Northern Illinois University
Northern Illinois Center for Nonprofit Excellence

Stephanie Kusibab is a strategy consultant with more than twenty years’ experience identifying and implementing strategic initiatives for organizations ranging in size from start-ups to those on Fortune’s Global 500 list.

She is the founder and CEO of Essentiam, a strategy consultancy partnering with associations, professional societies, non-profit, and for-profit organizations to capture market opportunities, instill focus, build leadership capacity, enable mission achievement, and accelerate growth.

Stephanie believes the most powerful ideas come from bringing people together. Through deliberate, structured interactions digitally and in-person, she helps organizations tackle high-stakes conversations, mine diverse perspectives, generate new ideas, build stronger teams, and understand market opportunities.

Stephanie can quickly understand and assess a situation and identify growth opportunities across any industry or profession. As a skilled facilitator she leads high-stakes conversations and governance training that resets expectations and establishes ground rules for ongoing success of teams and boards of directors. Stephanie also helps organizational leaders guide their teams during uncertain times with leadership and change management training and serves as a sounding board and unbiased observer to help identify opportunities for improved performance. 

Stephanie is committed to equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism. She co-led implementation of a DEI initiative for the Legal Marketing Association and served on the inaugural executive leadership team of the SmithBucklin InCouncil.

Stephanie is currently on the international board of directors for the Association for Strategic Planning (ASP), and contributed to ASP’s Body of Knowledge 3.0 with sections on shared visioning, culture, facilitation, and teamwork.

When she is not working, Stephanie is a dedicated baseball and football mom and enjoys international travel and boating with her husband and son.

Stephanie’s areas of skill include:

• Strategic Planning
• Governance and Leadership
• Mission
• Program Development and Evaluation
• Team Building
• Organizational Culture
• Market Research (Quantitative and Qualitative: Surveys, Interviews, Focus Groups, Community Listening Sessions)