Rhonda Schuldt, MBA, is President of The Synergos Group LLC(TM), a private consulting practice providing management, marketing, and strategic consulting for early stage and evolving companies and initiatives. The firm specializes in optimizing organizational outcomes through results-focused strategic and business planning, organizational and market assessment, partnerships and collaborations.
In 2005 she launched Passionate Food(TM), a division of The Synergos Group LLC, to combine her consulting expertise and culinary experience with her love of food and cooking to offer culinary team building and hands-on cooking instruction. In addition to cooking classes and demonstrations, she also is a food writer, recipe developer and tester, regularly contributing to TABLE magazine. Rhonda's most recent project, Local Goodness(TM), was launced in the spring of 2007 with a bi-weekly television segment on KDKA's Pittsburgh Today Live where she showcases local farmers, food producers and seasonal ingredients. She is currently working on a cookbook that celebrates the joy of local foods and the people whose passion it is to bring us their wonderful products. (www.localgoodness.com)
From 1998 to 2001, Rhonda served as Vice President with TissueInformatics.Inc, a Pittsburgh-based bioinformatics company. At TissueInformatics she developed and guided the company’s marketing strategy as well as established and managed a specialty consulting division within the company. tiiConsulting provided scientific, regulatory, and business expertise to early-stage biotechnology companies and due diligence assistance to prospective biotechnology investors.
Prior to TissueInformatics, she was Assistant Director of the Allegheny Conference/Pennsylvania Economy League and the Founding Director of the Working Together Consortium, a broad-based collaborative of civic leaders committed to implementing the goals and strategies of the Regional Economic Revitalization Initiative. As Director of the Consortium she mobilized, prepared and facilitated public, private and community leadership and managed specialized teams of expert professionals to successfully implement an economic revitalization plan for southwestern Pennsylvania. The first collaborative effort of the Consortium was the development of the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative to focus on the creation of a specialty biotechnology niche for the Pittsburgh region. Other collaborative accomplishments include the transformation of the historic Alcoa Headquarters building into a center for regional development; the establishment of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance to coordinate regional development efforts; the creation of a regional workforce development strategy and plan to support key growth industries; and the development of a marketing strategy for regional economic and tourism development. In total, since the inception of the Working Together Consortium in 1994, the Pittsburgh region now has:
- A Regional Enterprise Tower as a community hub
- An increase in available seed and working capital
- A meaningful workforce development initiative
- A community that is openly engaged in issues of diversity
- A regional consensus on capital projects where state funding is critical
- A change in Allegheny County government
- A growing entrepreneurial culture
- Identification of technologies in which Pittsburgh has a lead position
- An increased presence of our great universities in regional economic development
- A structure to help ensure the improved well being of our African-American community
- The establishment of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance and collaborative economic development initiatives
- The establishment of the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative and an emerging tissue engineering and biotechnology industry
Prior to moving to the Pittsburgh region in 1994, Rhonda was the Executive Director of SHARE, Inc., an incubator for human services, bringing community organizations and leaders together to meet unmet and under-met needs in Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to managing SHARE’s various programs, she worked with community leaders to assess the need for and develop a number of new initiatives. Programs included: Project S.A.V.E., a five-year pre-reading, literacy pilot program; the Good Neighbor/Family Program, a cooperative program providing a holistic approach in combating the dependency of clients of The Community Pantry; SafeHaven, a shelter and program for female victims of domestic violence and their children; a foster program; an adoption agency; a camp for children with Spina Bifida and Cystic Fibrosis; and other programs for children and families.
Her background also includes positions with the University of Missouri in the Department of Research, distance learning, and the University’s research parks; in sales and marketing for Kelly Services, Inc.; and running small businesses, including a restaurant with her husband.
Rhonda has served on many community boards and volunteers for a variety of community, non-profit and charitable organizations.
Rhonda holds a Masters degree in Business Administration and a Bachelors degree in Finance from the University of Missouri. She is trained and experienced in the Drucker Planning Process and the Hoshin Strategic Planning Process. She is a graduate of Leadership Pittsburgh XIII and was recognized in 1999 as one of Pittsburgh's "40 under 40" whose creativity, vision and passion help enrich the Pittsburgh region.