A mind for structure. A heart for people.
And real joy in the art of the process.
Hi, I'm Savannah.
I'm the person you bring in when the business problem is actually a family problem — or the family problem is actually a business problem.
I'm a former therapist, a serial entrepreneur, and a third-generation family-business member — which, in this field, makes me a bit of a unicorn. I've spent my life inside multigenerational enterprise, and I work with families from the inside of that experience, not the outside of a textbook.
My training in marriage and family therapy gives me a rigorous lens for how family dynamics ripple through operations — and how operations, governance, and ownership structures ripple right back through the family. My business background is what lets me do something about it: find the structure, draft the plan, and coach the people who have to live inside both.
If you want the longer story of how Schema came to work this way — and why I built it the way I did — that's the Origin Story →
On the credential, plainly. I hold a Master of Arts in Marriage & Family Therapy and Counseling (MAMFT) from Reformed Theological Seminary, and I practiced under licensed supervision for six years while pursuing licensure. I chose not to finish it: neither an LPC nor an LMFT fits this work, and holding one could create real confusion for clients about what they're actually getting. So I'm not a licensed clinician in any state — by deliberate choice. I'm not practicing as a therapist, and this isn't therapy. That distinction is foundational to everything I do.
Part trainer, part coach, part strategist — and nobody's secret weapon.
I don't try to change who people are. Changing someone isn't a deliverable I provide, and I won't be hired as anyone's secret weapon. What I do instead is help people show up as the best version of who they already are, and learn to work in concert — a jazz band finding its groove, not a trumpet and a sax fighting to be the loudest on stage.
Think part personal trainer, part coach, part playbook strategist, part cheerleader — for a family that wants to grow in relationship, in profit, and in quality of life, all at the same time. I find the strengths, the gaps, the red flags, and the openings: in the business and in the family, separately and as one moving system. Then I build the structure — the options, the plan, the timeline, the conversations, and the accountability to actually get there. Because you can't coach yourself when you're the one on the field.
And yes — there's joy in this.
Real laughter. Real connection. Family members who'd stopped seeing each other starting to again. I'm at my happiest when a family that walked in braced for a fight walks out acting like a team — and, lucky for me, that happens all the time.
What it's actually like to work with me.
I've written it down — in plain language, with no fine print disguised as friendliness. What working with me feels like, what I'll ask of you, and how we decide who the "client" actually is. That last part matters more than it sounds, because it shapes how your confidentiality works.
The plain-language version Working with Savannah →Want the full set — the ethical framework, practice policies, and exactly what I do and don't do? It's all on the Policies & Ethics page →
Let's see if we're a fit.
Thirty minutes, no cost, no pitch. You tell me what's going on. I'll tell you honestly whether this is the right kind of help — and if it isn't, I'll point you toward what is.
Book a Free 30-Minute CallNeed to introduce me somewhere?
Lift this — it's the short, third-person version, for conference programs, podcast intros, and anywhere else you need it.
Savannah Berry Suttle, MAMFT, is a family-systems consultant and the founder of Schema Consulting, LLC — a private practice serving family enterprises, family offices, and the advisors who work with them. She specializes in the "stuck middle": the season when a family and its enterprise know something has to change but can't see the options, can't agree on direction, or can't move from insight to action. Her method is structural — she makes invisible system patterns visible, moves families from contempt to curiosity, and builds workable roadmaps for succession, governance, family-office formation, and operational transition, repairing relationships and rebuilding trust in the same motion that gets the business unstuck.
Schema Consulting LLC · Seattle, Washington