Our Team

Meet the People Behind Our People-to-People Training

When you work with MOHR Retail training programs, you’re also working with a dynamic team of consultants, designers, facilitators, and project managers, all of whom come from the world of retail.

Get to know the team that makes it all happen.

Interested in joining our team? Contact us to learn about available opportunities. Leadership experience in a national retail organization (e.g., DM/RVP Senior Store Operations, or Talent Development experience) is a huge plus and a value our clients count from us.

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Mary Beth Garcia
Owner & CEO

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Michael Patrick
Founder, Executive Advisor & Senior Consultant

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Alexis Abssy
Director Client Engagement, Operations and Support

Matt Brown

Matt Brown
Vice President, Business Development & Client Success

“The MOHR Retail team has been a pleasure to work with over the years. They truly understand the day-to-day challenges of the ever-changing retail environment. I certainly appreciate their partnership in our training and development efforts for our retail district managers and store managers at James Avery.”

Marilyn Price, Vice President of Retail Operations | James Avery

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Joyce Hayes
Controller

Joyce is your go-to when you have questions about billing, payments, or shipping and handling. She’ll also get you the documents or accurate invoice copies you need for easy processing of payments. Joyce is a graduate of Long Island University majoring in Finance and is a Certified Public Accountant. Joyce resides in Neptune Township, NJ with her husband Marty live in Fort Lauderdale, FL , close to the MOHR Retail corporate office, and the year round warmth and sunshine.

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Nemanya Pavlovic
vCTO

Nemanya has over 23 years of professional IT experience as owner of Apogee Consulting LLC, as well as virtual Chief Technology Officer for MOHR retail for over 10 years.  Nemanya is a well-rounded and extremely capable IT consultant with expertise in IT infrastructure for a start-up, to converting an Access database into a web/mobile based one for a VIP client in the music business.  He has performed most IT jobs from the mundane to the insane to ensure technology services replacement/synergy are accomplished.  He has worked with Bertelsmann Music Group and has attended and helped with the technology production of the Grammy awards presentation for several years.  Nemanya is based in New Jersey with his wife and partner Daisy.

Client Success and Business Development Team

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Kristina Landis
Senior Vice President, Business Development

Kristina is an accomplished talent and operations leader with 30 years of experience in the retail industry. She has a proven track record of developing and implementing strategies that drive results through people. Her core competencies include organization and leadership development, talent acquisition, succession and workforce planning, culture and engagement, coaching, strategic planning, change management, and retail operations. In her most recent role as Director of Talent at West Marine, Kristina focused on building sustainable people strategies to drive employee performance and support organizational growth. Prior to West Marine, Kristina held various leadership roles at Michaels, Family Dollar, and The Bombay Company. Having led the talent function through and post-pandemic, Kristina has first-hand experience creating programs and processes that maximize the evolving employee value proposition. She is excited to partner with her clients to identify and execute innovative solutions that optimize how they attract, develop, and retain top talent. Kristina shares her talents with MOHR Retail clients through her expert facilitation, instructional design, and client success leadership skills.  Kristina is based in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration and German from Murray State University and is a Master Certified MOHR Facilitator.

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Randy Vellegas
Client Success Consultant

Randy has over 28 years retail experience and has held various leadership positions with companies that include Target, Kohls, Bed Bath & Beyond and Staples. Randy is also highly experienced in leadership development, group facilitation, Human Resource Management, Recruitment, and coaching. As MOHR Retail’s Director of Client Success and Sales, Randy is committed to ensure that our clients receive the best experience and long-lasting impact based on the specific needs of the organization. Randy takes the time to learn about our clients, build professional rapport, and propose a program that will best suit their needs.

Marketing Team

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Marla Lepore
Director of Marketing

Marla has more than two decades of experience as a marketing, PR, and communications consultant in the learning and development industry. Over the course of her career, she has planned, developed, and executed marketing communications strategy for a variety of training, research, and performance improvement businesses. She works with the media to provide expert sources on retail training and development issues and has written and ghostwritten numerous articles for industry publications. A graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans, Marla lives in Nashville and is an active member of Nashville’s writers’ collective, The Porch. In addition to her marketing work, she is a freelance writer who writes the Muck Rack Daily newsletter, a digest of journalism focused on the trending topics of the day.

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Jacqueline Hullaby
Marketing Coordinator

Jacqueline repurposes her skills as a copywriter/content creator and career high school teacher to support the marketing team. She manages special projects, keeps the team updated on the latest retail news, coordinates, edits and writes marketing content for social media campaigns. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a Master’s Degree in Teaching and a Bachelor’s Degree in French and Psychology. She loves nature adventures, cycling, and traveling. She serves her faith community on the prayer team.

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Matthew Castano
Videographer/Editor

Matthew is a videographer and photographer. His passion for capturing life's most candid moments and exploring various methods of storytelling through visual media brings him constant joy. At MOHR Retail, Matthew assumes the role of a video editor. In this capacity, he analyzes and enhances footage, seamlessly combines different shots, and infuses vitality into the finished videos. It's a challenging yet gratifying role that allows him to apply his creative skills to contribute to a broader vision. When he's not working, Matthew can be found traveling to new destinations to seek inspiration for his art or experimenting with his camera to uncover innovative ways to bring photographs to life.

Consulting, Facilitation and Producing Team

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Anita Johnson
Senior Consultant

Anita Johnson is a seasoned facilitator with a passion for developing effective and engaged leaders. Her enthusiasm, business expertise, and passion create informative and open learning environments that ignite and nurture leaders at all levels. With over 15 years in corporate HR/learning leadership roles, Anita has the ability to pull from store to executive boardroom experience to bring the powerful MOHR Retail learning design alive for each leader. Anita has succeeded in leadership roles with several organizations including The North Face, Old Navy, Gap Inc, Ulta Inc, and Altard State. She is thrilled to provide hands-on content to elevate the skillset of your teams.
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Cindy Herman
Senior Consultant

 Cindy is an enthusiastic and seasoned consultant and facilitator, working in partnership with leaders and teams to deliver high-impact, pragmatic results. She has over 25 years’ experience in developing leaders, building high performance teams, and creating customer service excellence. Cindy grew up working in a retail/ service business and has held roles in senior management, marketing and human resources in corporate and entrepreneurial companies. She works with leaders and teams across all levels and functions, in diverse, global cultures. Her experience includes a wide spectrum of industries including retail, consumer goods, hospitality, healthcare, communications, food and beverage and financial services. Cindy’s authenticity and commitment to excellence inspires and supports clients to gain powerful tools, practical skills, and reach new levels of effectiveness.
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Jay Redman
Senior Consultant

Jay specializes in leadership and organizational development, customer and employee experience management, and talent management consulting. Prior to his consulting work, he served as the Chief Talent Officer at a variety of retailers over the last 20 years, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Chico’s Specialty Stores, Barnes and Noble, and Holt Renfrew of Canada. As a consultant, Jay coaches and mentors executives on performance improvement, strengths-based leadership, and many other areas of professional development. He also designs, develops, and delivers skill-based training programs in leadership, diversity & inclusion, team effectiveness, and organizational change management. He has been a keynote speaker at the University of Florida Retailing Symposium, the National Retail Federation Conference, the Gallup Executive Forum, the Employee Practice Network, and the GE Leaders Forum.

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Kristine Pérez Foley
Senior Consultant

Kristine is an experienced leadership development professional with a specialization in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).  Her expertise in leadership content, instructional design, group facilitation and executive coaching have enabled her to lead several large global training initiatives for fortune 100 & 500 companies.  Her prior work experience includes holding leadership positions in the automotive and retail banking industry and serving as world languages department leader and Spanish teacher for a large public school system in New York.  As a consultant she has worked with The UPS Store, Bath & Body Works, and Walmart. Kristine is an ICF credentialed coach (PCC) and ICF registered mentor coach and enjoys working with aspiring coaches to discover their authentic coaching style within the ICF core competencies.  

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Leesa Wallace
Senior Consultant

Leesa has over 20 years of experience heading leadership, organization, and development functions in both Fortune 100 and start-up organizations. As a consultant, she has worked with retailers such as Delta Faucets, Louis Vuitton-Moet Hennessy, Ace Hardware, and Michaels to help them build the interpersonal skills that drive results. Her focus is always on bringing practical, realistic, integrated approaches to help elevate individual, team, and leadership performance by connecting the dots between business goals and employee behavior. Prior to her experience in the leadership development world, Leesa worked in public education. Most notably, she was an English teaching consultant for the Japanese Ministry of Education and, during her stay, authored a short textbook, “Japan and America: Questions You Ask.”

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Lisa Gallo
Producer

For over 20 years, Lisa has enjoyed making the Pacific Northwest her home. Her professional career spans a variety of chapters, including a focus on corporate training, program design, development, delivery, and virtual production. Lisa has worked from the ground floor up with virtual facilitator trainer courses, as well as designing and delivering a virtual producer course. What Lisa is known for is her ability to help participants master features of technology with ease, encouraging clients to elevate their learning experience through full participation and use of virtual platform tools.

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Paul Briley
Senior Consultant, Executive Coach

Paul leverages his 25+ years of experience in learning, leadership, consulting and coaching to help you bring your vision to life. His career was built on consultative thought leadership focused on creating impact on people, culture and results.

Throughout his career, Paul has helped people get moving. He’s known for helping people assess their current state, define goals and outcomes, then build plans and move to action. His consultative approach helps build custom solutions based on your unique needs and experiences.

Paul has worked for large, multi-unit organizations, as well as consulting with business leaders and stakeholders within their own organizations. His experience on the front lines of organizations provides a unique perspective and ability to see challenges and solutions from the customer's point of view. Paul now helps people get off the comma™ through his consulting, coaching and organizing practices. He also has over 10 years experience in volunteer board membership & leadership.

Paul builds relationships based on a sense of purpose, action-orientation and having fun in the process. Paul holds a Master's in Business Administration, is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) certified coach (ACC), and a Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD). He loves heights, travel, animals, physical activity and is stretching himself this year by saying “yes” to things that scare the heck out of him.

Learn more about Paul: linktree

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Scott Keva James
Producer

Scott Keva James is a virtual technical producer, visual artist, educator, and live event producer. His artwork includes interactive installation work and live visual performance. In the world of live events, he has creative-directed multi-media stage shows and implemented complex, immersive environments. Since 2020 he has been providing technical assistance and support for virtual instruction and facilitation. Scott is based in Seattle.

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Steven Williams
Senior Consultant

Steven brings a wealth of experience and a 25+ year track record of award-winning success in talent management & development, leadership development, culture development, large-scale product launches & systems initiatives, learning systems, instructional design, and facilitation, as a Board Member, Executive, Vice-President, Consultant, Entrepreneur & Speaker for Fortune 500 corporations, mid-size companies, and small businesses in over a dozen industries. Steven has helped guide leaders in a widely diverse portfolio of companies including Yum Brands Inc., Taco Bell Corp., Cotton Patch Cafe, Burger Boss, Navy Federal Credit Union, Skillsoft, Valero,  ConocoPhillips,  Novartis,

 Steven has helped numerous retail and hospitality leaders develop their leadership skills.  His award-winning contributions have been recognized by QSR Magazine, Skillsoft Conference, Aurora Awards for Film & Video Excellence, and multiple Executive Teams. Steven holds a Master’s of Science in Education-Instructional Technologies and Bachelor’s degree in English-Creative Writing from the University of Southern California, as well certifications for Senior Certified Professional in Human Resources from the Society for Human Resource Management (SCP-SHRM), Leadership Development Certification from the Center for Creative Leadership, Virtual Facilitation Training and Virtual Host Certifications from NetSpeed Learning, Qualitative Focus Group Facilitation Certification from Custom Research, Inc., and Management Development Certification from the USC Office of Executive Development Marshall School of Business. He has also served on the Board of Directors for the Association for Talent Development, in Spokane, WA, and the American Society of Training & Development in Orange County, CA. Steven resides in Austin, TX, and can be heard on Friday nights under the lights announcing games as the voice of Austin Royals Football.

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Susan Newhouse
Senior Consultant

A dynamic facilitator who harnesses the power of human connection, Susan applies principles of creative problem solving, Design Thinking, Multiple Intelligences Theory, and improv to disrupt ordinary thinking and create breakthroughs for leaders, teams, and organizations. For the past 20 years, she has led hundreds of sessions for Fortune 500 companies and designed facilitation training programs that she has delivered around the globe. Susan studied improv at Josephine Forsberg’s Players Workshop of the Second City and has received certifications in LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Methods and FourSight™ Creative Thinking System. She also teaches at several international creativity conferences, including the Creative Problem Solving Institute, EPIC International Summit, and ACRE/EDU in South Africa.

Special Project Consultants

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Laura Barry
Senior Business Development Consultant.

With over 31 years of retail experience, Laura Barry is a seasoned professional dedicated to the retail industry. Having worked her way up from a cashier to her most recent role as Vice President, Stores at West Marine, Laura's comprehensive understanding of the industry sets her apart. Her expertise spans both public and private equity sectors, along with significant involvement in mergers and acquisitions. Laura's true passion lies in developing and sourcing exceptional talent, as well as building high-performing teams that consistently deliver outstanding results. She firmly believes in driving success through people, fostering a strong culture, and upholding core values. Laura is eager to extend her expertise to assist MOHR Retail Clients in realizing their full potential. She aims to provide retail solutions that drive performance and yield tangible results. Laura holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Central Florida. She currently resides in Watsonville, California.

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Cathy Falzareno
Senior Design Consultant

In over 17 years of consulting, Cathy has worked with a variety of clients — including Tumi, Ferragamo, Baker Furniture, and Starwood Resorts and Hotels — to design, develop, and facilitate management, sales, service, selection, and productivity programs. Cathy is skilled in the design of custom programs, simulations, webinars, learning materials, and facilitation to optimally meet a client’s specific organizational needs. She has worked with senior executives as well as middle, line, and entry-level management to enhance their management skills through both one-on-one coaching and classroom facilitation. In addition, as a master trainer, she has certified individuals to train other trainers.

Prior to independent consulting, Cathy worked as a professional in both corporate and field retail environments. She has served in the capacity of senior human resource executive for several companies ranging in size from $1 billion to $3.5 billion in annual sales; managed various information technology project implementations; designed and implemented numerous training programs; and acted in management and sales capacities for field retail operations. A graduate of Arizona State University, Cathy resides in San Antonio, TX.

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Laurel Moad
Senior Design Consultant

Laurel has over 25 years’ experience in retail multiunit senior leadership as a divisional vice president or regional vice president for retailers including L Brands, Kay Bee Toys, Laura Ashley, Eddie Bauer, and Gymboree. Throughout her retail career, she has led talent initiatives that have elevated talent selection, retention, and development across each organization. In her role at MOHR Retail, Laurel serves as a strategic business partner to clients, providing talent strategy and talent development-related solutions that change behavior and measurably impact business results. Drawing on her strong retail experience and background, she has delivered leadership, communication, negotiation, and other retail solutions to companies such as Albertsons, Bebe, Claire’s, Disney Stores, Gymboree, Jewel/Osco, Oshkosh B’Gosh, PetsMart, and The Picture People. In addition to her consulting work, she is a director on the board of the River Corridor Foundation of St. Charles, IL, a non-profit that supports and advocates for projects that will enhance the downtown riverfront environment as a destination for cultural, educational, and economic opportunities that are accessible for all. Laurel resides in a suburb of Chicago, IL.

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Kathryn S. Wolfson
Senior Design Consultant

Kathryn has more than 30 years’ experience in retail industry training and course development. For clients such as Hermes, Estee Lauder, Toys R Us, MarMaxx, Polo Ralph Lauren, and New Balance Retail, she has trained in leadership, management, negotiation, technical, and operations skills. Her corporate experience includes Assistant Buyer and Training Coordinator for Rich’s (div. of Federated Stores) and Corporate Director of Training for Saks Fifth Avenue. Kathryn develops and continually updates the MOHR Retail’s core programs as well as custom program modules. A graduate of Smith College, she lives in New York City and has taught in New York University’s continuing education program.

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eBook

Our eBook outlines 7 practical reinforcement strategies to help your participants internalize the learning and turn it into daily practice so they can get sustained performance results.