It was the early 1980s and Dr. Pat Heim was working in a Fortune 500 company. At one particularly rancorous meeting, she watched two male executives ripping each other’s ideas apart. Her stomach churned, witnessing such vitriol. Then when the meeting adjourned, one of them turned to the other and asked, “Wanna get a beer?”
This made no sense to Pat. How could they flip the switch so instantly? But she realized one thing: in order to be successful in business, she needed to better understand the rules of the male culture. With that, she began her lifelong study of gender differences.
Pat launched her career with her first book Hardball for Women: Winning at the Game of Business. Further study led her to write In the Company of Women with Dr. Susan Murphy. As she researched the differences between men and women, she recognized the value of each in the workplace. She began to show others how the problems between the two cultures could be remedied.
In 1985, Pat founded The Heim Group, LLC. Working side-by-side with Tammy Hughes, she created GenderSpeak. This workshop helps men and women learn about and value their differences and to speak each other’s language. GenderSpeak was launched in 1996. Companies worldwide now offer the workshop to help employees understand it’s not either/or, men or women; it’s both/and.
Today The Heim Group is a consultant team of highly-skilled and engaging speakers and facilitators dedicated to identifying and solving gender-related issues.
Meet the Team
Get to know the professionals at The Heim Group.
Dr. Pat Heim
Dr. Pat Heim, CEO and best-selling author, is recognized internationally as the expert on gender differences in the workplace. Since receiving her PhD in communication from the University of Colorado, Dr. Heim has published and conducted research in gender differences. Her books include Hardball for Women, which the Library Journal called a “landmark” publication, Smashing the Glass Ceiling, Learning to Lead and In the Company of Women. She established The Heim Group in 1985.
Before establishing The Heim Group, Dr. Heim was assistant vice president of management consulting and training for American Medical International. She was responsible for the development of the first corporate college in health care and the creation of a highly successful executive training program. She served as an internal consultant to management in over one hundred hospitals and businesses throughout the United States and abroad.
As a management and organizational development advisor at Rockwell International, Dr. Heim was responsible for a wide variety of management training and consulting programs.
Dr. Heim has taught at Loyola Marymount, University of Colorado, and San Diego State University.
Today, Dr. Heim remains with The Heim Group as CEO. She has turned the speaking responsibilities over to Tammy Hughes and others on the team. She remains entrenched in the study of gender differences and how those differences play out and effect men and women in the workplace and at home.
Speaker
Master Instructor
Executive Coach
Tammy Hughes
Tammy is a dynamic facilitator, presenter and business leader with over two decades of experience in a broad spectrum of organizations and industries around the globe. She launched her career at Xerox Corporation in their Corporate Education and Training Division. She began as a Training Director at The Heim Group in 1995, spearheaded the design of the highly successful GenderSpeak workshop, and became the President in 2005.
For 20 years, Tammy has explored the research on how women and men relate to and evaluate situations differently, depending on the lens they wear. Helping audiences understand what is functional and appropriate in both gender cultures drives her, so participants can wear both sets of lenses and read people more accurately and evaluate fairly. Participants’ response to Tammy as a session leader has been overwhelmingly positive. She is fascinated by and knowledgeable about gender and generational differences—and her passion permeates her energetic style. She paints the research with fun, real-life stories from the workplace and personal life.
Traveling around the globe, Tammy delivers humorous/content-rich keynotes, executive sessions and workshops. Additionally, she offers coaching and panel moderation. Some of her clients include: McDonald’s Corporation, Procter & Gamble, GE, Google, Credit Suisse, ESPN, Microsoft, Deutsche Telekom, and UBS.
She holds a BAAS degree from Midwestern State University in Texas. With Pat Heim, Tammy is co-author of the third edition of Hardball for Women (Plume, 2015). Tammy is the author of a White Paper, “Born in One Generation, Thinking Like Another”. Tammy lives in Texas. She is married and has two young-adult sons in college.
Speaker
Master Trainer
Jeanie Litteken
Jeanie has been with the Heim Group since 2002. She delivers the GenderSpeak Workshop and keynotes with great energy and humor, possessing a savvy skill of engaging her participants to interact with the content. She has experience working with a variety of industries and is known for creating an environment where participants can relax and enjoy the learning journey.
Jeanie orchestrates all of our GenderSpeak Train-The-Trainer sessions, and is passionate about helping others become GenderSpeak facilitators. Her clients include: P&G, GE, Pratt & Whitney, Michellin, Allergan, BP, Brinker Int’l, FedEx, EMC and Deutsche Telekom.
As a volunteer, Jeanie has served on various steering committees helping plan special community workshops and events sponsored by the Junior League, American Cancer Society. Jeanie holds a degree in Curriculum & Instruction from Texas A&M University. She and her husband have a son and daughter, both married, and she enjoys music, running, mentoring women, and spending time with the grandkids.
Joe Fullmer
Senior Trainer
Executive Coach
Dr. Robin D. Johnson
Dr. Robin Johnson designs and facilitates seminars such as: Managing the Challenges of Diversity; Basic Business Acumen; and Designing and Managing Diverse Teams for Effectiveness and GenderSpeak. She has been active as faculty director, co-designer and/or teacher in executive education programs at both the Anderson School of Business at UCLA and the Darden Business School at UVA. Executive education courses include a Leadership Suite for Minority Executives (e.g. African American, Women, Latino, and GLBT Managers), a Head Start Directors Management Development Training, the Advanced Human Resource Management Training Program and the Principal’s Leadership Institute of California. Some of her clients have included Standard and Poor’s, The City of Compton, CA, Earthlink-Mindspring, IBM, Kodak, LL. Bean, Xerox, AT&T Transtech, CSX Transportation, Campbell-Ewald Advertising, Chrysler Corporation, Crestar Bank, First of America Bank, First Interstate Bank, Ingelwood, CA School District, Nortel, M&M Mars and Southwestern Bell.
Prior to completing her doctorate and becoming a professor, Robin worked as an International Corporate Finance Manager and Lending Officer for 10 years. She started her teaching experience teaching finance and international trade at Chase Manhattan Bank to new trainees. Her Diversity management experience began while she was working as a finance professional at McDonald’s Corporation who was asked to train other line managers in the early 80’s in Managing the Changing Workforce seminars. She speaks English and French fluently, and converses in Italian and Flemish.
Dr. Johnson has a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior, Harvard University – award-winning dissertation, M.A. in Social Psychology, Harvard; MBA studies – first year honors, B.A. in International Relations and History, Brown University and an Exchange with University Sains Penang, Malaysia.
Conner Hughes
Isabelle Pujol
Experience with cross cultural teams and leading international projects in various parts of the world, has given Isabelle knowledge of the challenges and opportunities facing a large global organizations.
Isabelle began her distinguished career with BP in the External Affairs department and from there moved to Commercial, Internal Communication and Marketing at the European Head Office. She created the Diversity Network, introduced mentoring and job shadowing programs in Europe. While at BP’s Corporate Head Office, Isabelle served as Group Diversity and Inclusion Manager for Europe and the Mille East.She has also served as a member of the German Leadership Integration Team as well as Diversity and Inclusion Manager for BP in Germany and France and was elected to the Supervisory Board BP Marketing- Germany. She has received the Opportunity Now award in the UK and was responsible for launching GenderSpeak in BP.
Dividing her time between France and Belgium, Isabelle now uses her expertise to provide strategic D&I consulting, design and facilitate seminars to help individuals value and leverage the diversity of their workforce. She is passionate about GenderSpeak and serves as a senior trainer for the Heim Group in Europe.
Isabelle has a Degree in Business Administration and communication. She is married to Jean-Marc, and they have a son and daughter.
Matthew Weed
Matt has been facilitating GenderSpeak since 2004 when he discovered the workshop and encouraged his employer to bring the lessons to all of its 7000+ employees.
He has worked in the insurance industry for more than 25 years, with extensive experience in training, workshop facilitation and program management. At Safeco Insurance, as Training Manager he trained and certified trainers in insurance and customer service skills; as Human Resources Development Manager he focused on leadership skills: teaching management courses, directing development programs and providing individual consulting to all levels of leadership. With PEMCO Insurance, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Matt has developed new training programs, conducted training in service skills and product knowledge, and been a member of the leadership development faculty.
Born and raised in Seattle, Matt is a graduate of the University of Washington, with a degree in Business Administration. He is active in the community, teaching economics and marketing as a Junior Achievement and DECA Consultant in local high schools; and as a board member of SightConnection, a non-profit organization enhancing the ability of people with vision loss to lead active, independent lives.
Dominic Scaffidi
Dominic’s personal mission is to inspire greatness!
As a certified executive coach, Dominic works with people in a variety of organizations as they take on challenges including new roles, dealing with significant change/transition and big goals/projects. His approach is to engage with clients through intentional conversations that generate new thinking and insights that open up actions beyond their current limits. He is also committed to helping leaders engage the full potential of their people and does extensive work in training managers to develop coaching skills.
Dominic brings more than 20 years of business experience through senior roles in Human Resources and Sales Management in leading edge global organizations across a variety of industries including consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical, software, telecommunications and retail. Past corporate roles include VP HR at Loblaw Companies Ltd (Canada’s largest retailer and private sector employer), North American HR Director at Open Text Corporation (software) and Diversity Manager at Procter & Gamble.
Dominic is a graduate of the University of Toronto (U of T) where he completed his Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Economics. He has also completed graduate level certification programs at the Rotman School of Management (U of T) and at Royal Roads University. He is a Certified Human Resources Professional and a Certified Executive Coach.
In addition to his professional pursuits, Dominic is a past officer and director of The Hunger Project (Canada); a non-profit organization empowering women and men to end their own hunger. He recently leveraged his love of running to raise thousands of dollars for The Hunger Project while completing his first marathon. Dominic lives just outside Toronto, Ontario where he enjoys creating and living a life that he loves with his wife and two children.