Christina Z. Griggs
CEO
Christina has spent her entire life in and around the business world. Her family owned and operated the oldest family-owned business in Canada until a few years ago. The family shoe business went through many changes, challenges and triumphs, with the development of discount stores and a rapidly changing business environment. Exposure at such an early age to the business challenges her family faced led Christina to enjoy helping others navigate through dynamic business conditions.
During her professional career, Christina has worked in many verticals, including environmental and business consulting, property management, investment banking, corporate housing, real estate brokering, commercial and residential construction, electrical engineering, personal investment planning, IT Services, association management, government, publishing and web development. For these companies, she created stronger operations, built solid financial structures and improved customer relations.
Christina founded Gemsbok Consulting in 2001 to assist companies in building a solid foundation from which to grow and stay resilient in ever-changing markets. Thanks to Christina’s intense curiosity and commitment to helping her clients succeed, this company still operates today. Over 20 years later, Christina has worked with hundreds of companies to help them develop and maintain efficient financial and operating structures.
When Christina is not crunching numbers, she enjoys Crossfit, hiking and camping, playing Settlers of Catan and spending time with her family, preferably outside.
Accounting Superpower: Christina creates financial models that use real-time data to help CEOs and business leaders make sense of where they are and prepare for where they are going.
Fun Fact: Christina played ice hockey for over 20 years and yet finds knitting complex Nordic patterns relaxing.
Education & Awards
College of Financial Planning, Denver
- Certified Financial Planner
- Acquired Series 7, 63, 65, 31 and Life & Health Insurance licenses
Principia College
Bachelor of Arts: Business Administration Degree, Minor in Biology
- College Honor Roll, Deans List, Graduated with Honors
- The Lincoln Academy of Illinois Student Laureate Award
- Scholar Athlete Award
- Helen Summy Woodward Memorial Award
- Charles F. Buckwalter Athletic and Academic Honors Award
Rebekah Ormord
Director of Client Services
Rebekah found her knack for accounting accidentally. Nearly 20 years ago, she started as an assistant to a friend who owned a design-build company for high-end residential mountain homes. She was instantly drawn to the project management and project accounting piece of the business. She loved the numbers and putting the puzzle pieces together that help ensure profitability for a project and company. The owner saw this and quickly promoted her to Director of Operations and eventually sold the business to her.
After the 2008 housing crash shut down residential building, she turned her talents towards helping nonprofits build better processes and accounting practices. As the housing market recovered, she found herself drawn back into construction project management and accounting.
She enjoys working with business owners to help them build the most effective and efficient processes to make their business both profitable and enjoyable.
When Rebekah is not crunching numbers, she absolutely loves the mountains. She enjoys hiking and biking and being outdoors any chance she gets and it’s even better when she gets to adventure with her family.
Accounting Superpower: Rebekah’s ability to create order out of chaos makes her the perfect person to come in and make sense of complicated predicaments in businesses.
Fun Fact: Her children claim that she loves her cockapoo more than them and while that is debatable, she is indeed more than a little smitten with little Zoe.
Education and Awards
Manhattan Christian College
Bachelor of Arts, Counseling and Education
Melissa Hoyt
Client Advocate
Melissa has spent her career and life managing people and office processes. She is a stickler for doing things correctly, tracking down the right answer and managing her clients’ finances and needs like she would her own. She brings her innate attention to detail along with her training in accounting to her work with local governments, corporations and non-profits.
When she is not crunching numbers, Melissa loves to watch Formula 1 Racing with her family, walk her dog, take Bar Method classes, watch HGTV and try new restaurants. She is an avid reader and enjoys photography.
Accounting Superpower: Melissa’s love for tying out numbers makes her the “go-to” team member for reconciling accounts. She thinks of it as therapy!
Fun Fact: She only follows Twitter for the dog and animal accounts but dog videos are her absolute favorite.
Education and Awards
Principia College
Bachelor of Science, Biology
Rachel Guillot
Client Advocate
Rachel has always been exceptional at thinking organizationally as well as creating and managing projects and teams. No matter what role she is in, she leans towards the operations side of things, taking it upon herself to communicate clearly the objectives and strategy but also the value that each shareholder brings to the table.
She has worked in finance in many different business sectors, including real estate leasing, technology, service as product, bricks-and-mortar as well non-profits. Her head for processes, numbers and details and the people they affect makes her contribution invaluable to the big picture of an organization.
When Rachel is not crunching numbers, you can find her in the kitchen or curled up with a good book or somewhere on a lake on her SUP.
Accounting Superpower: Rachel’s people + process approach to accounting allows her to resolve sticky situations in ways that don’t alienate.
Fun Fact: Rachel has a food blog over at https://inthekitchenwithrachel.com/ where she shares her favorite recipes.
Education and Awards
Fort Hays State University
Bachelor of Science: Organizational Leadership
- V.A.L.U.E. Scholar
