New Website! An Evolution, an Explanation, and a 50-Year-Old Face

I have an announcement to make: A new website about my work is up. I want you to check it out, please, at huntergatewood.com.

The site shows how my work has evolved since I started working for myself in spring of 2013. This new work has three parts, which is how the site is organized: 

Courses : Private courses for leaders in one organization or cohort program, and public courses for anyone interested. I teach leadership using my Six Culture Builders curriculum. My newest course adds a mindfulness expert as we focus on mindful leadership.

Coaching: For small groups and for individuals, focusing on people who lead from the middle of their organizations. 

Public Speaking: I have a keynote speech, “Trust: The time multiplier in teams” developed in 2021 and 2022 in the industry-best program for public speaking. Watch the trailer. See the crab claws. Who would benefit from hearing this presentation? 

That’s WHAT the site is about. In the spirit of connection and opportunity, here’s a little backstory and introduction about the WHY.

It took me a few years to decide to launch a website in my own name, with my own face all over it.That reluctance wasn’t just because my now-50-year-old face promotes occasional surges of anxious face-aging vanity. Or because huntergatewood.com was owned for years by the father of a basketball prodigy in a small town in Texas who wanted him to get a big college scholarship. (That Hunter Gatewood is now in college at MIT, so they gave up the url. I don’t know if he got a basketball scholarship, but he got a great school.)

The reason I hesitated to have my own name website is because I was wary of appearing too … too something. Too self-involved. Too self-promoting. Too much about me instead of my clients and the work itself. Not inclusive of the other members of my team, who are Melinda, Rebecca, Loreta, and Camille these days. And who deserve credit when our work goes well for our clients.

Then I met a whole bunch of people in 2021 who have their own name-and-face websites. I found these brilliant people in the public speaking course. They are a diverse group of smart, stunningly generous and fun people from all over the country. (And beyond. We had a wildly inappropriate Irishwoman who naturally became one of my closest buddies.) These people, and the staff of Heroic Public Speaking, particularly its leaders Amy Port and Michael Port, helped me decide to get serious about public speaking as a service to offer in itself, a way to help organizations learn and grow. The group also helped me to be cool about having a website in my name, with my face all over it. 

Et voila! Huntergatewood.com is up and ready for business. Please peruse. It’s my main way of letting people know what I do, Courses, Coaching, and Public Speaking, so that my services find the right individuals and groups. 

The shift to these new kinds of work has already happened. I am grateful to the individuals and organizations who already are partnering with me in courses, coaching and speaking. 

My consulting work continues. Through Signal Key, I still consult for professional learning networks and change initiatives in health care, public health, and related initiatives. The Signal Key website is still up. It will see a little benign neglect as new blogs and more frequent updates move to the new website.

I look forward to any discussion, questions, and new opportunities this shift in my work will bring. And to any input on the website itself. (Just don’t mention it if you don’t like the colors or the custom illustrations. I am very pleased with that part of things, and I don’t want to argue.)

Thank you for your partnership and your attention to this relatively self-indulgent announcement.

Melinda Avellino