incorporated and not allowed to get buried."

S. C., CEO, CAC

"Liz is an excellent teacher/instructor. The area of group dynamics and facilitation is an area of real competence. I have co-taught with Liz in this program at Georgetown University, I have also observed her teach it alone. You could not find anyone better to do this work."

Karan Hinman Powell, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Provost of American Public University System

"Liz's training skills are excellent. She is able to get information across in an understandable and entertaining fashion. In addition, Liz checks in with people individually and as a group to ensure the message is clear. Liz is very good at group interaction exercises. I have seen her take a group who appears not to be interested in a particular exercise – encourage participation – with the net product being strong participation and buy-in. This is where Liz truly excels."

Helene Noble, Director, Workforce Relations Division, National Institutes of Health

"Dr Liz Berney has facilitated several formal training sessions for the U.S. Pharmacopeia including Customer Service Skills, Team Development, Stress and Time Management, Problem Solving and Decision-Making, and Performance Improvement Planning. Her strengths lie in her ability to listen well to the needs of her audience and then tailor the program material to those needs. For example, highly technical and specialized scientists may learn differently than marketing professionals or customer service staff. She works very well with technical and scientific staff and they respect her.

Dr. Berney is always professional, organized, and prepared. Her delivery style is fresh, energetic and comfortable. She is a very entertaining and knowledgeable speaker. She uses humor at appropriate times and uses examples to illustrate her material. Because Dr. Berney's subject knowledge is above expectations, she was able to engage her audience and keep their attention. She uses different styles of delivery for optimal learning, i.e., lecture, case study, group exercises, etc. She was thorough in her preparation for each class; for example, she requested detailed company and audience information in order to develop course material.

The feedback I received from the participants was consistently high. They noted that she inspired them and she is often requested to come back."

Harriet Joseph, Senior HR Generalist, US Pharmacopeia

"I find that when I attend an event that is superbly designed and effortlessly executed, one gets the impression that this is an easy thing to do. Dr. Berney has that gift of the sensitive touch, the gentle facilitation and the talent to design an event that provides the participant with a life changing experience. I cannot give any other recommendation than 'excellent' for Dr. Berney's amazing programs."

D.L., Knowledge Management Director

"Dr. Berney's presentation style is very well received across a broad spectrum of audiences, from scientist and engineers, to general managers and human resource personnel. Her energy, experience and practical solutions are key to our clients' successes."

Janet Germano-Medina, Program Manager, Office of Professional Studies, University of Maryland

"It is my observation that Dr. Berney is high energy, humorous, and entertaining as well. She has an excellent ability to 'read' her audience and engage their interests and enthusiasm and be responsive to their needs. Dr. Berney's personality is such that people are drawn to her warmth and vivaciousness. I can honestly say that the success of the Mentoring Program at NIST is due in large part to Dr. Berney's presentation skills."

Rhoda Levin, Chair, NIST Mentoring Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology

"Liz's ability to speak extemporaneously, honestly, and with sensitivity, is remarkable. She brought a great deal of energy each day's presentation (week-long program) and clearly had command of her subject. Most memorable was her sense of humor that made participants comfortable and more able to look at their behaviors both kindly and critically. She provided great value to our employees, giving them needed tools and confidence."

Nancy Ludewig, Program Specialist, Office of Research Services, Department of Health and Human Services

"Liz is a phenomenal coach. She helped me make major choices by insightfully exploring my underlying assumptions and acknowledging my contributions to the conflict at work. She knows when to support, when to challenge and was a tremendous help in my learning and career development."

M.A., Senior Executive

"Dr. Berney's coaching provided me with creative thinking and problem solving approaches and tools that translated easily to my work. Coaching with her helped improve my effectiveness and interactions with others."

J.N., Manager, National Institutes of Health