Executive Advisor | Strategic On-Demand CHRO | Business Transformation & People Strategy Leader
Fully committed. Immediately impactful. Built around your business.
Marijke O'Connor Woodruff is an award-winning executive leader, strategic business partner, and trusted advisor with more than 20 years of experience helping organizations accelerate growth, lead transformation, and build high-performing cultures. In that time she has helped scale companies from $100M to more than $600M in revenue — guiding growth, transformation, and change as a senior operator, not an observer.
As the founder of M. Consulting, Marijke believes that people are the greatest catalyst for business success. A business leader first, she partners with CEOs, founders, executive teams, and boards to align people strategy with business strategy — creating organizations that are agile, innovative, and positioned for sustainable growth.
Her expertise spans strategic HR leadership, organizational effectiveness, workforce strategy, leadership development, change management, mergers and acquisitions, culture transformation, and HR digital enablement. She is recognized for translating complex business challenges into practical, measurable solutions that improve organizational performance, strengthen leadership capability, and deliver long-term value.
Marijke has successfully led organizations through rapid growth, executive transitions, organizational redesign, cultural transformation, and M&A due diligence and post-acquisition integration. She combines operational discipline with strategic vision, helping organizations harmonize people, processes, technology, and culture while ensuring employees remain engaged and aligned throughout periods of change.
A strong advocate for leveraging technology and artificial intelligence to enhance — not replace — the human experience, Marijke helps organizations modernize HR, improve decision-making, and create scalable systems that drive productivity and business results.
Esse Quam Videri
To be, rather than to seem.
Marijke lives by this motto — from The Academy of the Holy Names — as a standard for how she leads, partners, and shows up. Substance over appearance. Integrity over image. The work is real because she is.
Cincinnati Business Courier
Executive Leadership Experience
Healthcare, Media, PE-Backed, Nonprofit
American Red Cross Board National Leadership Award & Various Commercial Boards
Untethered: A Wildly Different Normal
Organizational Transformation • Leadership Development
Building the organizational capability to execute strategy, accelerate growth, and outperform the competition.
Leading organizations through rapid growth, M&A and enterprise-wide transformation while protecting business value, accelerating integration, and keeping execution on track.
Leveraging AI and digital technology to modernize HR, sharpen decision-making, and build the organizational capability that drives productivity, performance, and competitive advantage.
Building leadership capability at every level — developing executives, strengthening the talent pipeline, and creating a culture of continuous growth that drives performance, retention, and long-term competitive advantage.
Serving as a senior business partner to CEOs and executive teams — connecting strategy, people, culture, and operations to accelerate growth and deliver results.
A practical framework for leading restructures, leadership transitions, and strategic shifts — keeping people aligned and momentum intact while the organization changes.
Beyond the boardroom, Marijke is deeply committed to servant leadership and community engagement. She served for more than a decade on the American Red Cross of Cincinnati Board of Directors, where she received a Leadership Award in recognition of her service and impact. She is also an active volunteer and committee member for Croquet for a Cure, supporting Alzheimer's research and care initiatives.
Marijke is passionate about the power of storytelling to inspire change. She serves as a producer of the documentary Untethered: A Wildly Different Normal, a film that explores connection, resilience, intentional living, and redefining success through a more meaningful lens.
She earned her Bachelor of Science in Communication from Bradley University, where she was a four-time National Speech Champion. She graduated high school from The Academy of the Holy Names in Tampa, Florida — where Esse Quam Videri first took root as a personal standard she still leads by today.
Published
Our first article explores 10 principles of a purpose-first, people-first culture in small business.
Read on LinkedIn →