About Us

Passionate experts ready to help scale your business and grow your teams.

 

Our Purpose

We exist to help entrepreneurial leaders and companies have a positive impact while getting what they want from their business and life.

Core Values

  • Help First – Help above all other things

  • Growth – Continually become better

  • Empathy – Seek first to understand

  • Excellence – Quality work reflects our pride in our company

  • Balance – Live a connected and whole life

  • Do the Right Thing – Because it is the right thing to do

Meet Our Team

We bring decades of combined executive leadership experience as well as outside objectivity and powerful processes to help owners and their teams focus and grow their business.

 

Tom Barrett

Leadership Team Coach & Co-Founder

Tom likes to describe himself as a “proud hedgehog,” as in Jim Collins’ “Hedgehog Concept” from Good to Great. He has the privilege of working out of his “Passion,” which is to help entrepreneurs get what they want from their business & life, and “Best at,” which is facilitating & coaching leadership teams to climb higher and faster than they could on their own.

Tom began his career as a CPA at Deloitte’s Chicago office in audit, followed by 3 years performing financial due diligence for strategic and private equity acquirers at Ernst & Young.

He spent 13 years in leadership at two innovative entrepreneurial mission-driven organizations, where he implemented tools from various systems and books such as Good to Great, Blue Ocean Strategy and classic strategic planning tools to help grow both organizations.

In 2015, Tom and his wife Traci founded Navigate the Journey, a firm that uses proven processes to help fast-growing companies in the areas of strategic planning, team health, leadership development, human resources, and life planning. He was a Certified EOS Implementer™ from 2018 to 2021, facilitating over 300 EOS® full-day sessions during that time and spoke at the 2021 EOS Conference.

Tom specializes in working with creative and professional services firms, including digital agencies, marketing & branding firms, web development, and SaaS companies. An ideal client for Tom is one who recognizes they can climb higher and faster with a coach than without.

Want to talk now? Call Tom at 615-870-7123

 

Traci Schubert Barrett

President & Co-Founder

Traci Barrett is an entrepreneur at heart with over 30 years of business experience. After spending over twenty years in corporate America, Traci decided to merge her decades of experience leading, strategizing, managing, and mentoring by starting the business consulting firm Navigate the Journey.

Through NTJ, Traci helps individuals and organizations build their leadership skills, grow healthy and cohesive teams, and ultimately, realize their full potential. Traci was part of a small team that launched the national cable television network HGTV: Home & Garden Television in 1994. She helped lead the network to success, running their Chicago and Dallas Offices for close to two decades.

Traci is the best-selling author of What If There’s More? Finding Significance Beyond Success. She holds a B.A. in Telecommunications & Marketing from Indiana University. She also holds her M.A. in Professional Psychology from the Illinois School of Psychology.

She is the creator of Strategic Life Map, a strategic planning process for your life that combines tried and true strategic planning tools with classic psychology exercises. She finds the most joy in helping people from all walks of life find meaning and purpose in their work and design a life they truly want.

Traci is a sought-after international speaker and enjoys sharing perspectives on topics such as Making Your Work Matter and Leading with Purpose. She’s a co-creator and co-host of the Overly Human Podcast — a series that gives practical advice and covers a wide variety of topics around the importance of growing a profitable business while balancing a healthy culture.

After living in the city of Chicago for 25 years, Traci, her husband, and their two daughters recently relocated to the Nashville, TN area. She is an avid reader and writer, enjoys music, and spending time with family and friends.

Learn more about Traci at www.tracischubertbarrett.com

 

Jody Thornburg

Senior Coach & HR Consultant

Jody Thornburg is a people operations leader with applied experience in the digital industry and a passion for creating people-centered cultures. She believes that clear communication is the single-most important element to shaping an organization and building trust. People matter most.

With several years of experience in coaching and HR support, Jody finds great joy in helping her clients find creative ways to move forward and to embrace life's challenges as learning opportunities. She also savors the chance to employ her wide-ranging background in people operations to help organizations create systems and processes that synchronously provide benefit to the organization and its team members.

Jody is SPHR-certified and trained in the fundamentals of leadership coaching through the Co-Active Training Institute. A forever-devoted Midwesterner, Jody lives in Bellbrook, Ohio, with her husband of more than 20 years, her two sons, and her lemon beagle. She spends most of her free time in the company of friends and family and is very active in her church community.

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Jamie Devins

Director of Operations

 
 

Jamie had the pleasure of being one of the original team members of Navigate the Journey and is thrilled to be back serving as the Director of Operations. With over 16 years of experience in operations, communication, and marketing and 6 years as a small business owner, she brings a wide breadth of knowledge and skill to Navigate the Journey Team.

Most recently, Jamie served on the executive leadership team for a fast-growing, mission-driven organization where she worked to bridge the gap between vision, strategy, planning, and execution. While there, Jamie led initiatives to implement EOS methodologies, employee onboarding systems, and process improvement and oversaw communications.

Jamie and her family called Chicago home for ten years but have recently returned to MI and now live just outside of Detroit.

 

Paige Feria

Team Coordinator

Paige has been with Navigate the Journey since 2021 and loves contributing to the day-to-day operations of the company. Paige brings extensive experience in communications, organization, and process development to her role and thrives when she is working with a fast-paced, high-capacity team. She is dedicated to using her skills to create processes that ensure Navigate the Journey is operating with maximum efficiency.

Paige and her family live in Colorado Springs, Colorado.