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 from a home base 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 move the needle on ambitious, emerging efforts to change our world for the better.​
