Bonita Richter, MBA
PRESIDENT
People Before Profits
Short Bio: Best-in-class insight, tenaciously results-focused, skillfully executes.
Long Bio:
Bonita Richter is managing partner of Profit Strategies, an executive consulting firm. She loves the challenge of figuring out how to make a business "tick."
She gives mid size-organizations unbiased advice about their strategic direction, and how to execute business improvement initiatives.
She looks at a business from a holistic perspective, considering strategy, culture, operations, and most importantly, leaders, the team, and workforce development. She has been described by her clients as having “the perfect combination of experience, industry knowledge, best practice theory and practical implementation.”
Her motto is, "People before profits."
Profit Strategies has advised organizations in industries as diverse as manufacturing, technology, professional services, construction, and non-profit.
Before starting Profit Strategies, she served as the strategy and finance officer in her family's CNC precision machining and engineering firm, where she managed and improved growth, cash flow, profitability, and optimized manufacturing operations. She understands the complexities inherent in operating a high-functioning business where many family members work.
Among her strategy and finance responsibilities, if you sit down and have a cup of coffee with her, she would tell you that the most important aspect of her job was developing people.
She was deeply involved in culture and workforce development, and created many customized in-house training programs to increase the skills, and knowledge base of employees, as well as a CNC machinist apprenticeship program. She developed high-performing teams, and improved employee engagement and accountability for results.
Bonita believes that highly-engaged employees are the true source of a company's competitive advantage.
She is a practitioner of Strategy, Lean, Operational Excellence (OE), Business Process Management (BPM), Kaizen, JIT, KanBan, Set-Up Reduction, TPS, , Great Game of Business (GGOB), Project Management, Change Management, Supply Chain and Purchasing Management, Innovation, Theory of Constraints and Total Quality Management (TQM).
She has delivered direct face-to-face business consulting, entrepreneurial coaching and mentoring, and workforce and professional development training to over 8,000 individuals, and helped secure over $60 million investment capital while serving as Director of the Illinois Small Business Development Center at Harper College. Bonita has 25+ years of leadership and management experience in manufacturing, and 15+ years in higher education and consulting industries.
She is a part-time faculty member of the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management where she prepares MBA candidates by developing their leadership, strategic, and team and employee development capabilities. Previously she served as adjunct professor at Harper College and taught topics on new venture creation, finance and marketing. She earned her business degree from The Pennsylvania State University, and her MBA, with highest honors, from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.
Robert Richter, MS, CPA
VICE PRESIDENT
Robert Richter has a track record of helping companies solve problems to improve cash flow and profits, and has helped large corporate clients, entrepreneurial, and mid-market companies improve margins while growing sales.
He has over 35 years experience in the corporate world as a C-Level business executive in both large and mid-size service organizations. Key areas of his business knowledge and skills are sales operations, finance, accounting, and technical systems development.
He has consulting experience in a “Big 5” firm, having worked in Europe for an extended period of time. Robert has a Masters Degree in Accounting/Finance from DePaul University, and is a Certified Public Accountant – Illinois.