The Napa Group, founded in 1985, brings timely and practical solutions that encourage high performance, market‐leading innovation and organizational efficiency.
We are seasoned professionals who bring a solid understanding of best practices for sustainable organizational health. Combining this talent with our actual business experience leads to enhanced organizational performance for our clients. In both start-ups and mature businesses, we apply both art and science to blend research-based data with situational analysis. The results are timely, practical solutions and outcomes that engage key managers and staff.Principals
RJ Valentino is President and
Co-Founder of The Napa Group
RJ brings over 25 years experience as a senior executive and business consultant to his broad client base, which spans the fields of education, publishing, health care, engineering and construction, professional services and venture-backed technology start-ups. His practice focuses on institutional strategy development, planning, leadership and organizational consulting in growing and changing environments. He provides "best of breed" practices from for-profit and non-profit sectors to assist his clients in developing outcomes that achieve their goals and objectives.Working with corporate CEOs, university presidents, boards and senior leadership, RJ has helped guide strategic planning activities that accomplish visionary change in entrepreneurial and traditional contexts and settings.
His counsel promoted alignment and integration at E*Trade during its unprecedented growth, supported rigor to repeatable management practices at ZANTAZ, Inc., as part of its transformation from start-up to industry leader and helped position the turnaround at AskJeeves during market uncertainty and emerging competition. He advised The Lance Armstrong Foundation in its rise as a leader in cancer survivorship and helped build management capacity for the successful completion of Georgetown University's historic $1 billion fundraising campaign.
RJ's recent work advising university presidents who are leading change in today's evolving and competitive higher education market has resulted in stronger brand recognition, alignment of internal and external constituencies and innovative and timely solutions. Incorporating best practices methodologies, he creates custom solutions that directly engage organizational talent, resulting in high performance and stakeholder value.
Prior to co-founding The Napa Group in 1985, RJ held management and leadership positions in financial services, corporate training and human resources in Fortune 500 companies. He is certified in Mediation, is Professionally Credentialed in Organizational Learning from the Sloan School of Business at MIT and is a member of the International Facilitators Association. RJ studied at the University of Texas, Austin, and received his B.S. in Marketing from San Jose State University.
His publications include Keeping the Sharks At Bay — Rediscovering the Values-Driven Organization and several whitepapers, such as Balancing Mission and Market in Higher Education in the 21st Century, ROI Budgeting and Surviving Turbulent Economic Times, available under Resources.
Kathy Jones, Principal
Kathy Jones is a Principal of The Napa Group. She has over 20 years experience in the management of complex organizations. Her focus has been on the development of high performance agile organizations. She has served as a member of the senior management team of two prestigious universities.
As Senior Vice President and Secretary of Georgetown University, Kathy was responsible for facilitating the work of the Board of Trustees. She worked closely with the President and the senior administration on the development and implementation of strategies related to Georgetown's academic and research mission.
Previously, Kathy served as Vice Chancellor of University Relations at the University of California, Irvine. Her responsibilities there included overseeing UCI's fundraising and communications programs.
Kathy has the ability to work at all levels of the organization to improve productivity, promote teamwork and produce results. She graduated from Stanford University.