Camelback Canyon Group
Derinda Ehrlich
Clarity for what’s next. Confidence to move forward.
Change advisory, executive coaching, and AI adoption guidance built on decades of leadership in global operations.
About
Who I Am
I built my career in operations leadership for global companies before anyone called it change management. Twenty-one years at Motorola across semiconductor, telecom, and embedded computing, including co-leading an acquisition integration of 1,500 employees across eleven worldwide sites. Vice President of Global Operational Excellence at Avnet, where my team delivered more than $150 million in audited, sustainable benefit. A decade as a Prosci Executive Instructor and Principal Change Advisor, certifying more than 4,500 change practitioners worldwide.
The credential stack sits underneath all of it: a Purdue engineering degree, a Kellogg MBA, a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and an NLI coaching credential. The thing clients actually buy is the combination. I’ve led the teams that optimized manufacturing lines, integrated acquisitions, and built and streamlined operating systems, so when I work the human side of change, the practical and technical side comes with me. Technical credibility, blended with a real understanding of how people move through change, makes for a unified approach to transformation. That dual fluency is the whole practice.
Coaching & Advisory
How I Work
The practice runs in two lanes, deliberately different in scale and price.
Personal Coaching
A deliberately small roster, structured so you can move at your own pace and level of commitment. This is one-on-one work for people planning for a significant transition or already in one: a new executive role, a career reinvention, or the move from a long corporate run into whatever comes next.
The judgment you built over the years doesn’t end when your job ends. My coaching helps you find your core identity and purpose, then build the momentum to make it real.
Organizational Advisory
Facilitation, change strategy, and leadership development for companies in the middle of real transformation. Recent work includes change agility workshops for senior leadership teams and multi-day facilitation for operational planning.
The advisory work draws directly on what I learned doing this myself, for decades, at scale.
AI Advisory
Real Business Problems, Solved with AI
AI earns its place by solving a business problem. Writing better emails is the least of it, and buying and installing a tool accomplishes nothing on its own. Most AI advice comes from people who have never run a real business. Mine comes from a career spent deciding which technologies were ready for the factory floor or the boardroom, which ones would reduce risk and improve outcomes, and which ones would get somebody hurt. Pair that judgment with AI’s speed and breadth of research, keep human insight and validation in the loop, and problems that once looked out of reach become workable.
Two recent engagements show the range:
Industrial
A heavy equipment company wanted their field crews to have instant access to manufacturer equipment specifications, in a business where a wrong answer isn’t an inconvenience, it’s a safety incident. I scoped the project so a licensed professional engineer verifies every output before crews rely on it. AI where it helps, human judgment where it must stay.
Legal
A retired attorney and fiduciary risk consultant needed a forensic review of a legal article: checking it for AI-editing artifacts, verifying every citation, and confirming the mathematics. The deliverable was a fully corrected, redlined document he could stand behind.
Legal documents and heavy equipment have nothing in common except this: both clients needed someone who could judge what AI can safely do, what it can’t, and how to build the verification in between. That judgment travels across industries. If your organization is trying to figure out where AI genuinely fits, that’s the conversation I’m built for.
Speaking
From the Stage
I speak on change leadership, AI adoption for organizations that can’t afford to get it wrong, and repurposement: the discipline of carrying career judgment into what comes next. Formats range from keynotes to working sessions for senior leadership teams. Recent audiences include groups of eighty-plus senior leaders in workshop settings built around the brain science of how people actually change.
Example talks:
- Partner with AI, Don’t Deploy It. Where AI genuinely fits in a transformation, and why buying and installing it accomplishes nothing on its own.
- What Are You Feeding Your Culture? Like sourdough, culture needs a starter, a healthy environment, and steady feeding. That’s leadership work, and it can’t be scoped like a project.
If you need a speaker who has lived inside the operations your audience runs, let’s talk.
Facilitating a leadership workshop
The Book
Your Job Will End. Plan So You Don’t.
If you’re smart, you put the same rigor and discipline into planning your next career transition that you put into planning your financial future. Most people don’t. They wait for the transition to arrive instead of preparing for it.
Terry Cain and I built a framework for that preparation, drawn from our own experience, from best practices in psychology and change management, and from interviews with people who have navigated career transitions themselves. Paired with my professional coaching background, it gives you a way to plan for and move through whatever comes next.
- A framework grounded in real experience, not theory
- Insight from people who have actually made the transition
- A coaching approach built to help you act on it, not just think about it
Contact me and let’s talk about a path forward with clarity, insight, and purpose, so that when your job is over, you aren’t.
Get the Book at yourenotover.com
With the book at the NASCC Steel Conference
Client Voices
What People Say About Derinda
I highly recommend Derinda as a strategic partner and trusted advisor. She has been truly transformational for me, consistently offering thoughtful insight, clarity, and perspective that helped me move forward with confidence during pivotal moments. Derinda brings a rare blend of strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and practical problem-solving.
Carla Caldwell Executive Leader, Sales & Business Development
Her guidance helped me navigate executive-level organizational issues, taught me vital techniques to find solutions, and helped me map out my personal goals. I highly recommend Derinda as a coach, speaker, or mentor.
Jeremiah Randa Executive Leader and Operational Systems Developer
She doesn’t just teach change management. She embodies it. Her facilitation style is grounded in brain-based science, which means every concept is delivered with intention, empathy, and a deep understanding of how people actually process change. She doesn’t overwhelm. She orchestrates. She doesn’t lecture. She coaches.
Natasha Rider Principal Consultant, Cardinal Arc Consulting
Contact
Let’s Talk
Whether it’s coaching, advisory, speaking, or an AI question you’re not sure how to scope, the first conversation is free and worth having.