Crisis is multifaceted.

You need a team that is too.

Our multidisciplinary team has decades of experience in finance, strategy, marketing, communications, and law.

Collectively, we have the walk-in-ready expertise necessary for even the most technical of professional crises. But because we believe you start with the humans, we also make it our mission to support leaders and teams through the emotional difficulties of crisis. Ravenyard’s focus on wellbeing is informed both by personal experience with crisis as well as Meredith Wilson Parfet’s work as a hospice chaplain.

Ravenyard Principals

We believe in an expert-only approach to crisis. We take crisis too seriously to build a team of junior associates. Instead we partner with various domain experts to scale up as needed.

Meredith Wilson Parfet

Founder, Managing Principal

Jenny Schmidt

Principal

Professional Experience Meets

Professional experience meets lived experience

What sets the Ravenyard team apart is not just our professional credentials, but also the personal backgrounds we bring to bear. For better and for worse, we have all experienced personal and professional crises. We understand the complexity of grief and how it shows up across the spectrum of difficult events. And that duality of experience is what draws us to this work. We get to help people and we get to solve complex problems.

What’s up with all the ravens?

Ravens get a bad rap! For thousands of years, cultures around the world have portrayed ravens as mystical beings. While they are perhaps best known as harbingers of ill luck and death, they are also symbols of communications, rebirth, and transformation. Sometimes ravens are portrayed as traveling between worlds, or between light and dark. In some Native American traditions, they are said to have the ability to encourage the soul to embrace new perspectives and change.

In the animal world, ravens are adaptive – able to thrive in varied environments and utilize tools they find to forage and survive. They are vocal communicators and are among the most intelligent birds, demonstrating craftiness and cunning.

Thus, ravens are a good metaphor for crisis. Profound suffering, whether it be personal or professional, can translate to a type of death – death of a loved one, death of a dream, death of a business, or the death of our identity. Suffering, like the raven, can afford an opportunity for transformation and rebirth.