Amber Vanderburg: Transforming Team Development and Leadership

Amber Vanderburg, founder of The Pathwayz Group, delivering a leadership workshop

In an exclusive interview with Corporate World magazine, Amber Vanderburg, founder of The Pathwayz Group, opens up about her journey in leadership and the transformative impact of her work. A visionary leader with a passion for strategic growth, Amber has built a reputation for creating innovative learning solutions that emphasize real-world application. Under her guidance, The Pathwayz Group is revolutionizing the way businesses approach team development and leadership. Through action-driven, globally informed, and strategically aligned learning pathwayz, Amber and her team are reshaping how organizations foster growth, engagement, and success on a global scale.

Q.- You’ve had such a diverse and impressive career. Can you share a bit about your background and what led you to found The Pathwayz Group? 

I started my career in corporate HR healthcare and worked my way up the ladder in the HR sphere. Then, I made a dramatic shift - I traded my office for a muddy pitch and my heels to a pair of dirty cleats. I became the only female, only American, and only Christian Football Coach for the Paris Saint Germain Academy in Bangalore, India. That experience was pivotal—it was not just about coaching football, but about transforming organizational design, training development, and corporate culture. It was a truly international experience, where I worked with a talented team of global coaches to cultivate a higher-performing group. 

In 2019, I took the next step and founded The Pathwayz Group. I wanted to create a platform where industry experts could collaborate and offer actionable, forward-thinking solutions to improve leadership practices. The Pathwayz Group is built on the idea that direction determines your destination—small, intentional steps every day help guide teams to greater success. Development is not only one step, it’s a continuous pathway. Today, we help leaders through facilitation, coaching, online learning, and workbook resources. 

Q. You’ve worked with a variety of organizations. How do you approach team development and leadership? 

While the approach, the nuances, the dynamics of each organization is different, the foundation is the same in leadership on topics such as communication, delegation, strategic thinking, and leading change. While the foundation is the same, the way we deliver the leadership development to each organization is different. Communication in a German company will be approached different than a Brazillian company. Delegation in a hierarchical community is different than a non-heirarchical community. It’s not just geography, it’s the industry, company - and the actual team. The key is to ask powerful questions and listen to the answers so you can best meet people where they are. 

I once had three companies ask me for team building in the same week. One company sought team building because there was tension and conflict in the team. Another company wanted team building because they had recently acquired another company and the team members didn’t know one another. The third company was a high-performing team that wanted to continuously improve and elevate their team cohesion. The same topic, three different scenarios - this is why we have talented facilitators to ask powerful questions and meet people where they are in their development journey. 

Q. How do you ensure that the learning experience is not only effective but also aligned with broader business strategies? 

 You have to begin with the end in mind. Trying to mash a learning experience into a business strategy can get messy and ineffective. Instead, we begin with the business strategy and align the learning to meet specific goals. And it’s not just learning, it’s behavior. We see ourselves as behavioral designers rather than instructional designers. Knowing the pathway is a good start, following the pathway is where results are seen. 

Q. Can you walk us through the six learning programs that The Pathwayz Group offers? 

We’ve developed six distinct learning programs, each designed to address different aspects of leadership development:

• Leadership Development: Leadership challenges vary at different levels, which is why we’ve created three distinct leadership programs for entry-level leaders, mid-level leaders, and executive leadership. Each program is tailored to address the unique challenges and opportunities leaders face at their respective stages of development.

• Communication Improvement: Effective communication is at the core of every successful organization. This program helps individuals improve communication practices, from giving and receiving feedback to listening and collaborating in meetings. It's one of our most popular programs!

• Team Engagement: A healthy team culture is essential for long-term success. This program focuses on building habits and practices that foster team collaboration, trust, and overall engagement.

• Global Teams: From culture maps to generational and personality differences, this program helps teams navigate global dynamics to collaborate effectively.

• Strategic Growth: Designed to help leaders and executives enhance their business acumen. We help leaders enhance their skills from strategic planning to change leadership frameworks, helping organizations build forward-thinking strategies that drive success.

• Career Development: This quips incoming professionals with the skills they need to thrive in their careers, going beyond just getting the job to creating a roadmap for ongoing professional development.

Q: What are some of the key accomplishments of The Pathwayz Group so far? 

The greatest accomplishment is in the impact of our work in people’s lives and communities.

We’ve grown our facilitator and coaching team around the globe and hear stories of impact in the 75 countries we’ve delivered leadership programs. There was an executive VP who shared that he used his delegation and communication frameworks to help navigate a family medical emergency. We spoke to another leader who changed their feedback and engagement approach and saw a dramatic shift in their teams retention, performance, and trust. We worked with an executive leadership team who reported our programs helped them trust one another and to actually be seen/heard for the first time (one said the first time in their 15 years in the position!).

Yes, we’ve had award-winning online courses, average a 4.8/5 in learner review scores, and maintained 95 percent of our clientele. These are key accomplishments for us, but the main focus and impact is the opportunity to uplift people through better leadership skills. 

Q. At The Pathwayz Group, How do you measure success in these programs? 

Again, we begin with the business strategy in mind and we measure leadership development program success on three levels. 

One - Do they enjoy the experience? 

Two - Is there behavior change? knowledge attainment? Habit refinement? Mindset shift?  Three - How does the knowledge/behavior change impact the business? 

In the program, the attendees will have at least three opportunities for application for each learning objective. Learning don’t sit back and listen, they lean forward and apply. It’s not just knowing, it’s doing. The learning experience is only as good as the lessons applied. 

Q: Looking ahead, what’s next for The Pathwayz Group? 

This year has been about setting sail to chart the future of leadership development. We have been reimagining a more globally-minded and cinematic approach to online learning content. It’s not a boring blank screen, it’s a business adventure online learning, we recently released a communication course where we explored communication skills in the 130-year old marketplace of La Pau Sat in Singapore. For more than a century, business people have communicated their message clearly and effectively to their customer here - what can we learn from them? 

We are hosting our own HR Leadership Pathwayz Conference in Berlin, Germany for HR executives of global enterprises on May 26-27. This is the event we always dreamed of. We designed space for connection, reflection, and learning from one another. It’s less about speakers and a lecture and more about roundtables, panel discussions, and open spaces. 

We are delivering more future-minded learnings like our EQ in Tech and AI in Leadership programs. And we’ll be launching a new book for our manager development program called "HR Guidelines Every Manager Should Know" (coming July 2025)

These aren’t just steps. They are milestones of a long, thoughtful journey toward reimagining leadership development. We are thrilled for the future and more to come! I’m incredible proud and grateful for the opportunity to make an impact with my team.