Caroline Nicholl never thought inside the box. Today, she helps her clients break out of their boxes and achieve meaningful change that is proven to grow, improve – and sometimes save – an organization or business.

Educated in law at the University of Bristol, U.K., Caroline started her professional life doing what attorneys rarely do: she entered law enforcement as a police officer. Her career in British policing – spread over 20 years in London and culminating in Police Chief in the fastest growing city in Europe in the 1990’s – exposed her to people from all walks of life and to diverse challenges that called for understanding cause-and-effect, what motivates and de-motivates people, and the relevance of place, systems and community.

The lessons Caroline learned on London’s beat, and while collaborating with colleagues and other stakeholders as a city chief, provided a unique grounding for her current passion for working closely with leaders, teams and organizations to help make them more effective. Her experience in British policing and later US law enforcement was the beginning of what it takes to become an expert in organizational systems thinking and what it takes to bring about genuine culture change.

Caroline helped change London’s Metropolitan Police force into a police service. Her pioneering work in Interactive Policing and Restorative Justice – engaging communities and other stakeholders to combat crime, offending, and public disorder – led to national legislation, business sponsorships, and media applaud (including recognition by The Economist and The Guardian and an hour-long television documentary). An independent Home Office study in 1994 showed her innovative work resulted in a drop of repeat offending from 48% to 3.4%.

Her groundbreaking attracted the attention of the Commonwealth Fund in New York City (who awarded Caroline a Harkness Fellowship) and the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department, whose Chief asked Caroline to join their team to help them out.

Shortly after arriving in Washington in 1997, Caroline’s systems approach was applied in developing a new model for reducing family and youth violence and to dramatically cut down the level of disorder emanating from street prostitution (a study in 2008 showed her program has successfully prevented 3,500 offenders from returning to the justice system). She eventually began to complement her unique professional experience with formal education and training in Organization Development at Georgetown University and with the Coaches Training Institute.

Today, Caroline is a highly skilled and trained Organization Development professional who applies the concept of helping people to the goals of her clients’ bottom lines by recognizing that people perform at their best in work environments that support alignment, productivity, and innovation with effective communication and firm but respectful leadership.

She offers her clients help doing what she herself has done – achievement of meaningful change – through BAS’s variety of Organization Development services.

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