PEGGY HILLER
I help mission-driven organizations solve the people and relational challenges that are getting in the way of the mission.
Through facilitation, structured systems, and more than 25 years of leading from the inside.
You are the Executive Director or CEO. You see the people challenges that get in the way of the mission.
You see the board member who arrived with an agenda and hasn’t let it go. The new board chair who is still finding their footing. The team that used to pull together and has quietly stopped. The CEO transition that looked fine on paper and isn’t.
These are people and relationship challenges. They are not solved by another staff meeting or a new policy. They are solved by someone who understands the human dynamics of mission-driven organizations — and who can sit in the room with you and help you work through them.
Board chairs face their own version of this. The new CEO arrived and the work that comes after the search — building the relationship, building the trust, building the structure — came without instructions. That work doesn’t have to be carried alone either.
You don’t have to figure this out alone.
Start with a conversation. No cost, no commitment.
Most ED/CEOs who reach out don’t know exactly which problem they’re trying to solve. They know something isn’t working. That’s enough to start.
In a free one-hour conversation, we talk through what’s happening in your organization — the board dynamics, the leadership challenges, the team friction, whatever is on your mind. By the end, you’ll have a clearer picture of what’s going on and what, if anything, would help.
No agenda. No sales pitch. Just an honest conversation with someone who has been inside organizations like yours.
How I Can Help
Each service begins with a free audit or conversation. Every engagement is tailored to your organization.
Leadership Transition Systems
The CEO/ED Leadership Transition System
A three-phase system that builds the structure, the relationship, and the trust that a successful CEO transition requires — before the first day, through the first year, and into steady state. The system that began with my book.
The Board Chair Transition System
Every time the board chair changes, the ED/CEO effectively starts over. This system builds the working relationship between the incoming chair and the ED/CEO before the first gavel falls — and sustains it through the first year.
From Supporter to Board Member
A consistent, repeatable onboarding system that gets new board members contributing confidently by their second meeting — and takes the burden of building it off staff.
Mission and Culture Systems
The Internal Culture Reboot
When the team has quietly stopped pulling together — the turnover, the friction, the energy shift that no one can quite name — a structured facilitated workshop that produces real working agreements and a culture the team builds together.
Reigniting the Mission
When the passion for the mission has gone quiet — among staff, the board, or stakeholders — a structured assessment and facilitated process to reconnect people to why the work matters.
Available by inquiry.
Board Dynamics Reboot
When the board has lost its way as a functioning unit — personal agendas, communication breakdowns, or a governance culture that is getting in the way of the mission — a structured intervention to rebuild how the board works together.
Available by inquiry.
When to Call Me
You don’t need to have it figured out. These are the situations where the conversation tends to be most useful.
Leadership is changing
- A new CEO is arriving and you want to set them up to succeed
- A new board chair is coming in and the handoff needs to be more than ceremonial
- New board members are joining and the onboarding isn’t working
- A past transition didn’t go as planned and you want this one to be different
Something isn’t working
- The board and the ED/CEO aren’t communicating well
- Staff turnover is rising and you’re not sure why
- The team has friction that is slowing everything down
- Board members are bringing individual agendas into a room that needs collective thinking
- The energy in the organization has shifted and no one can quite name why
The mission feels distant
- The mission is still on the wall but the team has quietly stopped believing it
- The board has lost sight of why they serve
- Stakeholders are less engaged than they used to be
- You need an outside perspective on what’s actually happening
Why I Know This Work
I have sat in the CEO’s chair during a leadership transition that failed. Not because of poor performance. Not because of lack of effort or capability. Because no one built the structure the transition needed, and no one knew that was their job.
Nineteen months after I was hired as CEO of a national membership organization, I was asked to resign. I spent the following year trying to understand what happened. Not to assign blame, but to find the pattern.
What I found was this: two groups of well-intentioned people, a board and a new CEO, each assumed the other had it handled. The board had done everything right in the search. They had found the right person. What no one had built was the foundation that made the relationship work after the offer letter was signed.
That is not a failure of character. It is a failure of structure. And it happens, in some version, in organizations everywhere.
The organization paid a significant price. More than $250,000 in hard costs: severance, a failed search, interim leadership. But the deeper costs were harder to measure. Months of staff uncertainty. Lost organizational momentum. The erosion of confidence on both sides of a relationship that never had the chance to find its footing. I lost something too. A reputation I had spent a career building and the confidence that came with it.
I spent that year building what was missing. The result is a practical system for boards and their leaders — the work that happens before a new CEO arrives, through their first year, and into the trust that makes leadership sustainable. That system is now a published book and the foundation of my consulting practice.
I bring this work to organizations as someone who has lived the transition from the inside. I know what the new CEO needs and cannot ask for. I know what the board chair is carrying and how to make it lighter. I know what it takes for a team to reconnect with the mission they came to serve. And I know that when this work is done well, it becomes something the organization builds on for years.
You took on something that doesn’t come with a manual. I built one. And I am here to help you use it.
My Experience
I spent 17 years as Vice President of Operations at Arapahoe Basin, overseeing multi-million dollar operations and building the kind of team culture that high-pressure, high-turnover environments require. I then served as CEO of PSIA-AASI, a nationwide membership organization with 34,000 members across eight regions. That CEO tenure ended after 19 months, not because of failure in the role, but because the transition lacked the structure to succeed.
I spent the following year reverse-engineering what went wrong. The result is my three-phase Leadership Transition Architecture System, built from that experience and now the foundation of my consulting practice.
That system is now the basis of my published book, Putting Success into Succession: How Boards Turn a New CEO into a Lasting Success (Enlighten PressWorks, 2026).
The backbone of how I work is facilitation. Over more than 25 years I have facilitated c-suite retreats, full-staff sessions for groups of 50 and more, board working sessions, and the most difficult organizational conversations — across complex operations, a national association, and mission-driven organizations at every stage. I hold an SPHR certification and have spent my career working from the inside of organizations like yours.
The Book
I spent the year after my CEO tenure ended reverse-engineering what went wrong. Not to assign blame, but to build something boards could actually use.
Putting Success into Succession: How Boards Turn a New CEO into a Lasting Success is the result. It is a practical guide for board chairs navigating the work that happens alongside and after the search, when the stakes are highest and the support is most often missing.
If you want to understand the system before we talk, start here.
Putting Success Into Succession on Amazon | Sample Text from Book
The mission is what matters. Let’s make sure the people systems support it.
Whether you’re navigating a leadership transition, rebuilding a team, or trying to understand what’s getting in the way — start with a conversation. No cost, no commitment, no agenda.
You don’t have to figure this out alone. Let’s talk.