We Are Ready.
Oana Amaria, Founder + Practice Leader - Seattle, WA
Throughout her career, Oana Amaria has played an integral role in driving culture change throughout organizations in both the private and public sectors. Her expertise in strategy development and scaling, culture/bias audits, curriculum design, and training makes her a highly sought-after partner for leaders seeking to effectively leverage the diverse talent, experiences, and backgrounds of their teams and communities.
After spending her early years growing up in Romania, Oana’s own experience emigrating to the United States as a refugee in the late 1980’s fueled her desire to create a strong community that enables individuals to succeed – no matter their identities, experiences, and cultures. After a decade of development work in countries such as Ghana, India, Mexico, Romania, and China, Oana channeled this desire by becoming a leading organizational development consultant.
As a practice leader and founder at Firefly, Oana works with some of the biggest brands in the business, from multinational consumer goods companies, to the leading disruptors in fintech, fitness, global technology investment, gaming, online marketplace, media, ride-hailing, and the wellness industry. Her work is focused on enabling organizational culture transformation and is rooted in her strong belief that as leaders evolve and transform so will the cultures of the businesses they lead and the world around them. She is an accredited facilitator of Transformation through Values, offering individuals and organizations deeply transformational values-based leadership programs based on the Barrett Leadership Model.
Prior to consulting, Oana was a workforce development specialist, managing the Workforce Investment Act program for the State of Illinois through the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO). Her key role was to expand economic opportunity by developing partnerships and technology accessible to individuals across socioeconomic levels. The partnerships spanned state economic development, workforce development, education agencies, and local workforce innovation boards along with their public and private partners, including local governments, community colleges, and non-profit organizations. Through her work there, Oana co-authored a white paper on “Open Educational Resources and Open Source Technologies” for the Department of Education.
Oana’s facilitation experience also extends to academia, where she was previously an adjunct professor at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Masters of Public Administrations program for international students. She is frequently asked to share her insights on topics such as: "Inclusion the Culture of Innovation", "On Being Progressive: How to leverage 'Leading Inclusively' as a practical skill-set for leaders across your organizations", and "Developing Global Acumen" in forums sponsored by organizations such as the Conference Board, Diversity Best Practices, Forum on Workplace Inclusion, and many more.
Oana earned her Bachelor of Science degree in International Business from North Park University, and a Master of Science in International Public Services from DePaul University. Oana is also a certified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI®).
In her off hours, Oana can be found playing Legos with her daughter, wrangling her Australian Shepherd ‘Bear’, or checking out new brunch spots with her partner in the Pacific Northwest. She also enjoys hiking, rock climbing, dancing and feeding her friends.
