Our President and Co-founder:  Nella Barkley

Nella G. Barkley, throughout her professional life, devotes herself to unlocking opportunities for an extraordinarily broad cross-section of those she has the privilege to work with.  A consultant to major organizations and coach to countless individuals, the enterprise she founded with John Crystal enables people and the organizations that they serve to discover and utilize the full range of their potential.

Born in Texas of a Virginia family, raised in Canada and settled in marriage in Charleston, South Carolina, her eclectic young life set the stage for challenges “which just seemed to come along, almost in spite of myself!”

 Ms. Barkley found herself in her twenties, with three young children, initiating a center where juvenile delinquents would be redirected to productive lives as an alternative to the common institutionalization of the time.  Her early efforts in demonstrating new solutions to problems led to demand for her consulting services by industry and branches of government. She developed a low-income housing rehabilitation program for the City of Charleston and, as the first General Manager of the Spoleto Festival, U.S.A., laid the groundwork for that most highly acclaimed and major international arts and cultural event.  Increasingly, her expertise was sought by the for-profit as well as the not-for-profit world. 

It was Nella’s experience in Harvard University’s School of Business Administration Advanced Management Program that brought dramatic focus to where she was to spend her professional future.  She had become an organizational planning expert and it was the people involved who preoccupied her.  She determined during that 13-week executive program to focus her expertise to keeping the two in touch, to facilitate better alignment of individuals with their work environment. 

Extensive research led Ms. Barkley to John Crystal whom, she felt, understood better than any, how to address the dual concerns of living successfully and working in the most satisfying ways.  Today she directs the operations of the Crystal-Barkley Corporation and its John C. Crystal Center, consults with industry and is a frequent source for and guest of the media:  CBS Morning News, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Cable News Network, Forbes, Industry Week and Cosmopolitan are among them.  Articles she has authored have appeared in publications such as: Success; Sylvia Porter’s Personal Finance (one selected as the lead chapter in Porter’s book, Love and Money); Bottom Line Personal; and the Wall Street Journal’s National Business Employment Weekly.  She is the author of two books, How To Help Your Child Land The Right Job (without being a pain in the neck) and The Crystal-Barkley Guide To Taking Charge Of Your Career, Workman Publishing.

 Nella Barkley is an ardent advocate of living life to its fullest and devotes unusual energy to making it possible for other people to do exactly that.




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