Red Paisley Tie
Garrett D. Imhoff
Enablement | Operations | Systems | L&D | DE&I

People come before systems. When you trust the person closest to the work, build what they actually need, and get out of their way — the results don't just meet expectations. They shatter them.

66%Ramp Time Reduction
33%+Productivity Gain · 30 Days
6,500Live Audience Facilitated
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About

The person
behind the tie.

Garrett D. Imhoff
Enablement | Operations | Systems | L&D | DE&I

I used to train new hires at Booking.com that from the janitor to the CEO, the work you do doesn't matter unless you're helping a person. I used to take a half day near the end of every class to make sure that lesson resonated. I believed it then and I believe it now. It's the standard I hold myself to and the standard I build programs around.

I spent four years with that company and ended my time there as a Global Customer Service Trainer. I adored that job. I co-hosted the company's annual meeting for 6,500 people. I built a program — B.$UR€ — in a 48-hour design sprint that was integrated to the global new hires curriculum and deployed to the entire department worldwide. It was revolutionary. It trusted agents with more autonomy and reduced worldwide complaint payouts by 7% while making them happier doing it. I felt like my work was making a real difference for real people. I've been trying to find that feeling again ever since.

What I've learned in the years since is that the difference between onboarding that sticks and onboarding that doesn't is the intentionality of the architecture. I talk with the people doing the work, ask them questions about where their job doesn't feel right, and build learning experiences and optimize processes until it does. The systems I build to support them are scalable, with rigorous feedback loops, relentless iteration, and measurable improvement. The result? High-octane onboarding in weeks rather than quarters that save millions.

I'm looking for a place where the work matters and I can do what I taught those trainees — where I can build something that lasts and help people become the best version of themselves along the way. Because if I'm not helping a real person, I'm not doing anything that matters.

Experience

The work
that shaped me.

Entrepreneur
Independent Operator & Consultant
2022 – Present
  • Founded and scaled a multi-vertical service enterprise — engineering governance frameworks, SLAs, and a proprietary pricing algorithm from scratch.
  • Leveraged generative AI to architect operations, training materials, and client communications. Actively developing Python and SQL fluency.
  • Led brand strategy and operations for Hoedown in the Dunes — an annual event selling to full capacity within 120 seconds of launch.
SMS Assist, L.L.C.
Residential Partner Sourcing Team Lead · Reporting to Director
2021 – 2022
  • Completely reimagined the new hire onboarding curriculum — compressing ramp time from a full quarter to a single month, recovering $100k+ in productive output across 10 new hires.
  • Rebuilt team culture through structured win-sharing and weekly retrospectives — driving a 33%+ output increase within 30 days, before any process changes. First time in company history every team member earned their bonus.
  • Identified a market misalignment and lobbied leadership for a full pay-band upgrade, raising average team compensation ~$10k annually.
  • Synthesized self-reporting data with Tableau to engineer a predictive dashboard adopted by C-level leadership to forecast availability for the first time.
  • Oversaw full talent lifecycle for a team that grew from 7 to 10 direct reports, including 4 internal promotions.
  • Active member of SMS Assist's Queer Employee Resource Group.
GoHealth
Sales Team Lead
2019 – 2021
  • Designed and delivered three program pivots during the annual enrollment period for a distributed team of ~25 — maintaining productivity through every transition.
  • Spearheaded global Bridge LMS rollout — designing adoption protocols, learning tracks, and performance tracking frameworks standardized across teams and geographies.
  • Independently designed technology readiness standards and enablement protocols adopted program-wide by all leadership — reducing JIRA timekeeping tickets by 17% within the first month.
Chicago Gay Men's Chorus
DE&I Consultant · Diversity & Inclusion Taskforce
2019 – 2020
  • Consulted as external advisor to CGMC's newly formed Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce — steering infrastructure design, meeting facilitation, and strategic direction for a 150+ member organization.
  • Co-developed CGMC's formal D&I Statement, establishing the organization's first codified framework for belonging, intersectionality, and inclusive community-building.
  • Guided design and analysis of a bi-annual membership survey achieving 45% response rate — establishing baseline metrics across 12+ demographic dimensions to measure inclusion progress over time. Membership satisfaction scores improved measurably from Fall 2019 to Spring 2020.
  • Advised DIT leadership on Arts Fund grant strategy, Center on Halsted partnership development, and inclusive language standards across all organizational documentation.
Second City Country Dance Association
Board President & Operations Manager
2017 – 2024
  • Revolutionized a dormant non-profit through governance and growth strategy — driving a 10,000%+ increase in community participation (2 to 300+ reach).
  • Engineered the organization's first formal Board succession model, bylaws, SOPs, and committee charter system.
  • Designed all organizational communications and member education content — translating brand strategy into materials that drove community growth and retention.
Howard Brown Health
Disease Intervention Specialist · Partner Services
2017 – 2018
  • Delivered CDC-trained patient education and behavioral intervention to support STI prevention — teaching safer practices and facilitating the kind of trust-based conversations that change behavior in high-stakes, deeply personal moments.
  • Consistently achieved partner indexing rates of 80–90% against a 50% target — a direct measure of the rapport and credibility built in every interaction — patients regularly requested that their partners be contacted on their behalf.
  • Carried 70% of the workload for a 7-person team while operating within strict HIPAA compliance and government privacy and information-handling regulations.
  • Practiced influence without authority at its most demanding — no formal leverage, no authority structure, just the ability to meet people where they were and move them toward a decision that required extraordinary trust.
Booking.com
Global Customer Service Trainer
2012 – 2016
  • Pivoted a leadership request for a narrow technical tool into B.$UR€ — a global learning experience designed in a 48-hour sprint, deployed worldwide. Reduced CS complaint payouts by 7% while improving satisfaction and CSAT.
  • Selected from hundreds of global applicants to co-host the Booking.com Annual Meeting CS session for 4,500 attendees; subsequently chosen for the general session for 6,500.
  • Designed and facilitated formal onboarding and training programs for hundreds of employees annually across multiple geographies, roles, and learning profiles.
  • Founded the Booking.com Queer Employee Resource Group, creating one of the company's first formal LGBTQ+ community spaces.
Competencies

What I
bring to the table.

Onboarding & Program Design
Onboarding Architecture OptimizationCohort-Based ProgramsRamp Time ReductionBelonging & Inclusion DesignManager EnablementFacilitation at Scale
Learning Design
Instructional DesignAdult Learning PrinciplesBehavioral DesignLMS ArchitectureMulti-Format ContentSME Collaboration
Cross-Functional
People Ops PartnershipGTM & Sales EnablementChange ManagementProcess ArchitectureProgram Efficacy & KPIsRapid Tech Acquisition
Systems & Tools
Notion · Slack · ZoomBridge LMS · HubSpotTableau · JIRA · WorkdayCanva · WordPress · Google WorkspacePython (conversational) · SQL (conversational)Claude · ChatGPT · Gemini · Canva AI
Languages
English (native) Spanish (fluent) Portuguese (conversational) Ukrainian (emerging) ASL (emerging)
"People genuinely want their efforts to be world-changing. When you honor their intention with genuine faith, trust them with ownership, and get out of their way — they will consistently achieve at that level." Garrett D. Imhoff
Education & Relevant Experience

The foundation
beneath the work.

Grand Valley State University
Bachelor of Arts · Hospitality & Business
  • Degree concentration in event design, operations, and hospitality management — supplemented by three applied internship placements required in addition to traditional coursework.
  • Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society · Dean's List
Grand Rapids Community College
Associate of Arts · Business & Spanish
  • Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society · Dean's List · Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award Recipient
  • Campus Activities Board — Event Chair, Welcome Week: grew annual event budget from ~$12k to ~$20k.
  • Fulfilled as part of GVSU BA Hospitality & Business internship requirement.
  • Founded and served as President of StandOUT, GRCC's LGBTQ+ student organization — grew it to the second best-attended student org on campus and the only org in college history to receive a 3× budget extension from Student Congress.
  • Student Congress representative.
The Melting Pot
Director of Marketing · Two Michigan Franchise Locations
  • Mandated Sommelier certification for the entire staff across two locations — wine sales increased 19% following implementation, a direct and measurable result of investing in staff knowledge and confidence.
  • Ensured consistent application of corporate-mandated marketing standards across both locations while designing and hosting regular events that drove customer engagement and brand visibility.
Arena District
Event Design & Operations Intern
  • Promoted entertainment district businesses and developed relationships with venues, bars, and local partners in the VanAndel Arena corridor — building the cross-organizational partnerships that made multi-venue programming possible.
  • Co-produced a large-scale multi-venue bar crawl as the internship's signature event — coordinating logistics, marketing, and partner execution across multiple simultaneous locations.
  • Fulfilled as part of GVSU BA Hospitality & Business internship requirement.
Grand River Renegades
Member at Large · Board Member · Vice President
  • Served in three successive leadership roles for a Grand Rapids LGBTQ+ country dance organization — progressing from Member at Large through Board Member to Vice President, contributing to governance, programming, and community growth.
  • Applied event design and organizational development skills in a volunteer context, building on the community-building foundation established at StandOUT and anticipating the governance work later done at SCCDA.
  • Fulfilled as part of GVSU BA Hospitality & Business internship requirement.
St. Mary's Healthcare
Healthy Relationships Program Facilitator
  • CDC-trained facilitator of the Healthy Relationships program — a media-forward curriculum using scenes from film and television to help gay men identify appropriate disclosure practices, navigate privacy and safety concerns, and make informed decisions about STI disclosure in the era before PrEP.
  • Delivered behavioral education through popular culture rather than clinical abstraction — an early application of the principle that people learn best when the material meets them where they already live.
Contact

Let's build
something that lasts.

"I don't want another job. I want a legacy — alongside people who believe that the work we do every day is more than the sum of its parts."

If you're building something that matters and you need someone who will pour everything into making your people ready to do the same — I'd like to hear about it. My name is Garrett Dean Imhoff, and I really do like my red paisley tie.

Emailgarrett@redpaisleytie.com LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/garrettimhoff
LocationChicago, IL · Remote Available