About
Barbara Platzer
(She/Her)
I am a UN kid, born in Nairobi, raised in Vienna, a strategist and partnership manager, that loves advancing dream team collaborations, with expertise in health and environmental coalition building and a track record of championing diversity in leadership. A forever New Yorker at heart, I am currently leaning into adventure again with a new home in Berlin, after four years based in Seattle exploring the moody coastline of the Pacific Northwest.
I have served as a seasoned consultant and advisor to a broad portfolio of global clients, including international development partners, non-profits, activists, founders, policy makers and philanthropists. I have also hustled hard as a portfolio manager for soft money research institutes, securing and managing robust resourcing for global change.
I started Platzer Consulting after a decade in academia, working with world economists and scientists at the top of their game, when it felt time to speed date organizations I long admired and to venture out into the wider world again. It has allowed me a front row seat to activists in action, entrepreneurial thought leaders and organizations immersed in change, access to working in multiple markets, new ways of thinking and a scrappiness forged by embracing the gig economy.
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When wild curveballs necessitated multiple moves to access care, my consulting practice provided a lifeline to teams and projects I cared deeply about and could set the pace on and a means to re-envision how I show up in the world, including through a pandemic. Consulting (and twin parenting) has trained me in getting a quick lay of the land, hitting the ground running, actively listening for both explicit and implicit concerns, wearing multiple hats on a team, intuitively building trust with different stakeholders, effectively communicating barriers and opportunities for growth and impact.
I am thrilled to work with people across the globe and teams I believe in, from early day start-ups to established partners leveling up their outreach and impact. I am also a steadfast champion of believing in transformative leadership, diversity as a strength, inclusion and equitable practices as a first priority, and am committed to meeting this larger moment calling for racial and gender justice, in the US and abroad.
I am currently invested in opportunities and collaborations that shoot for the moon and am always up for new connections, exploratory calls, joint bids, ramping up mission critical project delivery and moving the needle on ambitious, emerging efforts to change our world for the better.​
