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Victoria Conner, Principal Victoria Conner is founder and principal of Strategic Vitality LLC, a consulting practice focused on broad-based, collaborative strategic planning and “creative consensus-building”. Strategic Vitality offers clients planning and facilitation for retreats, roundtables and forums. In addition, the organization offers collective stakeholder visioning and decision-making. Conner facilitated the statewide Aerospace Advisory Council reporting to Lt. Governor John Garamendi and the California Commission on Economic Development. She is implementation consultant to the California Space Authority for the California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan 2007-2010. Strategic Vitality led development of this collaborative, broad-based Plan in 2006, facilitating a six-month process involving 200 statewide stakeholders. She is currently engaged in start-up strategic planning activities for the 2010-2012 plan to address the needs and priorities of California’s $76 billion space enterprise community. Conner also has served on the Leadership Team for the California Innovation Corridor effort, a multi-year economic development, workforce and education initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Labor through the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency. She was responsible for the Project Leads Forum, which she designed to help integrate Corridor innovation support insights from the Initiative’s 25 independent projects. Conner was architect of the California Innovation Corridor collaborative proposal for the California Space Authority, which submitted, through the Governor’s office, one of the nation’s 13 successful proposals in response to the U.S. Department of Labor’s “Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development – WIRED” initiative. WIRED was a key DOL program created to align with the American Competitiveness Initiative. The $15M Corridor partnership initiative included 40+ funded organizational partners in thirteen California counties. Another example of Strategic Vitality work was the company’s leadership of a campus-wide strategic planning effort for Allan Hancock College in academic year 2007-2008. During the nine-month project, over 100 college administrators, faculty and staff were engaged in a collaborative retreat as well as dozens of constituency meetings, interviews and surveys. Creation of advisory boards and broad-based forums is a Strategic Vitality strength. Strategic Vitality developed an annual statewide supply chain forum and created the statewide Supply Chain Industry Advisory Group comprised of industry, NASA, military and supplier representatives. On the education front, Victoria Conner recruited a statewide science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) Steering Committee and coordinated three STEM forums to lay the foundation for development of the nation’s first statewide public/private collaborative plan for STEM enhancement. Banks and other clients have also benefited from Conner’s board and advisory group recruitment and coordination. Conner has also led strategic planning efforts for small nonprofit organizations over the past two decades. She has facilitated consensus-building among board directors in terms of a developing a common vision, reviewing mission statements, agreeing on organizational priorities, building short and long-term strategies and designing implementation plans. Strategic Vitality principal Victoria Conner has published in the Economic Development Journal of the International Economic Development Council and has presented at two national conferences (2006, 2007) of the national Association of Strategic Planning. She has been engaged in communications for over 30 years, with past professional work in public relations, marketing, human resources and teaching.
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