Biographies

Stefanie Heiter, Partner

Stefanie Heiter is among the nation’s leading thinkers and consultants in the human side of virtual work. She helps people to think differently about leadership, team development, and communications, bringing about executable solutions to the challenges of bridging virtual distance. Stefanie’s strong background in change management allows her to easily adapt proven processes to local and distributed organizations. Her efforts enable people to create productive relationship across distance, while pulling them out of the email and meeting insanity, giving them back valuable time and focus.

As a pioneer, Stefanie’s research, consulting, and training experience in the world of dispersed, global teaming and leadership began 15 years ago, and continues today. Her clients include many of today’s leading businesses, such as Microsoft, Walgreens, Lockheed Martin, and Verizon. She has improved each of these firms’ ability to thrive in today’s virtual world by reducing, targeting, and/or improving their use of all virtual communications and relationships with customers, vendors, employees, and the public.

Stefanie has authored numerous published articles in the area of virtual leadership, teams and communications, and is currently finishing a book. In addition, she has created 6 training workshops used extensively by her firm and other distributors throughout companies around the world. These include The Virtual Leader™, The Advanced Virtual Leader, Electronic Body Language™, Virtual Work Essentials, The Dynamics of Virtual Teams, and Cross-Cultural Communications 2.0.

Prior to her consulting role, Stefanie has held various leadership titles, including Vice President and Director in both corporate and non-profit organizations. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Clark University and a Master of Science in Organization and Management from Antioch University, where her thesis focused on trust and communications in virtual teams.

When not at her client office locations, Stefanie works remotely from her home in Townsend, Massachusetts, but remains closely connected to her partners, distributors, clients and associates through technology.


Christopher C. Roland, Ed.D., Partner

For the past twenty years, Dr. Chris Roland has worked with individuals and their teams to develop and enhance trusting collaborative relationships and cultures that lead to increased work satisfaction and productivity.  His emphasis includes working with individuals and their teams to develop concrete methods of leading, communicating, and developing trust across today’s virtual work environments.

As a consultant, facilitator, and coach, Chris helps his clients strengthen leader effectiveness and to respond to the different kinds of distance that exist within distributed teams.  He understands the challenges of creating a trusting and collaborative relationship among teammates separated by generation, culture, technological skills, and geography.  Under Chris’s guidance, clients learn to respond to this distance and develop strong communcation channels and effective leadership skills.

Chris’s clients include Eli Lilly and Company, Sanofi-Aventis, Dyax Corporation, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Butler University, Indiana University, and Outward Bound Singapore.  Chris’s internal experience has included Planning & Training Specialist at the University of New Hampshire, Lecturer at Boston University, and Organizational Development Specialist at The Cheshire Medical Center, Keene, New Hampshire.

Chris received his doctorate in education from Boston University. His publications include Insights into Improving Organizational Performance (Quality Progress), The Ins and Outs of Experiential Training (Training & Development), and Do It…and Understand! The Bottom Line on Corporate Experiential Learning (Kendall-Hunt).

Pamela Campbell, Senior Consultant

Pamela Campbell is a Senior Consultant with Bridging Distance.  She has been a software developer, project manager, and people manager for 20 years in organizations such as MITRE, Synetics, and BEA Systems, Inc.  Ms. Campbell has managed many software projects, focusing most recently on risk assessment and cost and effort estimation.

Ms. Campbell has designed, implemented, and managed systems that include large databases, such as the AMVER system used by the US Coast Guard.  As an adjunct faculty member of Boston University she teaches Risk Management and Cost Estimation to Masters Candidates.

In addition, Ms. Campbell has extensive experience in training technical instructors to handle 8 hour, corporate-format courses.  Throughout that time her graduates maintained a student satisfaction score of 4.3 on a 5 point scale, with many able to consistently garner straight 5.0 scores from students.  Ms. Campbell holds a Masters degree from Bentley College in Computer Information Systems.

When not teaching in the classroom, she enjoys training her horses and handling her goats.

Matt Kayhoe, Senior Consultant

Matt Kayhoe has twenty years of experience in organizational leadership and improvement. He works with leaders of change projects to amplify participation and deliver tangible results, and is known for being able to walk into any organizational situation, focus those involved, and engage them to move forward successfully. His clients in this work include Pillsbury, Marriott, and the Chicago Tribune.

Matt also works directly with leaders in organizations as a thinking partner, coach, and advisor. He helps people to think differently, to engage in challenging situations with a fresh perspective, and to focus their energies on what is critically important to them and their organization. His clients in this work include senior executives at CIGNA, General Electric, and Prudential.

Matt’s education includes six years of postgraduate study in organizational theory and development through the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and the NTL Institute. He holds a B.S. in Management from New Hampshire College.

Kelly O’Boyle, Senior Consultant

Kelly O’Boyle brings to her clients a unique blend of project management, training, program management, and business process acumen that draw on her ability to think strategically while remaining detail-focused make her invaluable to teams’ success. As a Business Relationship Manager with 15 years of project/program implementation experience in multiple industries, she has developed critical competencies required to help clients with risk management, launching new enterprise technologies, and business transformation initiatives. She has taught Siebel and other enterprise-level software applications as well as serving as Business Process SME for distributed teams of trainers. She has lead large distributed teams on core system replacement programs and change management efforts. Traveling around the world for over three years working with teams has expanded her expertise in working with distributed organizations.

Kelly has worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, HP Solutions/EDS, Omnicare, and Queens Long Island Medical Group. Drawing on her wealth of experience in areas such as healthcare, high tech, and professional services, she works across multiple functions and industries. Kelly has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Business Administration from Johnson and Wales University.

When not at the office, she’s spending time with her three rescue dogs.


Mary Lou Jurgens, Senior Communications Coordinator

Mary Lou Jurgens participates in strategic program planning and message development and in the execution of multiple communication demands.  Her role is to ensure that accurate, timely, and compelling information is disseminated across various platforms under the leadership of the Bridging Distance executives.  Her business acumen, communication skills, innovation management, and organizational agility and planning, make her a valuable asset and exciting new addition to the Bridging Distance team.

Mary Lou’s diverse work history makes her an ideal addition to our small, dynamic team.  Her abilities span the spectrum of sales, marketing, management and leadership.  She has proven time and time again that she has what it takes to bring ideas to fruition.

On a personal level, Mary Lou is a passionate advocate for families, adults and children living with type 1 diabetes.  She currently holds the Advocacy Team Chair position for the New Hampshire branch of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  When not working or advocating, you are most likely to find Mary Lou out in the woods, hiking with her children and rescue dog.