Lisa Karlisch, Ph.D.

Dr. Lisa Karlisch runs her own strategic consulting firm, Sparkfire Strategy, focused on serving corporations, foundations and non-profit institutions in the social services, education, and health care markets. She helps organizations set their strategic direction, build sustainable business models, and establish effective organizational systems/structures to optimize the execution of their missions. She also works extensively with senior executives and management teams to develop leadership skills, build effective teams and design high performing organizations. Lisa believes in the importance of driving strategy through execution to enable organizations to deliver results.

Lisa has a broad base of both operational and consulting experience in both non-profit and commercial organizations. She served as chief program officer at the Center for Multicultural Human Services, a community mental health organization dedicated to serving the needs of immigrants and refugees. Lisa was chief administrative officer for Buchanan & Edwards, a government IT consulting firm, where she led all of the support functions of the organization. Lisa’s consulting experience began at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, where she focused in the health care and non-profit sectors.

Lisa received her Ph.D. in clinical child psychology from Duke University. She also has a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech in psychology and sociology. She played volleyball at Virginia Tech where she was the second female athlete to have her jersey retired. She was also named NCAA Academic American of the Year for all sports and was recognized as one of the top 10 NCAA Women of the Year.