SAINT LOUIS, MO, March 09, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Amber D. Simpson, PhD, is a distinguished biographee of Marquis Who's Who. She was recently spotlighted in New York City's Times Square on a 22-story screen that is passed by an estimated 1.5 million people daily. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are chosen from among a pool of the most prominent professionals and are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

Dr. Simpson has established herself as a leading expert in organizational effectiveness and development, culture transformation and business strategy with a focus on human capital. With a career spanning nearly three decades, she has demonstrated exceptional skill in developing and executing business strategies and leveraging individuals to drive organizational success.

Leveraging her years of expertise, Dr. Simpson founded Veralign Consulting Collective in 2025, where she serves as the founder and principal consultant with a primary focus on providing executive coaching for individuals navigating career transitions. She also provides guidance to enterprises large and small in the domain of organizational effectiveness. In this capacity, she collaborates with partners to refine her expertise in leadership development, coaches high-potential executive leaders and guides organizational restructuring. Her work centers on aligning functional areas with strategic objectives, integrating business transformation with technology to identify inefficiencies, improve forecasting and strengthen workforce planning. Dr. Simpson's strategic goal is to help organizations transform their business models for greater agility and performance. She is also developing targeted training programs, identifying essential skills and refining recruitment strategies to build stronger teams.

Since the launch of Veralign Consulting Collective, Dr. Simpson has been exploring new ideas, including developing "The Contract Podcast," which aims to elevate the value of human resources within organizations by highlighting the importance of people in achieving business outcomes. Additionally, she is working to expand the Global Women in Leadership Alliance™, an international networking program for professional women that fosters development opportunities and expands professional networks.

From 2022 to 2025, Dr. Simpson excelled as a senior learning and performance consultant at Edward Jones. In this role, she achieved a historic milestone by creating the firm's first unified onboarding program for field and home-office associates across the U.S. and Canada, resulting in more than $200,000 in budget savings and improved employee integration. Dr. Simpson's tenure at Edward Jones also included positions as a senior client experience strategist from 2016 to 2022, department leader for recruitment strategies and financial advisor career development between 2019 and 2020, capability strategist in 2020, director and capability strategist from 2020 to 2022, and senior learning and performance consultant between 2022 and 2025. During her tenure at Edward Jones, Dr. Simpson played a key role in the Client Insights program, conducting research and piloting the "Discovery" business model.

Before her time at Edward Jones, Dr. Simpson served as the vice president of strategy and insights at U.S. Bank from 2014 to 2016, after initially representing the organization as a vice president and manager of national multicultural markets for 10 years, starting in 2006. While at U.S. Bank, she initiated several impactful programs, including founding the company's first business resource group for associates who identified as allies to African American employees, a pioneering effort that became the model for similar groups supporting other employee segments and laid the foundation for U.S. Bank's nationally recognized diversity, equity and inclusion program.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Simpson served as a regional store leadership program manager at The Home Depot from 2005 to 2006. There, she authored the operations manual for all hourly key associates across stores, a standardized process that was later automated and adopted as the official operational template for stores nationwide. Recruited from CPI Corporation, Dr. Simpson served as a strategic business operations manager between 2000 and 2005, during which she successfully transformed the company's Mexican business unit into a highly profitable division.

Dr. Simpson's diverse professional experiences also included serving as a team lead for the e-commerce division at Convergys Corporation, a company that sold customer management and information management products to clients. She also worked in education as an English-as-a-Second-Language instructor for adults and as a French and Spanish instructor in after-school programs for kindergarten through eighth grade.

Possessing a rich educational background, Dr. Simpson received a Bachelor of Arts in French language and literature and international business from Washington University in St. Louis in 1998. She later acquired an Executive Master of Business Administration in international business from Saint Louis University in 2007 and a Doctor of Philosophy in education administration, leadership and policy studies with a concentration in kindergarten through 12th grade administration from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis in 2014.

In addition to her formal education, Dr. Simpson holds numerous certifications that have further enhanced her capabilities. She first became a certified teacher, principal and superintendent. She has also earned credentials as an enterprise design thinking advocate and practitioner from IBM, a Brinkerhoff high-performance learning journey architect and champion from High Performance Learning Journeys, and, among others, became a senior certified professional through the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Dr. Simpson is an active member of several industry-related organizations, including the Society of Multicultural Professionals in Human Resources, where she serves on the program and professional development committees, SHRM and the National Black MBA Association.

Among her civic engagements, Dr. Simpson has served as the secretary for Gateway 180 since 2018 and had recently been elected Board President. She is also affiliated as a member of the dean's cabinet at the college of education at the University of Missouri-Saint Louis, , is a board member for the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and a board director at Forsyth School.

Dr. Simpson's accomplishments have been recognized through several prestigious awards, including inclusion among the 40 Under 40 in the Saint Louis Business Journal in 2007, notoriety with a Diverse Business Leader Award and through recognition as the Most Influential Business Women by the Saint Louis Business Journal in 2011 and 2016, respectively, and by being named a St. Louis American Young Leader by The St. Louis American Foundation in 2012. She attributes her success to influential mentors who have guided her at pivotal moments throughout her career. She also notes her adherence to the core values of integrity, respect and service, and her embrace of vulnerability by acknowledging mistakes or uncertainties as they arise.

Throughout her career, Dr. Simpson has distinguished herself by adapting across diverse sectors, including Broadway productions, international ventures, nonprofit organizations and large corporate environments, giving her unique leadership dexterity and insight into how organizations function in different settings. Eager for the future, she continues to seek opportunities that align with her purpose-driven approach, helping individuals navigate career transitions while advancing organizational effectiveness through human capital optimization across industries.

About Marquis Who's Who®:
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America®, Marquis Who's Who® has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Who's Who in America® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. The suite of Marquis® publications can be viewed at the official Marquis Who's Who® website, www.marquiswhoswho.com.

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