At the operational center of Paladin’s focus on client service excellence, Natalie plans, organizes, and streamlines the firm’s projects, tasks, and commitments by “connecting the dots” across timelines, stakeholders, vendors, and other factors for projects of all sizes – from standalone deliverables to multiple simultaneous projects within the firm’s various programs and portfolios.

Natalie is an accomplished director of operations with frontline experience coordinating and facilitating private sector security supporting private family, commercial and public sector clients as well as advancing the mission of law enforcement and criminal justice task forces.

She keeps teams on track, deadlines on time, and budgets under control. Natalie specializes in overseeing, conducting, and developing extensive operational protocols and procedures, including those pertaining to case management, project, program, and portfolio management, as well as the preparation of high-impact reports, executive findings and presentations to key decision-makers. She is highly adept at managing multiple concurrent projects – engagements that are often complex, large-scale, and high-profile.

Natalie was recruited as a senior project manager by Hillard Heintze, one of the leading and fastest-growing privately owned security, threat, and violence risk management firms in the United States. In this capacity, she served as project manager for large-scale law enforcement contracts awarded by both state departments of justice and municipal law enforcement agencies for highly sensitive analysis of major city police departments. In this capacity, she “kept the team straight,” from a project management perspective, on matters relating to critical priorities such as high-profile police department assessments conducted under the glare of national media spotlights, objective analysis of civil unrest, after-action reviews of incidents and shootings, and the broader goals associated with promoting a better police-community relationship through collaborative reform.

Before joining Hillard Heintze, Natalie served as a member of the Illinois Cook County Sheriff’s Office, where she gained valuable experience contributing to the creation and successful implementation of the agency’s Early Intervention System, which identifies and supports officers subjected to uniquely stressful situations within the settings of a correctional facility. Natalie also conducted critical incident reviews which led to recommendations on how to prevent future incidents.

As part of her responsibilities, Natalie also managed intelligence-sharing projects based on information from multi-agency intelligence teams at various governmental levels to maximize synergy within the intelligence community. Adept at analyzing data and identifying trends and abuse patterns, she was consistently assigned to the agency’s task forces engaged in key investigations.

Natalie’s certifications and training include the following: Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM), 2019 - Basic Crisis Negotiation, Federal Bureau of Investigation (Chicago Division), 2017 – LEADS Database Certification (Law Enforcement Agencies Data System), 2017 – CLEAR Database Certification, 2017 – IAPRO Database Certification, 2016.