Founder/Chief People Strategist of TIMAWO, LLC | HR Storyteller | Strategist | Speaker | Change Manager | Author | M&A Professional
The Sentence Under the Sentence
The call usually starts the same way. Turnover is climbing, or a policy keeps getting ignored, or a leader wants a problem gone by the end of the quarter. It sounds like a fix someone could finish in a week. Tina-Marie Wohlfield has learned to hear what sits underneath that request, because the problem described is rarely the problem.
A Rehabilitator by Reputation
Tina-Marie Wohlfield is the founder and Chief People Strategist of TIMAWO, LLC, a Detroit-area firm she launched in 2018 after more than two decades in HR. She says she is often described as a rehabilitator of HR processes and people, and she has adopted the label. She also co-founded HRUnite! in December 2017, a community built on the belief that no one should be priced out of the room.
Twenty-Five Years Close to the Work
Her HR career did not begin in an HR office. In 1992 Wohlfield was a corporate trainer, standing in front of people who had to learn new ways of working. Eight years of training, management and generalist roles gave her a ground-level view of how organizations actually run.
In 2000 she joined Genisys Credit Union, where she spent nine years in human resources. In 2008 she began teaching at Walsh College, where she earned her MBA in HR Management. As an adjunct assistant professor, she taught graduate level HR courses until 2015. She still serves on the college’s SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP exam prep instruction team and as the annual HR Summit conference chair.
From 2010 to 2018, Tina-Marie anchored her consulting career in the insurance industry. She expanded her expertise with SPHR/SHRM-SCP designations, Title IX and change management certifications, applied neuroscience-based coaching credentials, and direct mergers-and-acquisitions advisory work.
She is plain about why the toolkit grew.
“The standard methods we often apply in HR and leadership practices end in missed opportunities for better alternative outcomes.”
In 2019 she published Stop Collaborate and Listen! Developing Impactful HR Partnerships Through Collaboration.
The Work Behind the Simple Ask
Her title is deliberate. A consultant fixes the thing in front of her. Wohlfield describes a wider brief. “My role as a Chief People Strategist at TIMAWO is to help organizations connect the work people do, to the people doing the work.”
That brief reaches past the HR department. Some engagements sit inside HR. Others put her in the room with executive leadership or a single function, and they run from individual contributors to the C-suite. The goal is to make HR a partner in how the business operates, not an obstacle to it. The clients who hire her usually arrive believing they have a small, tidy problem. They tend to leave having looked at where people and work meet across the whole organization.
Her second body of work belongs to the profession itself. HRUnite! gathers HR professionals through Coffee Talkies, small morning conversations capped at ten people, along with the HR Leaders on Leadership Conference, a three-day HRUnite! conference and the HRUnite! Awards. Access is the point. “This community was launched on the premise that the community belongs to everyone regardless of title, industry or tenure in our profession.”
Here is the detail that sets her apart. After nine years, she does not use the community to find clients. “I do not utilize HRUnite! as a pipeline for potential clients as most of my referrals come from contacts outside the HR function.” A community builder who declines to mine her own community is rarer than it sounds, and it explains why people trust the room.
Since May 2024 she has also curated DisruptHR Detroit. On September 24, 2026, around 100 people filled The Corner Ballpark for its sixth edition, where 11 speakers each had five minutes and 20 auto-advancing slides to deliver an idea. She has also taken the stage at TEDxDetroit on curiosity and the future of work. At Michigan HR Day in 2024 she shared a breakout session with her son Kirk, who is pursuing a career in education. Kirk’s career choice grew out of the chance to test-drive careers as a high school student. Opening doors is not a slogan for her. She does it in front of an audience, with family.
The Fix Worth Waiting For
The opening call still comes in, and the request still sounds simple. Wohlfield treats that simplicity as the first thing to question. Her book’s title is also her advice to the leaders and consultants she works alongside.
“When we fail to pause to listen and analyze we dismiss opportunities to partner.”
Organizations that wait for her answer tend to get a better question first.
The fix looks simple until someone stops long enough to listen, and she has built a career on being that someone.
Tina-Marie Wohlfield, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is the Chief People Strategist of TIMAWO, LLC, based in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. She helps organizations connect the work people do to the people doing it, and she co-founded HRUnite!, a community for HR professionals. To connect with Tina-Marie or learn more, visit her Official Website or find her on LinkedIn.
