About Alta Impact
Get to know our team of experts
Jay Messner
Founder and CEO
- Leadership and Team Performance Optimization
- Fractional Chief of Staff
- Public Speaking
I advise and consult with executive leadership teams to optimize their businesses for sustained growth and high performance. In collaboration with a community of subject-matter experts, there aren’t any business challenges we can’t help guide our clients through.
I do this work because I spent too many years as a young leader who made a ton of mistakes, but with the best of intentions. The frustration was overwhelming until I filtered through the chaos to uncover a very simple set of principles that consistently delivered results when applied properly. The truth is, I was over-complicating it!
Now, leveraging my experience running companies and working with executive teams, I guide leaders through a systematic process of diagnosing dysfunction and inefficiency, allowing for the implementation of a repeatable model for sustained performance.
I serve clients either as an external advisor or temporary fractional member of their executive team. My mission is to develop my clients’ internal capabilities, so external help is no longer needed.
Alta Impact Partners
Dan McNeil
Founding Partner at Alta Impact
- Small Business Coach and CEO Whisperer
- Leadership Training and Facilitation
- Public Speaking
It all started with Dan. He sold one of his companies and began consulting with other small business leaders. He invited Jay into an early client project, and together they built that practice into Alta Impact. Dan is a visionary, forward thinking business leader. As an entrepreneur, he has had incredible successes and failures, and as a consultant and coach, he’s seen it all. With a specific passion for helping founder-led companies, Dan solves unique business constraints, utilizing practical solutions, while teaching CEOs how to create high-performing, sustainable teams that get results.
Stephanie Polen
The Polen Group
- Organizational and Team Transformation
- Executive Coaching
- Public Speaking
As Founder of The Polen Group and creator of Unshakeable Leaders,™ she guides teams and individuals through transformation. With a variety of certifications in executive and team coaching, conflict, psychological safety and more, she harnesses tools to grasp holistic strengths and drive collective success. Stephanie’s goal is to guide her clients through the most tumultuous transitions with wisdom, empathy, and strategic brilliance.
Janet Collins
Turning Point Strategy
- Strategic Planning
- Leadership Team Coaching
With a disc profile of “INFLUENCER,” Janet has a weird ability to inspire big thinking and get things done. Through strategic planning, market strategy and organizational health, Janet works with CEO’s and leadership teams who want a clear path to the future and confidence they can get there.
Steve Bernicke
Vice President at Centric Consulting
- Global Business and Technology Consulting
- AI Strategy and Cyber Security
Steve has more than 25 years experience in business and IT consulting, as well as practical industry experience with lean process improvement, ERP systems deployment and integration, and IT transformation. He co-leads the Cincinnati and Dayton Business Unit, and consistently drives to create unmatched experiences for Centric’s clients and employees. Steve provides and delivers solutions related to enterprise business process redesign, business & organizational transformation, M&A Integration, and enterprise systems strategy and integration. He excels at building and leading teams to deliver complex IT and business solutions.
Jeff Andrews
Founder and CEO at Red Dog Advisors
- Growth Strategy
- ERP Assessment and Selection
- ERP Migration Strategy
For more than 25 years, Jeff has led growth initiatives and teams at market leaders including Fidelity Investments, Paycor and Velosio. Jeff leverages his experience in strategy, technology, sales and marketing to help companies create strategies and competencies to drive growth. This includes significant experience in ERP assessment, selection and migration.
Alta Impact Partners
Dan McNeil
Founding Partner at Alta Impact
- Small Business Coach and CEO Whisperer
- Leadership Training and Facilitation
- Public Speaking
It all started with Dan. He sold one of his companies and began consulting with other small business leaders. He invited Jay into an early client project, and together they built that practice into Alta Impact. Dan is a visionary, forward thinking business leader. As an entrepreneur, he has had incredible successes and failures, and as a consultant and coach, he’s seen it all. With a specific passion for helping founder-led companies, Dan solves unique business constraints, utilizing practical solutions, while teaching CEOs how to create high-performing, sustainable teams that get results.
Stephanie Polen
The Polen Group
- Organizational and Team Transformation
- Executive Coaching
- Public Speaking
As Founder of The Polen Group and creator of Unshakeable Leaders,™ she guides teams and individuals through transformation. With a variety of certifications in executive and team coaching, conflict, psychological safety and more, she harnesses tools to grasp holistic strengths and drive collective success. Stephanie’s goal is to guide her clients through the most tumultuous transitions with wisdom, empathy, and strategic brilliance.
Janet Collins
Turning Point Strategy
- Strategic Planning
- Leadership Team Coaching
With a disc profile of “INFLUENCER,” Janet has a weird ability to inspire big thinking and get things done. Through strategic planning, market strategy and organizational health, Janet works with CEO’s and leadership teams who want a clear path to the future and confidence they can get there.
Steve Bernicke
Vice President at Centric Consulting
- Global Business and Technology Consulting
- AI Strategy and Cyber Security
Steve has more than 25 years experience in business and IT consulting, as well as practical industry experience with lean process improvement, ERP systems deployment and integration, and IT transformation. He co-leads the Cincinnati and Dayton Business Unit, and consistently drives to create unmatched experiences for Centric’s clients and employees. Steve provides and delivers solutions related to enterprise business process redesign, business & organizational transformation, M&A Integration, and enterprise systems strategy and integration. He excels at building and leading teams to deliver complex IT and business solutions.
Jeff Andrews
Founder and CEO at Red Dog Advisors
- Growth Strategy
- ERP Assessment and Selection
- ERP Migration Strategy
For more than 25 years, Jeff has led growth initiatives and teams at market leaders including Fidelity Investments, Paycor and Velosio. Jeff leverages his experience in strategy, technology, sales and marketing to help companies create strategies and competencies to drive growth. This includes significant experience in ERP assessment, selection and migration.
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Reach out and we will talk you through the process, including how to navigate the predictable questions and challenges you will encounter along the way.
“I have worked with, and frankly have detested consultants. Jay broke my paradigms because he was different—he added tremendous value and was sincere in his desire to help the business and its people succeed.
Jay’s diagnostic processes helped us get to the root of the problems with our people, operations, culture, and corporate function very quickly. He brought tools to the table to help us with big-ticket transformational issues, but he also helped us to install the foundational “management systems” to enhance and sustain organizational effectiveness.
Sometimes you need a catalyst to get started, stay straight, and get it done. Jay helped us get it done, and when I left the company we had a clear mission, vision, and values—and everyone in the organization was thriving.”
—A 40+ year manufacturing industry veteran who has worked in numerous technical, functional, and executive leadership roles with multi-billion companies.