Heather Gowdy, MBA, brings experience in both the private and nonprofit sectors to her work with La Piana Associates.  She has worked with nonprofits as a volunteer, staff member, consultant, trainer, and board member.  As a consultant, her work has focused on strategic restructuring, organizational analysis and structure, business plan development, strategic planning, and management information systems design and implementation.

Though currently an independent contractor with La Piana Associates, Heather was one of the firm’s original employees, and played a lead role in designing and implementing La Piana Associate’s Strategic Solutions Project, a foundation-funded initiative aimed at increasing the awareness of the nonprofit sector of the potential value of strategic restructuring activities, such as mergers, joint ventures, and administrative consolidations.  Heather served as Strategic Solutions’ Project Manager for its first three years, conducting research; writing case studies and articles; designing and leading training sessions for consultants, nonprofits, and funders; facilitating negotiations between nonprofit organizations; and co-authoring The Nonprofit Mergers Workbook, Part II: Unifying the Organization after a Merger (2004).

Heather received her Master of Business Administration degree from the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, where she concentrated on nonprofit management.  While attending business school, she worked as a Business Development Associate at Ashbury Images, a nonprofit screen printing shop that employs and trains persons recovering from homelessness and substance abuse.  She has also done research on the specialized accounting needs and practices of nonprofit organizations running business enterprises, and on the relationship between national organizations and their affiliates.

Prior to attending Haas, Heather worked as a technical specialist at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, a large corporate law firm in Washington, D.C.  There she designed, developed, and implemented proprietary information management systems for large litigations, specializing in case management and business development.

In addition to her MBA from University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, Heather holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Cornell University, and has also studied at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England.