The Independent Consulting Community of Interest (ICCI) is pleased to invite you to a free online panel presentation: Retirement from Independent Consulting: Practical, Financial, and Existential Reflections
Tuesday, February 17 | 1-2:30pm ET
Retirement from independent consulting looks quite different from retirement from salaried or organizational roles. For many of us, it resembles an ambiguous transition rather than a single decision, shaped by client relationships, financial realities, and evolving senses of purpose.
This online panel brings together three highly successful former independent consultants who have already navigated this transition. Drawing on their lived experience, the panellists will explore what it means to prepare for, move through, and live beyond retirement from independent consulting. Our conversation will span practical questions (such as recognizing when it may be time to step back, designing an off-ramp versus setting a hard stop, and navigating ongoing client and professional relationships) alongside financial considerations (including retirement readiness, income continuity, and whether an independent practice holds residual or transferable value). The panel will also attend to the often less-discussed existential dimensions of retirement: shifts in professional identity, changes in belonging and contribution, and the re-shaping of meaning and purpose after consulting work ends. As a participant, you will leave with grounded reflections, concrete considerations, and a richer framework for thinking ahead. Whether retirement feels distant, emerging, or already on the horizon – you’ll be prepared to approach this transition with greater clarity, intention, and care.
Session Facilitator
Roman Katsnelson, MBA CED, CE is the founder and principal consultant at KRD Consulting Group on Treaty 7 territory in Calgary/Mohkinstsis. For more than two decades, he has worked alongside governments, non-profits, funders and community-led initiatives on learning-focused evaluation, strategy, and organizational development. His practice centres equity, relational accountability, and utilization, integrating data, dialogue and systems thinking to support collective sense-making and informed action. Although he is still far from retirement, his life has been enriched many times by perspectives of those older than him, and he is looking forward to doing a lot of listening in his role for this panel.
Panelists
Gail Vallance Barrington, PhD, CE, is a certified teacher, CES Fellow, and long-time independent consultant. Books include Consulting Start-up and Management (SAGE, 2012) and Evaluation Time (co-author B. Triana-Tremain, SAGE, 2022). Her chapter, “The Independent Consultant: An Insider’s Guide to a Consulting Career,” appeared in Bickman and Rog’s The Evaluation Handbook: An Evaluator’s Companion (Guilford, 2025). Barrington won the Canadian Evaluation Society’s (CES) Contribution to Evaluation in Canada Award in 2008, and the American Evaluation Association’s Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award for Evaluation Practice in 2016. She has served on the Boards of both associations. She managed her consulting firm, Barrington Research Group, Inc. for 35 years and has taught evaluation courses at several universities in Canada and the United States. Now retired, she enjoys mentoring emerging evaluators and is following her long-held passion for creative writing. https://gailbarrington.ca
Natalie Kishchuk, PhD, former CE, CES Fellow began independent consulting in program evaluation and applied social research in 1996. A past member of the Board of Directors of the Société québécoise d’évaluation de programmes (1996-2000) and the CES (Vice-President 2017-2019), she received awards for service from both societies. She is a past Chair of the Fellows Executive Committee (2022-2025), the CES Educational Fund (2010-2012), and the Ethics Guidance Working Group (2017-2020), and served on the CES Credentialing Board from 2010 to 2019. She remains active in the implementation of CES’s Ethics Guidance and continues to mentor early and mid-career evaluators. Now moving into (and sometimes out of) retirement, Natalie has realigned her interests towards community and political volunteering, writing speculative fiction and very amateur music.
Sandra Sellick, EdD, CE was the principal evaluator at EvaluationLink.ca and an associate faculty member for the School of Leadership Studies at Royal Roads University. She reviewed books about evaluation for the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation before being invited to join the Editorial Board for the CJPE. Sandra served on the CESBC Chapter Council from 2004 – 2017, including terms as the National Chapter Representative, Co-Chair of the 2010 CES Conference in Victoria, and one of three Program Co-Chairs for the 2017 CES Conference in Vancouver. While a member of the CES National Board from 2014 to 2017, she worked on two committees (Professional Learning plus Governance and Process) and represented the CES on the Joint Committee for Standards in Educational Evaluation (JCSEE). We hope you will join us for this insightful panel discussion on preparing for and moving through retirement from independent consulting!