Name: Amanda Pike
Title: COO
Current residence: Grand Island (Buffalo), New York
Hometown: North Olmsted (Cleveland), Ohio
Fun fact: I taught archery at a summer camp (with no prior experience other than a few times as a camper myself) and once hit a perfect bullseye while demonstrating how to shoot. Pure luck and immediate camp legendary status.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Integrating people-positive and environmentally responsible practices into our business strategies. After having been a sustainability consultant for 13 years, it’s energizing to put that knowledge to work in a direct way.
What compelled you to make the shift from consulting clients to a more internally focused role?
I’ve always found joy in helping people bring their aspirations to life, especially when those aspirations result in a positive outcome for people and the natural environment. This has come to life in different ways in my career, from guiding clients to achieve their ambitions, to orchestrating project teams and mentoring colleagues.
For most of my career, I was part of a small and growing organization, and I was gravitating to roles that were responsible for building facets of the company, like project staffing, knowledge management, and our own sustainability strategy. I was drawn to improving our practices so that we could make progress towards a different future faster.
Over time, I developed an appetite for a bigger challenge - a role that needed a systems thinker to bring all of the pieces together at an organizational level. When I saw the position at thinkPARALLAX, where I could apply my experience structuring a consultancy and empowering change agents - all for the purpose of accelerating positive impact, I knew it would be an ideal match.
thinkPARALLAX’s purpose is to inspire fresh perspective on sustainable business transformation. What perspective do you bring to tPX, our clients, and/or our industry?
Society is on the brink of great transformation, and we need our sustainability champions to lead us through the change. They need the resilience and support to show up as those leaders, doing the best work of their lives and of our time.
I believe Operations and People teams can—and must—support our change agents by creating workplaces where employees can be fulfilled. Fulfillment is reached when a team member feels:
- aligned to their North Star
- clear on the organization’s goals and trajectory
- always growing (at the right pace)
- recognized
- valued
This is what we aim to do throughout tPX, and, to me, it’s an essential part of being a socially responsible organization no matter the profession.
What brings you joy outside of work?
Seeing my children learn about the world and about themselves. My husband and I are always planning family adventures to that end, from modest hikes to theater performances to traveling across the US and beyond. It’s uplifting to re-experience even just some of the magic of childhood.
