Breaking the Cycle. Building Better Leaders.

Elaine Blackwood is an Associate Consultant at Odyssey. She is also the Founder and CEO of Richwood Consulting Group, LLC. Elaine blends legal expertise, executive coaching mastery, and sharp organizational insight to help leaders and teams break unproductive workplace cycles—once and for all. With a decade dedicated to executive coaching, impartial workplace investigations, and team development, Elaine equips organizations not only to resolve conflict but to prevent it. Elaine’s career began as an employment litigator before she transitioned into workplace investigations. After witnessing the same organizational patterns repeat—talented people promoted without leadership training, managers unsure how to correct missteps, and one-off workshops that never become culture—Elaine made it her mission to help teams finally break the cycle. Her work empowers leaders to see themselves clearly, communicate effectively, and build cultures where people thrive.

Leadership Development & Culture Strategy

Elaine thrives on helping leaders reach “Ah Ha” moments that illuminate exactly where growth is needed. Drawing on her deep knowledge of employment law, behavioral science, and organizational dynamics, she guides executives and senior leaders in resolving workplace challenges with clarity and confidence. Her coaching and facilitation fosters workplaces that are not only harmonious but genuinely high performing.

Working with Elaine

Known for her creativity, candor, and willingness to get in the trenches, Elaine brings both rigor and heart to her coaching and facilitation. When supporting a police recruitment initiative, she even joined agility tests to demonstrate solidarity and commitment. She helps leaders identify strengths, align talent effectively, and avoid costly pitfalls such as poor job fit and quiet quitting.

Understanding that transformation doesn’t happen in a single session, Elaine provides ongoing coaching, personality assessments, and leadership tools that help clients build lasting habits and make better decisions long after the engagement ends. When appropriate, she incorporates mind–body principles into coaching, reflecting her belief that strong leaders care for both mental and physical well-being.

“Outside of work”                                                                                              

Elaine lives in Connecticut with her husband and the last cat rescued during the pandemic. A regular exerciser and former volunteer with foster youth, she brings the lessons of empowerment and generosity into her leadership philosophy. A former ballroom dancer, she can occasionally be found revisiting her favorite moves.

Qualifications and experience at a glance

• JD, Syracuse University College of Law
• BA, Johns Hopkins University
• Admitted to the New York & Connecticut Bars
• Certification in Advanced Workplace Investigations – Cornell University
• Certification – Association of Workplace Investigators
• American Arbitration Association – Employment Law Panel
• ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC)
• DiSC Certified practitioner

Skills

• Executive and remedial coaching
• Cultural assessments
• Leadership development and mentoring
• Team facilitation and building
• Employee relations coaching
• DiSC assessment and interpretation

Executive Coach and experienced HR professional with over 15 years HR experience, including 13 years at Morgan Stanley where she advised and coached leaders and managers on a wide range of people related matters. As a former Senior HR Business Partner and Senior Talent Advisor to revenue clients, Chloe understands the commercial realities that leaders face and how people and culture directly impact performance. Having worked closely with senior leaders, she understands the organisational dynamics, performance pressures and human factors that influence results. Her experience in Investment Banking underpins her coaching and facilitation style and allows her to work with leaders in a practical and commercial way.

Leadership and Management development

Having seen first-hand the impact of leader and manager quality on the employee experience, Chloe is passionate about supporting both to perform at their best, whilst recognising the demands and challenges that the roles present. She believes it is important that managers are supported early on in their management journey, ensuring that they build the skills and confidence needed to lead effectively from the start, integrating their management responsibilities in their existing role and pathing the way for their future success. Chloe has designed and facilitated management development programmes within an Investment Banking environment, supporting managers to lead effectively in a fast-paced, high-performance environment.

Working with Chloe

Chloe is commercially minded and is focused on impactful training with a demonstrable return on investment. She is passionate about stepping leaders and managers towards change, helping them turn insight into impact. Chloe understands the time pressures that leaders and managers operate under and prioritises development that is focused, practical and immediately applicable in the flow of work. Chloe is described as being highly engaging with an authentic and open approach. Her coaching and facilitation style is natural and warm, creating space for reflection, but also with an appropriate level of challenge, moving coachees towards pragmatic outcomes. She helps managers and leaders build self-awareness that directly impacts how they lead, communicate and perform – driving stronger teams, clearer accountability and better commercial outcomes.

Outside of work

Chloe has two small children and leads a very active lifestyle, largely driven by their social calendars! She is passionate about the benefits of walking and can often be found walking along the seafront where she lives listening to a podcast.

Qualifications and experience at a glance

• July 2024 : Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching, Academy of Executive Coaching
• October 2022: Lumina Spark Practitioner
• July 2012 : Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resource Management, Anglia Ruskin University
• July 2009 : BA (Hons) Politics, University of York

Skills

• Investment Banking experience
• Strong communicator
• Engaging and impactful facilitation style
• Executive coaching
• Small group workshops / coaching
• Bespoke session design and development

An experienced operational and client management professional, Becci has worked in the business support and operational development arena for 20 years. As a former Barrister’s Clerk Becci brings clarity and organisation to a business allowing her colleagues to thrive in delivering their best work. She understands the need for clear communication and clear expectation when running a project and seeks to make the experience of working with her as positive as possible.

Problem solving and collaboration are the parts of any operational support role that Becci enjoys the most as she genuinely loves to connect with people. She understands the importance of a solid foundation for a business to allow it to run efficiently and deliver the best work possible.

Becci loves meeting new people and getting to know them, she is very social by nature. She takes this love of connection and uses it as the foundation for client care. She understands how to listen to what people need and what they are looking for and applies this to her work, flexing and tweaking processes and ways of working to provide the best experience possible.

Outside of work

Becci has two children, one dalmatian, three cats, and five chickens at her rural home and spends a lot of her spare time making sure they are all well looked after. She also likes to get her hands dirty with some DIY in her renovation project of a house. She volunteers locally and sits as a Governor on the committee of her local primary school.

Qualifications and experience at a glance

• 2004 LLB (Hons), Northumbria University
• 2006 – 2014 – Barrister’s clerk
• 2015 – 2021 – Self-employed virtual assistant and operations
• 2021 – 2026 – Training consultancy operations
• 2026 – Present – Head of Client Experience and Operations

Skills

• Finance Administration
• People management
• IT and software implementation
• Logistics planning
• Document drafting