Dr. Sheila Bliss Duffy

Dr. Sheila Bliss Duffy is a businesswoman with a social conscience who is dedicated to fostering sustainable economic development on-the-ground. She uses her diverse background to equip people to use market-based approaches to create sustainable organizations, communities, businesses, and careers. She works hand-in-hand with her clients to help them address social and environmental issues in ways that make economic sense.

Whether you lead an organization, are a member of a community group, are an environmental or social entrepreneur, a business owner, or are ready to make a job or career transition, Dr. Duffy will guide you through a change process that will ensure a better future.

Dr. Duffy’s interest in the challenge of combining economic growth with an eye to the future it creates was piqued by her early involvement in family run cattle ranching, recreational land sales, and residential housing businesses, along with travels to environmentally fragile and economically disadvantaged places around the world.

Her education and work experience uniquely qualify Dr. Duffy to help people address complex real-world challenges including poverty alleviation, job creation, livelihood development, community development, income generation, enterprise development, food security and natural resource conservation.

Dr. Duffy’s professional background combines experience in business start-up and management, economic development, community development, agriculture/food systems, and natural resource conservation. Her expertise includes consulting, teaching, training, curriculum design, delivery, and evaluation, business and career coaching, assessing, designing, managing, monitoring and evaluating programs and projects and designing and managing applied research projects. She is also a former stockbroker, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and is fluent in Spanish.

Her MS in International Business from Saint Mary’s College, Moraga, CA and BA in Business Administration from Stephens College, Columbia, MO grounds her in traditional business principles and practices. Her Ph.D. in Agricultural Education, certificate in International Agriculture and Resource Management from Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, and training as an applied system scientist by prominent professors including Norman Borlaug, the “Father of the Green Revolution”, enable her to understand issues involving human and natural system interactions. Dr. Duffy’s training as a coach by the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara and certifications as an ICF Associate Coach and Job and Career Transition Coach make it possible for her to expertly move people from good intentions to good action.

Dr. Duffy provides services to academic institutions, development and conservation organizations, community groups, businesses and individuals in both the public and private sector and developed and developing world to help them create effective and sustainable responses to problems they face.

Her clients include New United Motors Manufacturing Inc., Dominican University of California, Banyan Global, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Davis, United States Peace Corps, Biodiversity Support Program (a consortium of World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and World Resources Institute funded by USAID), Texas A&M University, Mississippi Consortium for International Development and The United Way.

Ray Pifferrer