E5 Jenn Tanabe from Vertical Measures and Kim Essendrup from Kolme Group
Kim Essendrup solves problems. For the last 20+ years, he’s been a Project Manager, Program Manager, PMO manager and consultant. He had lead international infrastructure and M&A programs, and delivered project management training and coaching to domestic and international clients as a PMI Registered Education Provider.
He is one of the founding partners of Kolme Group, LLC, which was started by three PMO managers who grew so tired of the accepted “status quo” of poor Project and Portfolio Management solutions, that they teamed up to bring Data Driven PPM to portfolio managers everywhere.
Kim is also the founder and co-host of the Project Management Happy Hour podcast, where he and his co-host Kate share honest discussion about Project Management, whether it’s chilled-out or on the rocks.
Connect with Kim on LinkedIn. You can also view Kolme Group’s free whitepapers comparing 100 PPM tools and key differentiators between PPM solutions.
Jenn Tanabe is a seasoned project manager who oversees Inverstis Digital’s (formerly Vertical Measures) project management team. She has nearly 10 years of digital marketing experience in strategy, content creation, SEO, amplification, lead nurture, and website development. At Vertical Measures, Jenn’s proactive, supportive and upbeat approach to leading the project management team helps in delivering successful projects to their clients.
In addition to leading her team, Jenn oversees the day-to-day team resource capacity and resource forecasting for the agency. She also project manages a few enterprise-level accounts, helping to plan, control scope, identify and mitigate risk, while effectively communicating with both her clients and her internal team.
Jenn is an Arizona local with an MBA from Arizona State University. She completed her undergraduate degree at The University of Arizona, where she majored in marketing. In her free time, she can be found walking her goldendoodle, Winston, cooking, checking out new restaurants, spending time with family and friends, riding her bike around town, watching sports, practicing yoga and enjoying the outdoors.
Connect with Jenn on LinkedIn and Twitter.
ABOUT PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE HOURS SERIES
Project Management Office Hours is intended to provide Project Management professionals a place to drop in and discuss Success Stories, Best Practices, and Lessons Learned. Project Management Consultant Joy Gumz has shared with us, “Operations keep the lights on, strategy provides the light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.”
Each of us has a unique story to tell, but collectively we share a message that organizations who embrace Project Management Best Practices perform better than those which don’t. Organizations which align Projects to Strategy perform better. Organizations with Engage Executive Sponsors deliver better results. Organizations which measure Project Management performance outperform those which don’t.
During our Project Management Office Hours, we hear directly from Industry leaders how to make an impact in our profession. How we, collectively, will Advance Project Management Best Practices, One Listener at a time!
ABOUT YOUR HOST
Joe Pusz started THE PMO SQUAD to bring real world PMO Leadership experience to the consulting space and to advocate for Project Management through his blog PMOJOE.com. The old saying is “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Following this mindset Joe left Corporate America in 2013 to start THE PMO SQUAD and work with fellow Natural Born Project Managers to advance Project Management Best Practices.
THE PMO SQUAD focuses exclusively on PMO and Project Management consulting. Corporate America is full of Accidental Project Managers running projects who haven’t been trained to be PMs. To help solve this problem THE PMO SQUAD is on the Leading Edge with PMO As a Service. PMO As a Service allows our clients to focus on their respective core competencies while THE PMO SQUAD delivers Project Management expertise. Contact Joe at 678-591-7868.
