Society of Decision Professionals (SDP) Webinar
Beyond the Model: What It Really Takes to Earn Trust and Expand Your Impact
Featuring: Michelle Florendo, Powered By Decisions, LLC
Hosted by: Julia Varshavsky, Occampoint
📅 Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2026
⏰ Time: 8:00–9:00 AM PT | 11:00 AM–12:00 PM ET
💻 Location: Online via Zoom
Abstract
Decision professionals are trained to bring rigor, structure, and analytical clarity to complex problems. But the biggest obstacle to better decisions is rarely the model. It's the human on the other side of the table. When stakeholders feel unheard, misunderstood, or don't see the connecting thread between what you do and how it helps solve their actual problem, even the best models never see the chance to make an impact.
In this fireside chat, decision engineer and executive coach Michelle Florendo explores how tuning into emotional pain points rather than bypassing them is one of the most powerful tools a decision professional can develop. Drawing on her work with leaders across industries, Michelle will share practical frameworks for understanding what leaders actually need, including the SCARF model and the Trust Equation, and how to use them to build the kind of trust that opens doors, earns influence, and creates the conditions where good decision-making can actually happen. Attendees will walk away with actionable tools they can put to work right away in their relationships and stakeholder interactions.
Whether you're building a decision sciences function from the ground up or trying to expand your impact within an existing organization, this conversation will give you a new way to think about the human side of your work.
Meet the Speaker
Michelle Florendo
Founder & Executive Coach, Powered By Decisions LLC
Michelle Florendo is an executive coach who is passionate about teaching people how to make decisions with less stress and more clarity. Over the past decade, she has shown thousands of people, including college students, driven professionals, and senior corporate leaders, how to use the principles of decision science to grow their impact and fulfillment. She's been an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford in the Life Design Lab, taught a decision-making course for Stanford Continuing studies, helps train coaches as a faculty coach for Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute, and hosts the podcast, Ask A Decision Engineer. She studied decision analysis at Stanford and earned her MBA from UC Berkeley.
Host
Julia Varshavsky
Founder & Managing Director, Occampoint & Sage Crew, Inc.
With 20+ years in the pharmaceutical industry, Julia Varshavsky has led teams in drug development, regulatory strategy, and organizational optimization, driving innovative therapies in biotech and pharma. A trained Bayesian statistician, she applies decision science to align cross-functional teams on product strategies.
As the founder of OccamPoint, Julia connects professionals in pharma and medical devices to network and explore industry trends. She also coaches individuals on corporate strategy and growth.
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