Steve Schad
Human Resources
Steve Schad founded Optima Advisory, LLC to help organizations get better results through people. They do this by providing direct, inside outsourced HR leadership and HR support to small and mid-sized businesses to optimize their HR strategies, practices, and programs through an affordable, customer-centric service model.
Optima Advisory delivers affordable, flexible HR staff augmentation from the C-Suite to the front lines. This includes temporary, contract part-time (“fractional”) and interim HR executive leadership, administrative support, special projects, and consultation.
Optima’s clients want clarity, direction, and confidence that they will be able to build an organization and team that is capable of achieving business goals. They help these organizations by bringing experienced and knowledgeable executives to their leadership teams to develop a roadmap to address challenges and exploit opportunities. Their HR administration and project support resources augment current staff capacity or infuse new capabilities where needed.
Areas of focus
Areas of focus
Steve Schad formed Optima Advisory, LLC to help businesses build the organizational capability they need to achieve planned growth and transformation objectives. Having worked across industries and sectors as an HR executive and consultant, he knows the missing ingredient is often strong human capital executive leadership. So, he set out to create a business model that provides “fractional” part-time or interim Chief HR Officer leaders for small to mid-sized companies that need new and better strategies to build executional capability, but which are not yet large or complex enough to justify having a full-time, seasoned, executive-level person in the top HR role.
Steve began his professional career by joining the VISTA program after graduating from the University of Minnesota with majors in political science and Russian area studies. After two years working on poverty programs in northeast Missouri, he joined the staff of the Missouri Lt. Governor to help launch the Americorps national service initiative. He went on to provide strategic planning and organizational development consultation to governor’s offices across the US before turning his attention to the private sector. After 10 years of consulting he joined Andersen Windows in Bayport, MN, eventually leading corporate HR, talent acquisition and strategic workforce planning until he left to start Optima Advisory in 2017.
He is married with two daughters, two dogs and three cats. He serves on the boards of the Century College Foundation and HR Executive Forum.