C.A. Friend Consulting was founded in 2006 with a mission to positively influence the lives of people in our communities. C.A. Friend Consulting works on two levels to accomplish this goal: the individual level and on the organizational level. An efficient life, for an individual or an organization, is one that seeks the optimal path towards the achievement one‘s purpose.
Thus C.A. Friend Consulting works by “helping individuals and organizations to maximize efficiency.”
Dr. Christian A. Friend is the founder and President of C.A. Friend Consulting. Dr. Friend received a Bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters degree in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. Dr. Friend also holds a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from UNC Greensboro. Dr. Friend’s professional goals have always been closely connected to his personal desires to improve the lives of others. He began his career as a high school social studies teacher for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system. His experiences as a high school teacher led him to the understanding that youth need community-based services to support the academic development they received in school.
He was thus guided to serve as a Youth Services Specialist for the Charlotte Housing Authority. His service with the Charlotte Housing Authority led Dr. Friend to seek out additional education in order to improve the human and social services he helped to provide. Dr. Friend completed his Ph.D. coursework in 2004. He then took a position as Director of Community and Research Services for the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. In this position, he continued to develop his skills in community based research and organizational capacity building.
Dr. Friend has also worked with the United Way of Central Carolinas, to improve the efficiency of the United Way’s grants and allocations processes, and as the Executive Project Director for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ Achievement Zone. In this role, Dr. Friend managed a Bill and Melinda Gates Grant designed to use a data-driven approach to improve academic achievement at eleven of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s most challenged public schools.
Dr. Friend is a member of the inaugural class of the Community Builder’s Learning Project. He is an alumnus of the Community Building Initiative’s Leadership Development Initiative and a member of the Wildacres Leadership Initiative’s William C. Friday Fellowship.
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