Most executives climb the corporate ladder by mastering one discipline and sticking with it. They become finance gurus or sales savants, carving out kingdoms in their chosen domains. Tammy Berberick started her career this way—as a CPA at Arthur Andersen, where spreadsheets had clear answers and balance sheets never lied.
But here’s what the numbers couldn’t tell her: technical excellence doesn’t make you a leader. Managing budgets doesn’t mean you can manage people. And sometimes, the path to transforming a million lives starts with realizing that your own path needs transforming.
Today, as CEO of Crestcom International, Berberick leads an organization that has trained over one million leaders across 60 countries. Under her stewardship, Crestcom has earned three consecutive Top 20 Leadership Training Company recognitions from Training Industry (2023, 2024, 2025), multiple Stevie Awards, and the 2025 Training Magazine Network Choice Award. But the woman behind these accolades took a deliberately unconventional route to get there.
From Crunching Numbers to Building Leaders
Berberick’s foundation as a CPA and business consultant at Arthur Andersen gave her something invaluable: an intimate understanding of the P&L. This financial literacy would prove essential throughout her career, but it was her time at Coors Brewing Company—later MolsonCoors—that truly shaped her leadership philosophy.
She didn’t just occupy executive positions. She dominated across multiple domains: finance, information technology, human resources, strategy, and sales operations. By the time she left as Corporate VP of Worldwide Services, Berberick had done something rare in corporate America—she’d lived in the shoes of nearly every executive function. She knew what marketing needed from finance, what IT required from strategy, what HR demanded from operations.
This cross-functional fluency wasn’t just resume building. It was preparation for understanding a fundamental truth: great leaders don’t just excel in one area. They connect the dots across all of them.
The Coaching Crucible
After MolsonCoors, Berberick could have pursued another corporate executive role. Instead, she chose a different path—one that would directly prepare her for Crestcom. She became a Vistage International chair, coaching over 100 CEOs and key executives on leadership, change management, organization design, and strategy. She also owned her own business, consulting with leaders at the highest levels.
This wasn’t a detour. It was immersion. For the first time, she wasn’t leading from within a single organization—she was observing patterns across dozens of them. She saw which leadership approaches scaled and which crumbled under pressure. She witnessed firsthand how poor leadership decisions rippled through entire organizations and how great leadership could turn struggling companies around.
Making the Mission Personal
When Progress Equity Partners was evaluating Crestcom for acquisition, they brought Berberick in to conduct due diligence. She reviewed the content, assessed the market viability, and did what consultants do—delivered her analysis and left. But something unexpected happened. The leadership training content resonated with her in a way that balance sheets never had.
A year later, when Crestcom asked her to return for an organizational assessment and strategic plan, she discovered something that would change her trajectory: this wasn’t just another business opportunity. This was her calling.
The Franchise Model as Force Multiplier
What makes Crestcom unique—and what drew Berberick—isn’t just its curriculum. It’s the franchise model that turns individual leadership trainers into a global network. Berberick describes it as being about “abundance” rather than competition. Franchise owners across 60+ countries share insights, support each other, and collectively drive impact far beyond what any single organization could achieve.
This collaborative approach reflects Berberick’s own leadership philosophy: hire people who think differently than you do, value that diversity even when it’s uncomfortable, and be vulnerable enough to admit you don’t have all the answers. It’s advice she gives freely but lives more authentically.
Beyond the Boardroom
Berberick also served as Executive in Residence at the Colorado School of Mines and as COO of a software startup, experiences that kept her connected to both academia and entrepreneurship. She’s authored books on leadership, including “The Leadership Habit,” which provides a framework for patterns of behavior that transform leadership.
But perhaps her most significant achievement isn’t measured in awards or training numbers. It’s in the mission she champions daily: making the world a better place by developing stronger, more ethical leaders. In an era where leadership is often equated with power rather than responsibility, Berberick’s approach is almost radical in its simplicity.
She believes that technical skills get you promoted, but leadership skills determine whether you succeed. She knows that most people aren’t prepared for their first management role—and that this lack of preparation cascades through organizations, creating dysfunction at every level.
The Long View
Three consecutive Top 20 recognitions. Multiple Stevie Awards. A global network spanning 60 countries. Over a million leaders trained. These are impressive metrics, but they tell only part of Berberick’s story.
The complete story is about a CPA who realized that the most important numbers don’t appear on spreadsheets. It’s about an executive who accumulated power in multiple domains, then chose to give it away by empowering others. It’s about a coach who learned from 100 CEOs before becoming one herself.
Most of all, it’s about understanding that transforming a million leaders isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking the right questions, surrounding yourself with people who challenge you, and staying committed to a mission larger than any single organization.
That’s not just leadership development. That’s leadership practiced at the highest level.
