50 Years
Dedicated to Realizing Strategic Change
For over five decades, Conner Partners has broken new ground in helping organizations implement change.
Through the years, we have worked with over one third of the Fortune 100 companies, as well as numerous U.S. and international governing bodies, enabling them to successfully navigate large-scale transformations and critical strategic initiatives.
Today, we continue to evolve our research, thought leadership, and methodologies to help organizations address the challenges of constant and radical disruption.
In a world that demands agility and an ever-increasing tolerance for ambiguity, we support leaders in raising their change leadership competency and their understanding of effective sponsorship. We develop and coach change agents to transform into vital trusted advisors and facilitators, and we support strategic initiative teams in execution success.
As we mark our 50th* year, Conner Partners remains dedicated to partnering with organizations to realize their most critical strategic change and transformation goals.
*From ODR in 1974, which rebranded as Conner Partners in 2004.
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Our Heritage
What Makes Us Different
Focused Expertise
Strategy execution is our business. We are wholly focused on supporting our clients in realizing their intended change and transformation goals. We do this through advising senior leaders; consulting with change initiative teams; jointly executing with client teams; and building capability across our clients’ leadership, internal change agents, and program teams.
Unparalleled Experience
For 50 years, we have been a leader in defining the field of change strategy execution. Thought leader Daryl Conner continues to challenge and raise the game of change facilitation and leadership globally—emphasizing the role of the high impact trusted advisor. Our consultants all have 20-30+ years of deep experience and bring a keen focus to partnering with our clients.
Unique Approach
We provide a flexible and structured approach focused on replicating the patterns we have identified in successful change and transformation. Our approach includes underlying principles, powerful language and terminology, and tools to surface and mitigate execution risks and advance your change implementation.
Uncompromising Support
Our commitment to the success of your initiative is accomplished through our candid and direct interaction. We tell the truth no matter how hard it is to hear. We do this with passionate objectivity and with our clients’ interests first.
Strength of Character
The relationships we build with our clients reflect not only “what we do” but also “who we are” - committed to honest communications, devoted to client success, and passionate about our work.
Who We Are
Daryl Conner, chairman of Conner Partners, is an internationally recognized leader in organizational change and serves as an advisor and mentor to senior executives around the globe. He founded ODR®, a training and consulting firm specializing in change management, in 1974. In 2004, he re-launched the company as Conner Partners, incorporating ODR’s tools and methodologies into a larger framework called the Strategy Execution Framework (SEF).
In 50 years of practice, Daryl has worked with many of the most successful organizations in the world, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and nonprofit institutions, to help them achieve the full intent of their most urgent and critically important initiatives. A dynamic public speaker, he has addressed thousands of executives in corporate settings, at national conferences, and via public programs. Daryl authored two books—Managing at the Speed of Change (Random House, 1993) and Leading at the Edge of Chaos (John Wiley & Sons, 1998)—and more than 250 publications, including journal and magazine articles, monographs, book chapters, and videos.
Daryl also holds a faculty position on the Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership program at The Center for Leadership Studies.
Daryl Conner, Chairman
Conner Partners CEO Maria Darby brings 35+ years of experience in the consulting industry to Conner Partners where she leads the firm today in continuing to support clients in realizing their strategic change goals. Maria was an executive vice president/partner at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she led the firm’s change management capability and client change and transformation engagements across a diverse set of industries in the public and private sectors. She also served as a leader in the firm’s Strategic Innovation Group where she drove the firm’s Innovation Blueprint across the enterprise.
Maria has served as senior strategist, advisor, and program leader across diverse change efforts involving organizational mergers and integration, innovation focus, digital transformation, and culture change. She served as the CEO of the Association of Change Management Professionals, a professional association focused on advancing the practice of change management worldwide. She co-led a collaboration between Booz Allen and Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business to develop and institutionalize graduate-level change management education, resulting in the Change Management Advanced Practitioner certificate program. Maria also served on The Conference Board’s Change & Transformation Council where she contributed to change management thought leadership and industry-wide collaboration on change management best practices and evolution, particularly around digital transformation.
Maria Darby, CEO
Our Team
Dr. Linda Hoopes, Advisor
Human resilience and transformational change expert with 30+ years of experience helping organizations increase their effectiveness during transformational change. Learn More.
Jeff Butler
Expert strategy execution practitioner with 35+ years of experience in leading client teams through transformational efforts in a way that transfers deep expertise. Learn More.
Erin Shannon-Auel
Versatile Business and Technology Executive with 30+ years of experience providing strategic consulting services to leaders undergoing mission-critical change. Learn More.
Deb Betsch
Executive leader coach and organizational change consultant with 20+ years of experience raising change leadership performance and leading enterprise-level transformation. Learn More.
Angie Fuessel
Senior leader with 25+ years of experience fostering effectiveness and leading transformation and culture evolution across sectors, in the U.S. and abroad. Learn More.
John Fleming
Change execution and human dynamics expert with 30+ years of experience helping senior teams across industries achieve full realization of their strategic objectives. Learn More.