About Teays
Teays Group, pronounced "taze", was built for the work that lives between the boxes on the org chart.
The complex, cross-functional problems. The initiatives that are important but hard to move. The moments when leaders know something needs to change, but the path forward is tangled across people, process, systems, and competing priorities.
Teays works alongside leaders and teams to create clarity, structure, and momentum. The goal is not to become a permanent fixture. It is to help solve the problem, strengthen the system, and leave the organization better equipped to carry the work forward.
Teays Group was founded by Mary Mismas-Lefebvre, a transformation and operational excellence leader with 14+ years experience across manufacturing, distribution, healthcare, insurance, and enterprise operations. Her background spans continuous improvement, project and program management, organizational change, management systems design, and cross-functional transformation.
Mary holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engingeering from Purdue University, and her background combines an engineer’s systems mindset with years of experience helping teams work through complex organizational problems. She is known for bringing the right people together, surfacing the conversations that need to happen, and turning ambiguity into practical action.
Mary holds professional credentials including:
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PMP® | Project Management Professional (view verified Credly badge)
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CCMP™ | Certified Change Management Professional (view verified Credly badge)
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Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Those disciplines shape how Teays works: understand the system, involve the people who know it best, build structure around the work, test and learn, and create solutions that can actually be sustained.
About the Founder
Why the "Teays" Name?
The name Teays comes from the ancient Teays River, a massive river system that once flowed through parts of the eastern United States before glaciers reshaped the landscape and buried much of its course.
Today, the river is largely hidden beneath the surface, but its path still influences the landscape above it.
That idea became the foundation for Teays Group.
Organizations work the same way. What is visible on the surface is often shaped by systems, decisions, history, handoffs, and assumptions that sit underneath. Solving the visible problem without understanding what lies beneath it rarely creates lasting change.
Teays exists to uncover what is underneath, understand how the pieces connect, and help organizations create a better path forward.
Our Philosophy
We believe the best solutions are built with organizations, not delivered to them.
Teays brings an outside perspective and a neutral, cross-functional lens, while client leaders and subject-matter experts bring the knowledge of their business. Together, we create solutions that work in the real organization and can be sustained after Teays steps away.
Curiosity. Candor. Structure. Action. Sustainment.
That’s the work.