Diagnose. Align. Scale.
Organizational Strategy & Structural Alignment
Clarity is a competitive advantage. We help you find it.
Strategy, talent, and AI integration for leaders who know that how you build matters as much as what you build.
Our Expertise
Diagnose. Align. Scale.
Strategic people advisory for companies navigating growth and complexity.
Growing companies don't fail because of bad ideas — they fail because their people infrastructure can't keep up with their ambition.
True Compass Advisory was founded on a simple belief: the right people strategy is one of the most powerful accelerators a business has.
We partner with founders and leadership teams in startup and mid-market organizations to identify and resolve people and culture challenges — while building the organizational foundation needed for sustainable growth.
True Compass Advisory provides the strategic guidance companies need without the overhead of a full-time executive. Whether navigating rapid growth, organizational change, or the gap between where people operations are today and where they need to be, we help leaders find their direction — and move forward with confidence.
Because growth without the right foundation doesn't scale. It just gets louder.
Diagnose. Align. Scale.
Organizational Strategy & Structural Alignment
Advisory Services
Built for organizations ready to move with intention.
True Compass Advisory works with leaders at inflection points — building something new, scaling what's working, or protecting what they've built.
HR Strategy & People Operations Most organizations don't fail from lack of ambition. They fail from misalignment between their people strategy and where the business is actually going. We help you build the HR function your organization actually needs. Learn more →
AI Training & Integration Your people are already using AI. The question is whether they're using it well. We help organizations move from AI curiosity to AI fluency — with the structure, training, and change management to make it stick. Learn more →
Crisis Response Preparation Workplace violence is no longer a remote risk. It's a leadership responsibility. Our programs are led by a former Navy SEAL whose methods are proven under the most extreme conditions imaginable. Learn more →
Ready to move with intention? Let's start with a complimentary consultation — no pitch, just clarity on where your company is and where it could be. [Start a conversation]
HR Strategy & People Operations
Diagnose. Align. Scale.
As organizations grow, leaders often encounter people and culture challenges that standard approaches aren't equipped to solve. Leadership alignment begins to strain, organizational structures become unclear, and talent strategies struggle to keep pace with the demands of scaling.
We work alongside founders and leadership teams to identify these challenges and implement practical solutions — aligning people strategy with business objectives to strengthen leadership capability, design effective structures, and build cultures that support retention, performance, and long-term success.
Our work spans:
Organizational strategy and structural alignment
People strategy and talent development
Leadership alignment and capability building
Culture design and retention frameworks
For organizations without an HR function, we build the foundation from the ground up. For those with HR already in place, we assess what's working, identify what's misaligned, and course-correct so that people operations become a true strategic partner to the business.
We don't just diagnose challenges — we work alongside leaders to implement practical solutions that support both people and performance.
AI Training & Integration
Your people are already using AI. The question is whether they're using it well.
True Compass Advisory helps organizations move from AI curiosity to AI fluency — with the structure, strategy, and leadership alignment required to make it stick.
Whether you’re building foundational capabilities or rethinking how work gets done, we meet you where you are. We assess your current state, identify where AI creates meaningful leverage, and build the internal capability your team needs to operate with clarity and confidence.
What this looks like in practice:
AI Readiness Assessment
Understanding where you are today — and where AI can drive real value.
Identify inefficiencies and manual bottlenecks
Assess readiness across teams and functions
Evaluate where AI adds meaningful impact vs. noise
AI Strategy & Workforce Integration
Aligning AI with how your organization actually operates.
Align AI tools with business goals and workflows
Redefine roles and responsibilities to reflect evolving ways of working
Integrate AI in a way that enhances — not disrupts — performance
Team Enablement & Training
Building practical capability across leadership and teams.
Role-specific training grounded in real workflows
Development of prompt literacy and decision-making frameworks
Support for teams adapting to new ways of working
Change Management & Adoption
Ensuring adoption is sustainable, not performative.
Design communication and rollout strategies
Support leadership through transition and adoption
Build internal systems that reinforce long-term usage
You don't need to become an AI company. You need your people to work smarter — and we'll show them how.
Crisis Response Preparation
Workplace violence is no longer a remote risk. It's a leadership responsibility — and most organizations are unprepared.
When seconds matter, training is the difference.
Our crisis response programs are led by a former Navy SEAL who dedicated the majority of his career to training SEAL candidates. During active service, one of his deployments placed him as executive security for Rowsch Shaways, Vice President of Iraq.
By applying elite psychological and tactical frameworks, he increased the average BUD/S pass rate from 10% to 16% — a testament to his ability to train people to perform under the most extreme stress imaginable.
That same discipline now translates to your workforce. This is not a checkbox exercise. It's practical, scenario-based preparation that gives your employees clarity, confidence, and a plan — before they ever need it.
What your team will be equipped to do:
Recognize early warning signs of a developing threat
Execute Run, Hide, Fight protocols with confidence, not panic
Communicate effectively with first responders during an active incident
Support colleagues and manage the human response in the aftermath
Training is delivered through real-scenario simulations — not slide decks. Your people will practice decision-making under pressure until it becomes instinct.
Your people deserve to feel safe at work. This is how you make that promise real.
Our Founder
Katrina Ta, SPHRi, SHRM-CP, SAFe® Agilist
Katrina founded True Compass Advisory after recognizing a consistent pattern across the organizations she served: companies with strong ideas and ambitious growth goals were being held back not by strategy, but by the absence of a strong people foundation. Leaders were making critical workforce decisions without the structure, processes, or guidance needed to support sustainable growth — and the consequences were showing up in turnover, misalignment, and organizational friction.
Katrina is a senior people and organizational advisor with 20 years of experience helping organizations build, align, and scale their people operations. Her career spans a decade in corporate HR as well as several years in higher education and business development — giving her a broad perspective on how organizations attract, develop, and retain talent across different environments and stages of growth.
Her approach is both architectural and hands-on. She has built HR functions from the ground up, course-corrected operations that had grown misaligned with business needs, and partnered with senior leaders on:
Hiring strategy, workforce planning, and organizational design
Employee relations, performance management, and culture
Enterprise-wide HRIS and ATS design and implementation
Multi-region talent acquisition across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico
Her industry experience includes renewable energy, manufacturing, marine, EPC services, and waste management — sectors where operational execution and workforce alignment directly determine whether growth holds.
Katrina holds the SPHRi and SHRM-CP, two of the most recognized certifications in the HR profession, along with the SAFe® Agilist certification. She is also a Certified Photovoltaic Associate, a Generative AI for Project Managers graduate, and a PMP candidate — a combination that reflects both the depth and range she brings to her advisory work.
Based in Chicago, Katrina brings a cross-cultural perspective to every engagement.
True Compass Advisory is the culmination of everything she has built, learned, and observed — a firm designed to give growing organizations access to the kind of senior-level people expertise that helps them scale with clarity, alignment, and confidence.