About Us
Combining strong leadership with effective strategy implementation.
Our Why
Raising the Leadership Bar
Leadership defines the workplace. Inspired leaders have the ability to help their teams see into the future, and believe in their abilities to create that future. This is how organizations move forward.
Each organization sets its own expectations for leadership competencies. Among these often are integrity, respect, promoting innovation, achieving results, and holding strong accountability for staff at all levels.
How does your leadership line up?
At Sage & Summit our purpose is to raise the leadership bar anywhere and everywhere. We help individuals and organizations to combine strong leadership with effective implementation strategies to effect change, improve sales, and generate results.
Sage & Summit is here to walk with you through periods of change and adjustment. We help you tackle and remain ahead of turbulence and change. Our facilitation team has more than 50 years combined experience in shaping organizations, planning for growth, transformation, and rapid change.
See what we can do with you today.
Sources: Learning Leadership, Kouszes & Posner | Forbes, TY October 16, 2012 (et. al. Mcquade A Great Place to work for All, Michael C. Bush)
THE SAGE & SUMMIT TEAM
Marderé Birkill MBL, CEC, PCC
Executive Coach & Organizational Development Consultant
Marderé has more than 20 years of leadership, consulting and coaching experience. She has held various senior administrative roles in both public and private organizations including Vice President Academic to a Community College, Executive Account Director in the IT industry. Marderé also taught several topics in Business Administration at various universities, and is currently a sessional instructor at McEwan University in Edmonton. Her experience gave her a solid foundation in executive leadership, strategic planning and execution, organizational performance management and evaluation, policy and program development and evaluation; coaching; and facilitation. Marderé is a Chair with TEC Canada and facilitates two executive peer advisory boards.
She is known as a strong communicator, transformational leader and innovative problem-solver. Marderé is also a dynamic, engaging speaker and facilitator who will hold an audience’s attention and participation throughout. She has contributed her skills to internal and external teams, committees and boards at the local, provincial, and national level. Her international experience equips her to work with diverse groups, and complex human dynamics on multiple levels.
As a coach, Marderé is perceptive and supportive. She develops rapport and trust with her clients with ease. She challenges her clients to achieve their goals, get out of their own way and grow on purpose with clarity and confidence. She also coaches teams and their leaders towards becoming integrated, high-performance teams. Marderé specializes in coaching executives in transition (promotion or new company) to step into their roles with confidence, and accelerate their effectiveness in their new roles.
Marderé is a Certified Executive Coach (Centre for Executive Coaching), at York University. She also holds a Kaplan & Norton certification in strategic planning and balance scorecard development (Palladium), as well as certification in administering the Profiles suite of HR & leadership assessments. She completed a Bachelors in Law (University of Stellenbosch), and a Masters in Business Leadership focusing on Corporate Strategy and Change Management (University of South Africa). She is a Fellow of the Institute of Coaching, McLean, Harvard Medical School.
Eric Potter P.Eng, CSP
Principal Strategy Consultant
Eric Potter encapsulates over 30 years of diverse business experience, where he has assumed the roles of President, Vice President, and COO in industries that span oil & gas, technology, alternative power, manufacturing, and mechanical services. During his professional career, he has disrupted niche markets by adapting existing products to growing markets – such as remote power for oil & gas well automation – and created significant growth – both locally and through export – to over 30 countries worldwide. Eric has a proven track record of developing and implementing business plans which have delivered results such as 20x revenue growth, and 2.5x market share growth in a mature market – during a recession.
Eric’s astute understanding of new businesses and their market dynamics, combined with a dedication to growing new business leaders, has been the constant theme of his successful career and has ultimately led him to become a passionate TEC Chair. Eric’s values of being a market-driven and customer-focused leader fuel him to create company cultures and business plans that align organizations with the potential for significant and sustainable growth. Few understand Canadian business leaders better, and Eric’s achievements in business make him committed to helping others achieve the same.
