Emma Erwin is dedicated to “being in the questions” with client partners as they navigate transformational change processes. She is an energetic and responsive facilitator of high-engagement organization and system-wide conversations and an experienced practitioner of Theory U. She brings deep expertise in virtual facilitation and employing collaboration tools, and her commitment to equitable engagement and making space for the voices of people who have been historically marginalized are threads through all of her work.
At Insyte Partners, she has partnered with organizations across the nonprofit sector in strategic planning and positioning processes, network activation, leadership development, and culture change. In her prior role as Project Manager, Emma supported transformational change processes through customizing process tools, creating platforms for people to make sense of their learnings, documenting strategic visioning sessions, and holding all logistics for the change processes.
Emma studied facilitation with the Future Search Network and attended the Presencing Institute’s Foundational Program Theory U intensive in Berlin, Germany. She is pursuing facilitation training this fall with AORTA specifically geared towards holding conversations related to anti-oppression. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame with her bachelors where she pursued American Studies and completed an honors thesis about how the built environment both codifies discrimination and also holds the potential to be a leverage for greater economic justice. Emma lives in Philadelphia, PA.
How do you re-generate? Dancing, journaling, British period dramas, taking day trips, hiking, biking.
What do you hope never changes post-COVID? People inhabiting parks as the public forums they ought to have been all along.
What is your superpower? I’ve been told that by virtue of bringing my authentic self to the room, others feel more comfortable in speaking their truth, raising contrary points of view, and experimenting with new ways of being.
What’s something interesting about you we wouldn’t otherwise know? I’m very good at haggling at flea markets and otherwise scoring pretty incredible deals on random, interesting objects!
What have you learned about the conditions for success? What promotes failure? As Project Manager, I’m usually knee-deep in the “works,” including the calendar and facilitating communication. Regular rhythm and ritual in our meeting schedule is a key condition for success. So is clear and consistent communication with our clients. I am committed to executing both.
What is your guilty pleasure? Thrice-weekly bubble baths.
What’s one thing you’d want people to know about the Insyte Team? In partnership with our clients, we create the conditions for individuals, teams, and systems to ask themselves questions they’ve never considered before, which leads them to innovate in ways previously not conceived.
