Adena Johnston
Adena E. Johnston, Organizational Consultant & Coach
Principal, SNJ Insights and Complete School Solutions, LLC
Adena partners with individuals and organizations to help them become more effective and navigate the complexity of today’s challenges. She brings over 20 years of corporate experience and is a recognized leader, trainer, mentor and developer of top talent.
Adena specializes in building capacity with leaders, exposing them to mentoring and coaching skills to help accelerate the development and engagement of their teams. Adena’s signature practice is building a culture of accountability and aligning teams with organizational strategy. She creates the transformative environment necessary to foster positive change, inspire learning, and achieve results, all tailored to the uniqueness of each individual and team.
Consulting highlights include work in leadership development, talent and performance management, higher education systems, sales training, building core capacity and board/ management relationships. Adena holds deep knowledge in leadership, culture and change management, and brings years of experience in career development and outplacement work, along with coaching adults in transition.
Before starting her own firm Adena served as the regional leader of a for-profit educational institution with a 40 million dollar operating budget and a 150-person staff of sales, marketing, human resources, and operations across three profit centers, and responding to a student population of 2500. She has worked with some of the largest corporate education organizations in the country.
Adena serves on the Cheltenham Township Human Relations Commission and is a past member of both the University President’s Council of Select Philadelphia’s Chamber of Commerce and Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Council Advisory Board. She is certified in the Life Orientations Assessment (LIFO) and is a Core Capacity Assessment (CCAT) facilitator for non-profit organizations, and serves as an accreditation evaluator and chair for the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) since 1998. Adena has served as a facilitator for the Leadership Institute of the Career College Association (CCA) and the Management Institute of the Pennsylvania Association of Private School Administrators (PAPSA). She is an active member of National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and International Coaching Federation’s Philadelphia Chapter.
Adena is completing her MS (’13) in Organizational Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Case Western Reserve University.
“Partnering with Adena has truly been life changing. She has an amazing sense of awareness and is able to navigate complex issues creatively, while demonstrating the appropriate sensitivity needed in the moment. Adena is extremely insightful and very committed to my personal and professional development. It is with her guidance that I have made self-discoveries which will forever change the way that I interact with the world around me. I am truly grateful for her efforts and I look forward to our continued partnership.”
K. Blackman, HR Leader, Princeton University
“Adena Johnston has been instrumental in my development as a senior sales manager as well as my ability to implement and communicate solutions for higher productivity. She has a tremendous ability to communicate in a style that provides constructive feedback while role playing and teaching. Any company utilizing her services will benefit greatly and be happy they did.”
S. Cohen, Senior Sales Leader, Education Management Corporation