The New Business of Consulting

Elaine Biech is a consultant, trainer, and the author of the *Washington Post*’s number-one best-seller *The Art and Science of Training*. With more than three decades of experience and 80-plus published books, she has been called “the Stephen King of the training industry.”

Elaine is president of ebb associates inc, a strategic implementation and leadership development consulting firm, where she helps large organizations work through large-scale change. She has presented at hundreds of national and international conferences and has been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Management Update, Investor’s Business Daily, and Fortune. Her books have been published in a dozen languages, and several have received national awards.

Among her extensive body of published work are The New Consultant’s Quick Start Guide and Training and Development for Dummies. She has authored ATD’s flagship publications, The ASTD Handbook: The Definitive Reference for Training and Development and ATD’s Foundations of Talent Development.

Elaine is a dedicated lifelong learner who believes that excellence isn’t optional. She delights in helping leaders maximize their effectiveness and guiding organizations through the current business churn. Customizing all of her work for individual clients, she conducts strategic planning sessions and implements corporate-wide systems, such as quality improvement, change management, reengineering of business processes, and mentoring programs. She is particularly adept at turning dysfunctional teams into productive ones.

As a consultant, she has provided services globally to the U.S. Navy, China Sinopec, China Telecom, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Banco de Credito Peru, Minera Yanacocha, Lockheed Martin, Newmont Mining, Outback Steakhouse, the Department of Homeland Security, the FAA, Land O’ Lakes, McDonald’s, Lands’ End, Chrysler, Johnson Wax, the Federal Reserve Bank, American Family Insurance, Marathon Oil, Hershey Chocolate, NASA, Newport News Shipbuilding, the Kohler Company, ATD, the American Red Cross, the Association of Independent CPAs, the University of Wisconsin, The College of William and Mary, and hundreds of other public and private sector organizations to prepare them for current challenges.

The recipient of numerous professional awards, Elaine is a consummate training professional who has been instrumental in guiding the talent development profession for most of her career. A long-time volunteer for ATD, she has served on the association’s national board of directors, was the recipient of the 1992 ASTD Torch Award, the 2004 ASTD Volunteer Staff Partnership Award, and the 2006 Gordon Bliss Memorial Award. In 2012, she was the inaugural CPLP Fellow Program Honoree from the ASTD Certification Institute. Elaine wrote the first ASTD Training Certification Study Guides.

Elaine was the 1995 Wisconsin Women Entrepreneurs’ Mentor Award recipient and has served on the Independent Consultants Association’s Advisory Committee. She is currently on the ISA—The Association for Learning Providers board of directors. Elaine is a member of the Center for Creative Leadership’s (CCL) board of governors and is the chair of CCL’s Research, Evaluation, and Societal Advancement Committee. She is also a member of CCL’s executive committee and the editorial board.