Ralph Schulz Joins Thrivence as Principal Consultant

This article was originally posted at the Nashville Business Journal. Read the entire piece here.

Story Highlights

• Ralph Schulz was CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce for 18 years.
• Schulz has taken on new roles at Thrivence and Lipscomb University.
• Thrivence is owned by Barge Design Solutions.

For 18 years, Ralph Schulz had one job: CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

His time away from work lasted barely 18 weeks. And now, he is employed at two places.

Schulz is the newest senior-level addition at Thrivence, a Nashville-based management consulting firm owned by Barge Design Solutions. On July 1, he also began work at Lipscomb University as its executive-in-residence in the College of Leadership & Public Service and an adviser on projects across the university.

“I’ve never been a lone ranger,” Schulz said in an interview. “So to be part of teams such as the one at Lipscomb and the one at Thrivence — it’s the only way I could operate.”

In an interview from Thrivence’s SoBro office, Schulz said he expects to focus his work on leadership development and strategic planning. He’ll have the title of principal consultant at the three-year-old firm.

Some of the other consultants at Thrivence include Wanda Lyle, Derek Young, David Scobey and Ann Hatcher (who aren’t full-time employees at the firm but are called on as-needed). The group also includes Thrivence co-founder Bob Higgins, who’s also the chairman at Barge and one of the most recent chamber board chairs for whom Schulz worked.

“The whole economic environment has gotten a lot more dynamic and a lot more volatile. Whatever plans you made a couple of years ago, you’ve got to be revisiting that right now,” Schulz said. “The political landscape, the economic landscape, the global landscape — gosh, it’s been massive change over the past year or two. Every CEO, every organization, is having to reconsider and recalibrate their vision, their strategy. And that leads to all-new tactics.

“It used to be that you had the time to make those adjustments by yourself as a CEO, or a C-suite. That time doesn’t exist anymore,” Schulz added. “So you need that temporary resource sometimes to sort through that, bring fresh information and observations, and facilitate a discussion.”