About Human Solutions

Barbara Osterman founded Human Solutions to facilitate fundamental change in the way organizations work. She achieves this not by addressing conventional “process” or “re-engineering” issues, but by coaching business managers and leaders to find the human solutions readily accessible within every organization. Likewise, her work with individuals focuses on tapping the unlimited potential within every human being.

Barbara has been referred to as an “organizational anthropologist.” She studies organizational and personal cultures and explores what makes people do the things they do. She is an expert in motivation and behaviors. She has a depth of understanding of the human dynamics that shape our work and how to use those dynamics to improve performance and satisfaction. This understanding comes from her innate gifts as well as over 27 years of experience in the business world.

Barbara draws from her diverse business background. Eighteen years in the telecommunications industry in leadership and executive roles produced tangible improvements in performance and results. Her responsibilities ranged from marketing, sales management and new business start-ups to mergers and acquisitions to investor relations. She founded the Frontier Women’s Network.

A seasoned executive in progressively more challenging leadership assignments, Barbara’s career themes that link these accomplishments are (1) the leadership of transformational change in a variety of business settings, all with profit-and-loss responsibility, (2) the ability to achieve operational results through balancing business needs with a commitment to people and (3) a strong background of organizing and implementing processes for change and growth.

In the local community, Barbara serves on several not-for-profit boards. She is a facilitator and member of the Women President’s Organization, a national organization of women-business owners. Barbara is chairman of the board of the Institute for Circlework. She frequently delivers presentations on ‘Business with Heart’, in which she shares her passion for, and commitment to, work as the place where people live their life goals and find fulfillment. She teaches a college graduate course in The Ethics of Leadership. Barbara has twice been a nominee for the ATHENA Award sponsored by the Women’s Council of the Greater Rochester Metro Chamber of Commerce. She holds a BS from Clarkson University and an MBA from the Simon Business School of the University of Rochester. She lives in Pittsford, NY with her husband of 25 years and two teen sons, Brian and Sean.