Who We Are
Twenty-four years of measuring trust and building it into how organizations run.
Synergy International Limited, Inc. is a management consulting firm headquartered in Akron, Ohio, serving clients nationally across 13 and more industries. We hold certification as a Minority Business Enterprise, a Women’s Business Enterprise, and a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise.
We are engaged when the stakes are high — a leadership transition, a merger, an AI rollout, a workforce that has lost confidence, a board that needs to see clearly. Underneath each of those sits one question: do people trust this organization enough to stay, to buy, to follow, to build?
We answer it with data.
Dr. Rachel Talton
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Rachel Talton holds a Doctor of Management from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. Her dissertation examined trust repair in distrust-dominated environments, and that research is the spine of every model Synergy runs.
She is the author of Flourish, an Amazon #1 bestseller, and co-author of The Sixth Level with Anne Richards. Sacred Strategies is forthcoming.
She is a Co-Founder, Board Member, and Community Governor of The BOW Collective, a national network of 350+ entrepreneurs spanning 37 industries and 28 states with $1.7 billion in annual revenues. She serves on the boards of Boyd Street Ventures, Tori Soudan, the Tri-C Foundation, JumpStart, and the Akron Community Foundation, where she is Immediate Past Chair.
Her honors include the Legacy BOW Award, Weatherhead Enterprise 100 (#3), the Inc. 5000 Power Partner Award, Enterprising Woman of the Year, Woman of Achievement, Woman of Vision from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, and recognition among NAWBO’s Top 10 Women Business Owners. She has appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX, and published in Inc., Entrepreneur, and the Huffington Post. In January 2026 she attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, where she held conversations on trust, psychological safety, and ethical AI.
Meet Our Team
Ames M. Talton
Chief Operating Officer
"I've learned that regardless of what business one works in, the bottom line is teamwork. By that I mean everyone pulls in the same direction as they work toward a mutual goal. Which can often be easier said than done but, in my experience, the rewards have always proven to be worth the effort."
Crystal Ogden
Project Manager
“I find tremendous joy in ensuring the success of others especially if I can help support them and bring out their best.”
Beth Fitz Gibbon
Senior Research Consultant
“It’s not about how what you own or how much you have that matters; it’s what you do with what you’ve got that counts.”
Steve Harf
Senior Marketing Consultant
“Everything has something valuable to market, especially if it’s your own product, service or skill.”
Robin Segbers
Director of Marketing Research
“I believe that I’m helping my clients make the world better a little at a time.”
Matt Selker
Reseach Consultant
“During this great time of organizational and global flattening, leaders need to know how they can become knowledgeable players in the game of change, instead of confused bystanders wondering what is happening.”
Kathy Worcester
Director of Strategic Marketing
“The most exciting element of our work at Synergy is the ability to align the internal brand communication and culture to the external campaign messaging and creative. That is why, as a marketer, I pursued my Masters in Organizational Development.”