(916) 481-4488 [email protected]

Lynda Baker

Ms. Baker is president and founder of Meeting Solutions and a leader in the field of group process consultation and meeting facilitation. She has served on the board of directors of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), as past president of a loca chapter of the Association for Talent Development and on a regional board of a Facilitators Network. Her co-authored chapter on facilitator competencies appears in the landmark publication, IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation, (Jossey-Bass, 2005). She also served on the editorial board of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, published by IAF. 

Lynda has worked with clients and colleagues and presented at facilitation conferences in Asia, Canada and throughout the United States. She has more than 30 years of organization development, training, strategic planning, and facilitation experience in the combined fields of higher education, government, non-profit and private sectors. Cited as a creative senior-level organizational development professional with a passion for finding the right process to engage collaboration for problem solving, decision-making and action planning; she is particularly skilled at surfacing clarity that leads to productive outcomes and action plans across organizational levels.

Employment History

  • The Kolbe Company – Facilitator, Trainer
  • President, Certified Professional Facilitator – Meeting Solutions, Meeting Solutions Online
  • Assessor – International Association of Facilitators, Institute of Cultural Affairs
  • Stakeholder Engagement Manager – Texas Department of Information Resources  
  • Strategic Communications Specialist – Texas Department of Information Resources  
  • Management Analyst, Organization Development Specialist – Texas Education Agency
  • Assistant Director for External Relations – Austin Technology Incubator, 
  • MBA Career Development Specialist – McCombs School of Business, 
  • Public Relations Director – Austin Community Television
  • Assistant Director – Texas Arts Alliance
  • Assistant Regional Director – American College Testing (ACT) Program, 
  • Coordinator of Campus Programming–Southwestern University,
  • Residence Hall Director – University of Illinois
  • Admissions Counselor – Ricker College

 

Competency Areas

  • Meeting Facilitation
  • Organization Development
  • Participatory Strategic Planning
  • Strategic Communication
  • Performance Management
  • Team Building
  • Special Projects Oversight
  • Consensus Building, 
  • Meeting Design and Facilitation 
  • Strategic Communication

Education

  • Doctoral Coursework in Educational Psychology – University of Illinois
  • Master’s Degree in Higher Education Administration – University of Illinois    
  • Bachelor’s Degree in Education, Minor in   English – Stony Brook University
  • Visual Communications Coursework – Austin Community College

    Professional Associations

    • International Association of Facilitators (IAF)
    • National ToP Trainer’s Network
    • Association for Talent Development
    • Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA)

    Professional Certification and Awards

    • Certified Facilitator Master – International Association of Facilitators (IAF)
    • Mentor Trainer – National ToP Trainer’s Network
    • Certified ToP Facilitator –  Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA)
    • Nominee, Ethics in Business Award, Samaritan Center
    • Nominee, Roger Bayles Employee Service Award

    Publications and Presentations

    • IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation, Contributing Author 
    • “Facilitation as a Tool to Maximize Strategic Leadership
    •  Questions Offer Best Answers for Talking About Tough Topics
    • Facilitation Meets Feng Shui
    • Aligning Passion, Planning and Performance

    Course Development and Delivery

    • Making Meetings Work
    • Addressing Performance Gaps through Counseling and Discipline
    • Coaching for Performance
    • Managing Team Resources
    • Leadership Principles andPractices for Managers
    • ToP Facilitation Methods and ToP Strategic Planning 

    Professional and Community Service

    • Executive Board Member, International Association of Facilitators
    • President, Association for Talent Development, Austin Chapter, Conversation Corp
    • Facilitator, The Red Bench, Interfaith Action of Central Texas
    • Facilitator, Conversation Corps, City of Austin, AISD and Capital MetroPartial List of Client Projects
    • Designed and facilitated a meeting on behalf of the Texas Department of Information Resources for 100+ state agency representatives to develop remediation strategies for legacy IT systems; created several viable options to meet stakeholder needs.


    Sample of Projects

    Facilitated a meeting of the district judges and staff serving in Travis County District Court to evaluate strategic initiatives and goal accomplishments, update plans and develop a framework to monitor strategic plan progress. 


    When the Texas Education Agency was faced with reducing their 1,000-employee agency by 30% I trained and deployed a 50-member peer support team to assist departing employees as part of a reduction-in- force; successfully managed a professional and compassionate separation process.

    The Texas Department of Information Resources secured my services to facilitated several high-stakes meetings with state agencies and government vendors resulting in collaborative problem solving, essential and critical decision making and creating critical partnerships.

    Engaged over several years to design, facilitate, manage and revise strategic planning processes for a professional association of several thousand members in multiple divisions, regions, chapters and committees (Texas Counseling Association). 

    Designed, facilitated and managed a multi-month process to explore a collaborative structure for delivering a continuum of support for youth and families experiencing crisis; the process involved work with an 18-member steering committee, a project manager, several executive directors, more than 60 board and staff participants and funders in several iterative workshops; the process included scenario planning, designing and conducting research plans and the involvement of clients (Lifeworks) 

    Facilitated a multi-stage process with various stakeholders; the resulting framework subsequently attracted strong leadership and has sustained over several years (Interfaith Action of Central Texas) 

    Facilitated strategic business planning process for the founding of the Austin (now Texas) chapter of the national, Physicians for Social Responsibility Organization (Physicians for Social Responsibility) 

    Collaborated with faculty leadership to design and facilitate a process to determine priority Diversity and Inclusion actions and identify associated resources (University of Texas School of Social Work Diversity and Inclusion Committee) 

    Regularly facilitate corporate strategic planning onboarding sessions for private investment firm’s newly acquired multi-million dollar portfolio companies. The firm partners with business owners and management teams with the commitment to leverage shared values to pursue objectives and accelerate growth (Private Equity firm) 

    Facilitated multi-stage change initiative with 100+ representatives from six social service non-profits; created foundation for successful merger which today serves 6,000 central Texas families annually through 20 programs (LifeWorks) 

    Created unprecedented cooperation among representatives of major industry associations by to develop guiding principles for industry best practices; client stated, “masterful job steering us out of the ditch and back on the highway” (National Exhibition Industry Summit)