Deborah Whitehouse

Deborah Whitehouse’s career, work experiences and passion has led her to become an industry recognized thought leader working as a business consultant and coaching expert. Certified by the National Board of Certified Counselors, she complements her credentials with 30 years of private and public sector business experience.
Deborah’s business experience has been working both as an entrepreneur and for large, internationally acclaimed companies, first as a project manager, and later as an executive.
Early in her career, Deborah created and led a successful and locally recognized structural engineering design firm, along with her partner, to form Whitehouse Engineers. By exceeding her clients’ expectations, Deborah built a reputation as a business leader and recognized expert.
Deborah has public sector experience, as well. A new state administration’s desire to inculcate ‘business thinking into government actions’ led Deborah to be appointed by the Governor in 1998 as Director for Building Construction for the State of Florida. Deborah led a statewide team of 55 professionals who oversaw the design and construction of government facilities. Her Division delivered over 25 major capital projects per year, ranging from $5 to 50 million in construction values at the time.
After her appointment, Deborah brought her blended expertise back to the private sector and took a position with another infrastructure industry giant and media recognized leader as number 2 of the “Top 5 Most Admired Companies”, Jacobs Engineering. Traveling to company offices worldwide, Deborah learned, developed and implemented employee development and organizational design best practices.
As a senior executive, Deborah’s work focused on aligning new employees with company culture to integrate 5 new companies and key talent into existing and changing systems. She designed and delivered a national leadership training program and implemented employee empowerment strategies through coaching, communication plans and training employees. From this work and her academic training, Deborah developed behavior-based strategies that are targeted and effective.
Deborah’s passion in education and professional development is expressed in her coaching work and as an Adjunct Professor, previously for the University of South Florida in teaching marketing to undergraduate architects, and most recently as an ethics professor for the Universidad Autonoma del Caribe’s School of Global Management, in Miami.
Her current work as a consultant in employee development, organizational development and change management includes delivering employee assessments where she is skilled in 6 different instruments; designing career and succession planning programs; performing executive and transitions coaching; delivering training and facilitation of workshops and change programs for local and national clients.
Deborah received recognition throughout her career. She has volunteered for associations, most notably she served as a member of the inaugurating panel for establishing national credentials for the Society for Marketing Professional Services; as well as being recognized by several others, among them, the Tampa Chamber of Commerce and the Hillsborough County School Board for her business growth accomplishments and volunteer work, respectively. She has served on Boards and spoke on managing change in the social era and professional development to schools, institutions and industry and business associations.
Deborah graduated with a Master’s of Science from Nova Southeastern University, in Psychology – Mental Health Counseling, (MSMHC), Magna Cum Laude and received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of South Florida in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, with honors. Deborah has attended numerous leadership programs and graduated from the Institute for Life Coaching Training and Practicum Program, to become a Certified Coach by the National Board of Mental Health Counselors.