About the Owners
Darcy Hitchcock and Marsha Willard are the founders of
AXIS Performance Advisors.
- Published the
award-winning book, The Business Guide to
Sustainability (Earthscan, 2006, 2009) and eight other
popular business books on topics ranging from sustainability, teamwork,
trust, work redesign and total quality management.
- Created the S-CORE sustainability
assessment.
- Teach in the prestigious Bainbridge Graduate Institute's MBA
in Sustainable Business , as well as classes for the
University of Oregon and Presidio's MBA.
- Founded the International
Society of Sustainability Professionals.
- Certified by the Global Reporting Initiative as a
sustainability report writer
- For over two years, hosted the Sustainable Today TV show.
- In business since 1990, with
backgrounds in organizational change, teamwork, facilitation and training.
How we came to do this work: In the
early 1990's, Darcy and Marsha became nationally recognized as experts in the
implementation of high-performance (self-directed) work teams. They offered
consulting, training, site visits and conferences to help organizations push
accountability lower in their organizations. They coached managers to become
more empowering and helped redesign business systems to support the team
culture. Through these efforts, they were able to improve the financial
performance of their clients, the work lives of the employees, and the
quality/service customers enjoyed.
In 1995, they hosted a think tank on the just emerging
buzzword: sustainability. During that think tank, it became clear that Marsha
and Darcy had left out a key stakeholder: the environment. Improved
organizational performance often came at the expense of natural systems. This
epiphany led to their refocusing their business on sustainability, where the
economy, community and environment are not traded off against one another, but
instead are jointly optimized.
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Marsha
Willardis CEO of AXIS. She began her
career as an instructional designer, having earned a Ph.D. in
instructional technology from the University of Southern California.
She was president of the local chapter of the American Society for
Training and Development and taught graduate level classes on
instructional strategies. Her experience has led her to design
leading-edge web-based instruction for two universities. Her
facilitation skills have earned the respect of her clients in resolving
long-standing disputes. As senior examiner for the Oregon Performance
Excellence Award, Marsha has also developed expertise in quality audits
and performance measurement and is a GRI-certified sustainability
report writer.
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Darcy Hitchcock is president of AXIS Performance Advisors. Prior to
forming AXIS, she was the director of a national training company,
developing packaged training programs and consulting with a number of
Fortune 100 firms. There, she developed a reputation for innovative
management techniques and creative learning strategies. Having
published scores of articles, booklets and books, Darcy has a knack for
making complex theory easy to understand and implement. In addition to
all the business books she's written, she also published a novella +
discussion guide, Dragonf'ly's Question, to teach a wider audience
about sustainability.
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Darcy Hitchcock * darcy(at)axisperformance.com * 503
288-7704
Marsha Willard * marsha(at)axisperformance.com * 503
284-9132
AXIS is based in Portland, Oregon, USA
