Who We Are
You don't really know someone until you know their story ...
Eventually the journeys of these three friends have re-converged. They now both live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, excited to be partners in a professional coaching and consulting practice built upon their deep trust and shared values. Leveraging their diverse leadership and learning experiences, Mark, Barbara, and Matt are passionate helping leaders become more confident and compelling, having a greater and more satisfying impact in what they have been called to do.
The story of Invita Consulting has its roots in Ithaca, NY, on the campus of Cornell University where three friends spent time together regularly encouraging one another in their respective journeys through life. Under-girded by this season of mutual coaching, their friendship stayed strong even as career opportunities scattered them to different parts of the country over the years. But along the way, their early experience of mutual encouragement led all three of them to grow as coaches to many others, both professionally and personally.
Founding Partners
Mark A Case, PhD
Mark has a unique blend of academic rigor (Cornell PhD in philosophy) and years of leading teams and developing leaders in academia, the non-profit sector, and the business world. He is an avid reader who is able to bring great ideas to bear on practical problems.
Mark is passionate about helping leaders come to know and lead themselves better in order to lead others more effectively. He understands the complex relational dynamics of leadership contexts, and thus is able to provide transformational coaching and consulting to leaders at all levels.
But to really know Mark, you'd have to catch a glimpse of his smile while fly fishing with an old friend, mastering a new board game, or entertaining friends & family around his large dining room table.
Barbara Case
Barbara started her journey as a coach by mentoring young college students at Cornell University and then later at California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo). For the last decade, she has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area helping young professionals navigate the complexities of relationships in the personal and professional sphere.
Barbara brings her passion for people and relational health to her coaching practice. People find her remarkably safe. In her coaching, Barbara leverages this felt-sense of safety to guide clients beyond mere surface-level “fixes” to relational and emotional challenges, helping them identify and resolve the emotional drivers underneath their struggles.
When she’s not coaching, she loves to create beauty and warmth in people’s homes by helping friends with interior design and décor. Not surprisingly her own home is a safe, welcoming place for family and friends.
Matt Dorn
Matt is a process thinker (MIT aero engineer) with lots of leadership experience -- former USAF officer, corporate VP, consultant, entrepreneur, and board member of several non-profits. He understands people, technology, and organizational change.
Matt is a creative coach who loves to come alongside leaders to help them find their voice -their unique niche and style in which they can thrive professionally and personally.
He is also great at helping organizations design and implement multi-level learning approaches, believing that faster learning teams are the ones that win in the end.
Behind the scenes, Matt loves scoring 7-letter words in Scrabble, hiking the many great trails in the Bay Area, and playing Ultimate Frisbee.