Trent Wakenight

Trent is a Senior Consultant and Graphic Facilitator who blends more than 20 years’ experience as a professional facilitator, strategy and communication consultant, and project manager with the use of graphic facilitation and visual communication in support of complex, multi-domain projects.

Called upon as an innovator and problem-solver, Trent partners with clients in deep trust and high result relationships to develop vision, strategy, team performance, and communications deliverables. His career spans higher education, the U.S. Federal government, and the private sector. He has supported fields that include cybersecurity, data governance, systems engineering, IT and information sharing, model-based engineering, military intelligence analysis, STEM workforce development and education, major systems acquisitions, space, and aviation. A career highlight was his work as a senior consultant at The Grove Consultants International.

Clients engage Trent to translate tough internal and external dilemmas, and trends and impacts in broad operating environments into facilitated conversations and visuals. End products include near- and long-term strategies, as well as illustrated story maps and whiteboard explainer videos. Trent produces whiteboard videos from start to finish – from initial scripting to storyboarding, voice and audio production, and post-production. He is also called upon for graphic recording – the ability to sketch out in real-time on paper or a digital drawing tablet ideas and dialogue that emerge from group discussions to create illustrated visual narratives. Some clients call his facilitated workshops “sticky notes on steroids,” and have given him the nickname “Marker Ninja.”

He is a published author and co-author of several books and articles in the field of facilitation and visual communication. Trent is a Certified Professional Facilitator with the International Association of Facilitators, and is a member of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners. In 2021, Trent established the San Francisco Bay Area Visual Practitioners Meetup network.

In his free time, Trent nurtures his passions for fitness and outdoor exploration, cooking, gardening, art projects, the writing of books and musicals, and sports spectatorship of all kinds.

Trent has a Master’s degree in Public Relations from Michigan State University, and a Bachelor’s in organizational communication from Hope College.