{"id":7941,"date":"2026-07-08T10:46:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/?page_id=7941"},"modified":"2026-08-20T15:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T22:37:00","slug":"jen-oryan-phd","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/coaching-and-organizational-consulting\/meet-the-consultants\/jen-oryan-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"Jen O&#8217;Ryan, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-935 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/02\/ORyan_BioPic.jpg\" alt=\"Consultant Jen O&apos;Ryan\" width=\"221\" \/><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"h3 alt\">PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT<\/h2>\n<p>Dr. Jen O\u2019Ryan is a organizational change leader, specializing in the transition of employees, processes, and workflows into new systems (domestic and international). She brings a unique perspective, combining a PhD in Human Behavior with 15+ years of experience translating business strategies into achievable, real-world implementation. Focus areas include operational resilience, ethical AI and automation, and cross-functional development.<\/p>\n<p>Jen\u2019s approach is to meet people where they are and be that trusted guide through change.<br \/>\nShe is also the author of two books on building inclusive organizations, leading teams during uncertainty, and bringing others along on the journey.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"h3 alt\">Areas of specialization<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Change Management<\/li>\n<li>Workflow Optimization, Improvement, and Design<\/li>\n<li>User Experience and Process Architecture<\/li>\n<li>Cross-Functional Team Development<\/li>\n<li>Strategic Planning and Communication<\/li>\n<li>Workshops and Facilitation<\/li>\n<li>Project Implementation and Evaluation<\/li>\n<li>Workplace Culture and Community<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"h3 alt\">Experience\/selected projects<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Change Management: <\/strong>Led the end-to-end organizational change strategy for new systems and applications. Collaborated across multiple groups (engineering, legal, compliance, people managers) to minimize disruption, align business goals, and manage risk. Developed communication plans, enablement strategies, and success metrics.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Process and Experience Assessment:<\/strong> Specialized in mapping workflows, process, and system dependencies to clarify business requirements. Mapped end-to-end user journeys to identify gaps, functional overlap, and opportunities for intelligent automation. Developed plans to improve utilization and workload balancing.<\/li>\n<li><strong>User Enablement:<\/strong> Built the user enablement roadmap, readiness assessments, and learner strategies for both early pilot groups and broader user cohorts. Designed and tested application guides, learning modes, and support models to accelerate user proficiency. Defined user success criteria and assessment plan to measure over time.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Adoption and Engagement<\/strong>: Incorporated behavioral insights to refine product messaging and increase long-term engagement. Applied knowledge of experimental design and A\/B testing to evaluate engagement, performance, and sustained adoption. Increased training completion rates to 99.5% from 95.8% across a global employee population of ~42,000, by using a human-centered design to drive positive behaviors.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cross-Functional Facilitation:<\/strong> Orchestrated across functions to manage risk, negotiate trade-offs, and streamline implementation. Collaborated with leadership to mitigate bottlenecks or friction across teams. Facilitated workshops and strategic planning sessions across business owners with competing priorities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"h3 alt\">Credentials<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>15+ years leading enterprise-wide initiatives (domestic and international), optimizing cross-functional workflows and processes, driving product and feature development through release (including Microsoft, Amazon)<\/li>\n<li><span data-contrast=\"none\">Author of two books on the subject:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span data-contrast=\"none\">&#8220;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/mr4672a9\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">What&#8217;s Behind Your Brand?: A Style Guide for Humanizing Your Content<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">&#8220;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-contrast=\"none\">&#8220;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/yc8xek8c\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Inclusive AF: A Field Guide for &#8216;Accidental&#8217; Diversity Experts<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">&#8220;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>PhD \u2013 Human Behavior, Capella University<\/li>\n<li>MBA \u2013 University of Phoenix<\/li>\n<li>BA \u2013 University of Washington<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"h3 alt\">Selected clients<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Washington Board of Pilotage Commissioners<\/li>\n<li>Puget Sound Pilots<\/li>\n<li>Jennifer Brown (Jennifer Brown Consulting)<\/li>\n<li>Larson Textbooks (Math, K-12)<\/li>\n<li>WellSpring EAP<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT Dr. Jen O\u2019Ryan is a organizational change leader, specializing in the transition of employees, processes, and workflows into new systems (domestic and international). She brings a unique perspective, combining a PhD in Human Behavior with 15+ years of experience translating business strategies into achievable, real-world implementation. Focus areas include operational resilience, ethical AI and automation, and cross-functional development. Jen\u2019s approach is to meet people where they are and be that trusted guide through change. She is also the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":5654,"parent":571,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"no","slim_seo":{"title":"Jen O'Ryan, PhD - Professional &amp; Organizational Development","description":"PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT Dr. Jen O\u2019Ryan is a organizational change leader, specializing in the transition of employees, processes, and workflows into new systems (d"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-7941","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8149,"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7941\/revisions\/8149"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hr.uw.edu\/pod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}