Fieldbook authors and ESAT member biographies

John D. Adams Ph. D., Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.

Adams is Professor and former Chair of the Organizational Systems Program at Saybrook Graduate School. The program emphasizes sustainability research and implementation.

His work focuses on understanding the psychology of successful sustainability initiatives. He is author of Thinking Today as if Tomorrow Mattered (Eartheart Enterprises, 2000) and numerous articles and book chapters on mental models for sustainability. Adams is also a faculty member at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s Green M.B.A. program, and a guest lecturer at the Sri Sathya Sai University M.B.A. Programme in Puttaparthi, India.

Adams is Founder and Director of Eartheart Enterprises (www.eartheart-ent.com), which offers sustainability, health and stress, and successful change implementation support.

Formerly he was Manager, Integrated Work Environments at Sun Microsystems, an interdisciplinary team designing workplace scenarios that optimized team success factors.

Adams has published 10 books and over 50 articles on topics including sustainability, organizational transformation, change implementation, and workplace health and stress management. He serves on the editorial boards of The Organization Development Practitioner and the Journal of Social Change. He has two degrees in mathematics and received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University.

Gregory S. Andriate, Ed.D., Organization Innovation LLC, Palm Coast, FL, USA.

Andriate is Executive Director of Organization Innovation, a consulting firm partnering with clients to develop sustainable enterprise capabilities for the 21st century. An expert in business innovation and transformational change, he helps organizations reframe, restructure, revitalize, and renew capabilities securing business value for customers and shareholders.

Since 1985, Andriate has led over 30 organizational transformation interventions in Europe and North and South America. His experience includes financial reporting/insurance savings plan conversions, agricultural/pharmaceutical product development cycle improvements, and workscape revitalization initiatives in 22 petrochemical manufacturing sites. His executive coaching experience includes reinventing corporate functions in engineering, communications, ecology/health/safety, finance, human resources, IT, logistics, and procurement.

Previously Andriate was Manager, Executive Development for BASF, responsible for executive competency and high-performance business capabilities development. Earlier, he was Assistant Dean, University of Bridgeport Metropolitan College, responsible for adult degree programs, and a faculty member at Bridgeport, Hartford, New Mexico, and West Virginia universities.

Andriate has published book chapters in Information and Behavior and Communication Yearbook 6 and articles in such journals as Communication, Communication Quarterly, and Communication Research Reports, and has served on editorial boards of two academic journals. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s at Rutgers University and his Doctorate in Educational Psychology at West Virginia University.

Beth Applegate, MSOD, Applegate Consulting Group, Takoma Park, MD, USA.

Applegate is President of Applegate Consulting Group (www.applegateonline.com), which has provided consulting services for over 18 years. She brings a rich anizational behavior, management, politicand diverse portfolio of experience and a solid grounding in theory pertaining to orgal science, and grassroots organizing.

Applegate is known as an insightful, forthright, and compassionate person who holds a deep concern about racial equity and social justice. She approaches her work and life with a sense of inquiry, possibility, and purpose. While working with each client system, Applegate supports the client in evaluating whether the espoused core values—those deeply held views we hold as a compass for ourselves, regardless of whether or not we are rewarded—are congruent with the behavior and actions of the organization as a whole.

Applegate earned an M.S. in Organization Development at the American University/National Training Laboratory, Institute for Applied Behavioral Sciences where she was inducted into the Phi Alpha Alpha national honor society. She is a recipient of the Hal Kellner Award, presented to a student whose characteristics include being “challenging, thoughtful, humorous” and who “holds a deep concern about social justice.”

Victoria G. Axelrod, M.A., Axelrod Becker Consulting, New York, NY, USA.

Axelrod is a management consultant and organization strategist. She has extensive experience developing, integrating, and executing company strategy. She is a Principal of Axelrod Becker Consulting (http://axelrodbecker.com/), which develops sustainable growth by identifying new revenue opportunities based on untapped internal strengths through the power of stakeholder networks. Clients are start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and government agencies.

Axelrod is a former Senior Vice President and Head of Global Best Practices for the American Management Association where she doubled the revenue to $300 million in four years. She is also a Partner of Norman N. Axelrod Associates (a technology planning and solutions consulting firm).

She co-founded both the blog 21st Century Organization Group, to address issues in today’s interconnected technology-driven global business environment, and http://c21org.typepad.com.

She has published and made frequent presentations to groups such as U. S. National Security Agency, Bausch & Lomb, Baruch College M.B.A. Program, New School, Human Resource Planning Society, and the US Chamber Institute. Board member service includes eSight and Organization Development Network of Greater New York. She has B.A. from the University of Michigan and an M.A. from Columbia University.

J. Flynn Bucy, Ph.D., The Bucy Group, McLean, VA, USA.

Bucy is Founder and Principal of The Bucy Group, a consulting network providing business, civil society, development agencies, and academic institutions with effective strategies for moving toward sustainability—primarily through multistakeholder partnerships. He also serves as a strategy consultant.

Bucy is a social entrepreneur and catalyst for multisectoral partnerships bringing business firms, government agencies, multilateral development institutions, civil society organizations, and academic institutions together to forge creative solutions to global challenges. He has an entrepreneurial approach to creation of effective sustainability strategies and partnerships. Engagements included working with Chevron Texaco to develop a global community engagement program, The Clinton Foundation on climate change, World Vision International to develop a strategy for harnessing emerging carbon offset markets to benefit the poor in developing countries, The TCC Group, Citizens International, Earth Council Foundation, and various technology start-ups.

Prior to founding The Bucy Group, Bucy was Assistant Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Baylor University, Vice President of Sales for the Government Systems Division of EDS, and a staff consultant for Arthur Andersen Consulting.

Bucy earned a B.A. in economics and an M.B.A. in International Business at Baylor University and a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at George Washington University.

Jane Carbonaro, B.S., Four Corners International, Half Moon Bay, CA, USA.

Carbonaro is Director of Collaborative Services for Four Corners International, where she is responsible for client and partner development. In this role, she also serves as technology liaison, having been deeply involved in ERP software development and deployment efforts for more than a decade.

Carbonaro’s background includes work in information management for sustainability and environmental health and safety. Additionally, she has managed customer support and business development organizations with responsibility for all client, partner, and development interfaces.

Since 2002, Carbonaro has been involved in the development and support of online communities and collaborative work environments. Since 2006, Carbonaro has been an advisor to SKN Worldwide–USA on the design and functionality of the Sustainability Knowledge Network collaborative workspace portal. She has contributed to an extensive review of social network platforms currently being used to advance sustainable development objectives and technology tools used to support transorganizational collaborative efforts. She has a B.S. in Public Relations from San Jose State University.

Douglas Cohen, M.A., The Leadership Center, Maplewood, NJ, USA.

Cohen is Founder of The Leadership Center; Chair, Resource Council, National Youth Initiatives, US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development (www.uspartnership.org); and Founder, Inspired Futures Global Campaign–Inter-Generational Partnerships for Livable Futures, New York/Wellington, New Zealand. His cross-sector efforts focus on designing large-scale change campaigns to achieve generational solutions in human systems. Cohen leads At the Edge of Emergence retreats worldwide, inviting change agents on seven continents into collaborative efforts to bring about an inspired, healthy, and sustainable future culture.

Through youth-focused Leaders of the Next Generation programs, Cohen emphasizes leadership development, sustainability literacy, and systemic change literacy for tomorrow’s leaders. He consults to emerging green economy clients and is developing green jobs for at-risk youth through his consultation to the New York State Office of Children & Family Services. Cohen consults to the New Zealand Dept. of Conservation on leadership for the learning organization.

Cohen’s writing appears in Einstein’s Business (St. John, 2006). He co-authored Who’s Minding the Future, with Holly English (Leadership Excellence, 2001); wrote a vignette in Shaping the Learning Organization (Marsick, Watkins, 1990). Cohen received his B.A. in Psychology from The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA, and his Master’s in Applied Behavioral Science from The Leadership Institute, Seattle/Spokane, WA.

Karen J. Davis, M.A., New York, NY, USA.

Davis has consulted with organizations globally for over 35 years. Her life’s work is in the spirit of earth wisdom, and her values and practices are grounded in multiple ways of knowing.

Davis (kdavis@globetrotter.net) is dedicated to building a global community and sustainability by working and learning with colleagues and groups worldwide. She is on the postgraduate faculty in Organizational Behavior and Development at the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile. She is a board member of Open Space Institute, is active in the International Organization Development Association, and has been a Trustee of the Organization Development Network. Karen serves on the board of a large health-care company and on boards of various community and cultural organizations.

Karen’s educational background includes specializations in chemistry, counseling psychology, and social psychology. Her music training and experience are significant influences in her work and life. When not traveling or working around the world, she lives in New York City, returning regularly to her native Arizona. Summers, she is on her farm in rural Quebec, Canada, with her virtual office. Karen describes herself as a “global citizen and gardener.” The earth is her playground and lifelong teacher.

George-Thérèse Dickenson, B.A., New York, NY, USA.

George-Thérèse Dickenson has been a poet, writer, and editor for 30 years. Her work focuses on language, the environment, and peace-and-justice issues. Recently she was editor of two community-based newspapers and the daily news compendium Garden State EnviroNews. She was Managing Editor at two Ziff-Davis magazines and Senior Editor at New York Magazine.

She founded Incisions: Prison Arts, which became a model for prison arts programs. Dickenson directed the foundation, taught in prisons, edited a magazine of prisoners’ writings, and performed their work at museums and arts and literary venues, and on the radio. Candles Burn in Memory Town is an anthology of writings from Incisions workshops.

Dickenson’s books of poetry include Striations and Transducing. She is featured in a number of anthologies including UpLate: American Poetry Since 1970 and American Poets Say Good-bye to the Twentieth Century, both edited by Andrei Codrescu. She has given poetry readings, performances, and lectures in venues ranging from the NuYorican Poets Café to Harvard University and the Whitney Museum (NYC). Dickenson has an honors B.A. from Wellesley College, where she was a Durant Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Tom Drucker, M.A., Consultants in Corporate Innovation, Marina Del Rey, CA, USA.

Drucker is President of Consultants in Corporate Innovation (www.corporateinnovation.com). His work is unique because he integrates the principles of positive psychology and advances in neuroscience with the methods of process improvement and change management. Drucker serves as a trusted advisor and a business consultant to owners, professional partnerships, and leaders of every size business and is proud to be partnering with Jeana Wirtenberg in www.whenitallcomestogether.com, focusing on building sustainable enterprises through improving leadership, culture change, collaboration, and learning.

Xerox Corporation recruited Drucker from his doctoral program, and he began his business career working directly for the chairman of Xerox. In his 15-year career with Xerox, he developed practical and cost-effective methods for designing and implementing new strategies and sustainable organizational changes. He left Xerox in the early 80s to start Consultants in Corporate Innovation. Drucker serves on the board of the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles where he has started a mentoring program for young artists.

Drucker received his M.A. in Clinical Psychology from UCLA while working with and being mentored by Abraham Maslow and Viktor Frankl. He pursued a Ph.D. at UCLA’s business school where he combined operations research, anthropology, linguistics, and behavioral science.

Kent D. Fairfield, Ph.D., M.B.A., Silberman College of Business, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, USA.

Fairfield is Assistant Professor of Management at the Silberman College of Business, Fairleigh Dickinson University. Formerly a Vice President at the Chase Manhattan Bank, he later founded Kent Fairfield Associates, consulting on teams, leadership development, and change management. His current research concerns interdependence between employees and managers, between groups, and between organizations. He also explores the factors underlying sustainability management, including individual differences in how people carry out decision-making, leadership, and employee engagement.

His publications have appeared in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Human Resource Planning, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, Journal of Healthcare Management, and Journal of Management Education. He has made presentations at scores of academic and professional conferences in the United States and abroad.

He emphasizes learning from experience in his teaching, including requiring students to conduct community service projects and carry on mentor relationships with executives. He earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University and an M.B.A. in Finance from the Harvard Business School.

Alexis A. Fink, Ph.D., Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, USA.

Fink works in the People and Organization Capability function at Microsoft. Currently, she is Group Manager, Culture and Talent Transformation. In this role, she is responsible for execution of and deriving insights from Microsoft’s suite of employee engagement research programs, for driving enterprisewide culture change, and for building out an enterprisewide talent strategy and framework. In prior roles at Microsoft, she had responsibility for Microsoft’s assessment strategy and portfolio for executive assessment, for leadership competency research, and for the enterprisewide competency research strategy.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Fink spent eight years at the global chemistry giant BASF, leading through acquisition integrations, driving curriculum design, and leading large-scale organizational change initiatives.  In addition to her industry experience, her academic talents led her to conduct research for the U.S. Navy and NASA, and to teach at the doctoral level.

Fink received her doctorate from Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, VA.  A productive scholar as well as an accomplished practitioner, she has over 30 publications and academic presentations to her credit.

Gil Friend, M.S., Natural Logic, Berkeley, CA, USA.

Friend is President and CEO of Natural Logic (http://www.natlogic.com) (CEO blog: http://blogs.natlogic.com/friend/), a strategy and systems development company that helps companies and communities prosper by embedding the laws of nature at the heart of enterprise. He develops “generative feedback” systems, including Business Metabolics and OpenEco.org, that evaluate and track the sustainability performance of businesses, communities, and organizations. Tomorrow magazine called him “One of the country’s leading environmental management consultants—a real expert who combines theoretical sophistication with hands-on, in-the-trenches know-how.”

He has served on San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's Clean Tech Advisory Council; was a founding board member of the Sustainable Business Alliance and Internet pioneer Institute for Global Communications; and co-founded the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a pioneering sustainability “think-and-do tank,” more than 35 years ago.

Friend writes “The New Bottom Line,” a column on business strategy; “The Week in Carbon” column for WorldChanging.com; and a blog on strategic sustainability at http://blogs.natlogic.com/friend. He is also writing the forthcoming book Risk, Fiduciary Responsibility and the Laws of Nature. He holds an M.S. in Systems Ecology from Antioch University and a black belt in Aikido. He is a seasoned presenter of “The Natural Step” environmental management system.

Joel Harmon, Ph.D., Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, USA.

Harmon is a Professor of Management in the Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University, a Distinguished Faculty Fellow of its Center for Human Resource Management, and Director of Research for its Institute for Sustainable Enterprise. During his 24-year academic career, he has served as Department Chair, President of the University Faculty Senate, President of the Eastern Academy of Management, co-leader of the Sustainable Practices Action Research Community workshop series (1997–2007) at the Academy of Management, and founding member of the Academy’s Theory-to-Practice Executive Steering Committee. Before joining academia, he held several management positions in industry.

He specializes in organization strategy and transformation, focusing on linkages between people, learning, and sustainability practices and corporate performance. He has published widely in a variety of leading academic and practitioner journals including Health Care Management, Case Research, Human Resource Planning, Cost Management, Group Decision & Negotiation, and Organization Behavior & Human Decision Processes.

Harmon earned his Ph.D. in Organization Communication and Change from the State University of New York at Albany and an M.S. in Environmental Policy and Planning from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Pam Hurley, M.A., TOSCA Consulting Ltd., St. Albans, Hertfordshire, UK.

Hurley is Founder and Managing Director of TOSCA (www.toscagroup.com), an international consultancy with particular interest in the implications of the changing nature of the world of work for strategy. TOSCA helps organizations in all sectors develop sound strategy, build internal commitment to driving it forward, and put in place the necessary processes to ensure effective implementation. Together with a range of well-known client companies, TOSCA has developed a new thought leadership model that combines practical insights with leading-edge ideas and research to help understand what the future may hold and how to address its challenges and capitalize on its opportunities.

Hurley’s previous roles cover both public and private sectors. In central government her policy and operational responsibilities included health, social security, and criminal justice as well as an efficiency scrutiny for the UK Prime Minister’s Office. She also held HR and Planning Director posts in the National Health Service. Private sector roles included leading research on societal change and values and their implications for strategy development with the Shell Global Scenarios Team and change management with the Shell International leadership group.

Hurley is an Associate Fellow, University of Oxford, and received her M.A., with Honours, in English Literature, from Edinburgh University.

OValue rrin D. Judd, M.Div., Judd Performance Consulting, Denville, NJ, USA.

Judd is President of Judd Performance Consulting. He has over 20 years of independent and corporate professional human resource development experience, both domestic and international, with “blue chip” companies from a variety of industries, as well as with public agencies. He has worked successfully with all levels of management and employees in developing skills, improving organizational climate and productivity, creating a vision, and achieving corporate objectives. Judd has a lifelong commitment to employee involvement, the triple bottom line, and respect and caring for our environment.

Client assignments cover a broad spectrum of industries including telecommunications, flavor and fragrances, pharmaceutical, and retail, and both public sector and nonprofit organizations. Orrin has been awarded the FDA Commissioner's Special Citation, the President's Quality Award from Hoffmann-LaRoche, and the Human Resources Diamond Award from AT&T. He is a certified Future Search facilitator and a member of the Future Search Network. He is also a member of the New Jersey Organizational Development Network and the NJ Human Resource Planning Group. Judd earned his B.A. in Psychology at Tufts University and his M.Div. at Colgate Rochester Divinity School.

Linda M. Kelley, B.A., TRANS FORM, Boston, MA, USA.

Kelley is Principal of Trans-Form, and certified practitioner of Applied Human Systems, Walking Your Talk (www.CultivatingExcellence.com), Boston, MA, and Second Life, (avatar, Delia Lake, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Neufreistadt/33/114/127).

Kelley’s focus is on professional and personal development. She uses a holistic approach to learning that integrates thinking, feeling, and moving for fast, genuine results. She works with individuals and teams to develop the mindset, presence, actions, and culture of leadership and effective teamwork for enterprises building a sustainable world.

Kelley brings to her consulting and coaching a practical, hands-on perspective from her 30 years of business experience coupled with an artist’s sense of invention, play, and design, and an amateur naturalist’s powers of observation.  She has worked for and consulted to both businesses and government—from multinational corporations to small, closely held companies, civilian, military, and nongovernmental agencies. Her business experience includes sales and marketing, systems analysis, project management, strategic planning, and training. Recently, she led a successful turnaround, and then negotiated the sale, of a century-old, family-owned company.

Kelley serves on the board of the Sustainable Business Network/Boston and the steering committee of the OD Learning Group, and is a member and former chair of the board of Extras for Creative Learning. She earned her B.A. in Sociology at Bucknell University.

Richard N. Knowles, Ph.D., the Center for Self-Organizing Leadership, Niagara Falls, NY, USA.

Knowles is Co-founder and Director of The Center for Self-Organizing Leadership. His work is focused on helping organizations become much more effective through the use of Self-Organizing Leadership.

He served in the DuPont Company for over 36 years beginning as a research chemist (40 patents), then in a variety of manufacturing assignments at Repauno, NJ, Chambers Works, NJ (as Assistant Plant Manager), Niagara Falls, NY (Plant Manager, 1983–87), Belle, WV (Plant Manager, 1987-95), and finally as Director of Community Awareness, Emergency Response and Industry Outreach. In 1995 he received the EPA Region III Chemical Emergency Planning and Preparedness Partnership Award.

His leadership work is featured in Tom Petzinger’s The New Pioneers (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1999) and Roger Lewin and Birute Regine’s The Soul at Work (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000). He is author of The Leadership Dance: Pathways to Extraordinary Organizational Effectiveness (2002).

He has discovered and developed a unique approach to using the Process Enneagram, a highly effective tool for organizational transformation. It cuts to the heart of the key variables in dynamic situations enabling people to more successfully move forward through complex challenges. Knowles earned a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of Rochester and a B.A. in Chemistry at Oberlin College.

David Lipsky, Ph.D., Conversant, Highland Mills, NY, USA.

Lipsky is a senior consultant with Conversant. He has over 20 years of experience in building organizational and leadership capabilities that contribute to business success and personal growth. He has accomplished this by focusing on the potential and possibilities of the people and businesses he has worked with and using his extensive experience in strategic alignment, leadership development, and organizational transformation.

Lipsky has had the opportunity to work with many organizations in a variety of industries, including Sony, Unilever, United Technologies, Bank of America, Alpharma, KPMG Peat Marwick, and Merrill Lynch.

Lipsky is also an Associate Professor at Manhattanville College. He has lectured and authored articles and book chapters on internal consulting, organizational development, and sustainability. Lipsky received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University in Human Ecology and received a Ph.D. in Applied Psychology from Hofstra University, focusing on leadership effectiveness and success.

Sangeeta Mahurkar-Rao, Ph.D., ProCelerité LLC, Clifton, NJ, USA.

Mahurkar-Rao is Co-founder and CEO of ProCelerité (www.procelerite.com), an enterprise focusing on business process transformation for global businesses needing to align themselves with rapidly evolving market forces.

Mahurkar-Rao’s business orientation and work in organization development has deep roots in systems thinking. She sees organizations consisting of numerous interrelated systems and believes that for a company to be sustainable it is imperative to understand both the whole and the interrelationship of the parts.

Formerly, Mahurkar-Rao was Global Head of HR and OD at Persistent Systems where she focused on aligning HR with business and led a strategic realignment to a role- and competency-based organization, while driving aggressive growth in the employee base. She has been retained by global companies to successfully lead strategic value-adding initiatives including organizational restructuring, visioning, and process alignment. She has been associated with NVIDIA, Winphoria Networks, Philips Software, and Tata Consultancy Services.

Mahurkar-Rao is on the leadership team of the Global Community on the Future of OD. Her research has been published, and she co-edited and co-authored Roots of Reason: Science and Technology in the Ancient World. She received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria.

Theresa McNichol, M.A., Ren Associates, Princeton, NJ, USA.

McNichol is President of Ren Associates, and a former museum director and curator. She is a Chinese culture scholar and an award-winning artist who has both exhibited her paintings and taught nationally and internationally. With her unique combination of skills and experience, she looks at trends in management and leadership issues from a unique vantage point. McNichol’s publications and presentations at Asian, European, and American conferences reflect her interests in aesthetic leadership, cultural capital, intangible assets, and reflective practice.

McNichol, who has held adjunct posts at several universities, is currently adjunct Associate Professor at Mercer County Community College. She is a member of the Innovation in Education seminar at Columbia University and of several advisory boards including the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise at Fairleigh Dickinson University, NJ. Looking ahead to emerging fiscal and cultural legacy issues baby boomers face as they move into retirement, she is instituting a philanthropy division at a New Jersey senior health-care facility.

McNichol majored in Chinese language and Asian cultural studies at Brooklyn College, where she received a B.A. She received her M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from New York University. Her paintings are included in many private and public collections.

Susan Nickbarg, M.B.A., SVN Marketing, Silver Spring, MD, USA.

Nickbarg is Principal of SVN Marketing, a respected organizational improvement firm that provides hands-on strategic planning, corporate responsibility training, and integrated communications and program development services assisting global companies, start-ups, and nonprofits succeed at becoming sustainable enterprises.

Credited with creating cutting-edge sustainability initiatives, she has enabled companies to meet or exceed expectations for sustainability. Her articles have appeared in Business for Social Responsibility Weekly, Greenbiz, PR News, The Corporate Ethics Monitor, and the US Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center. Her writings demonstrate how to conceptualize and implement strategies and tactics that improve performance and promote sustainable growth. Topics include the environment, climate change, governance, PR, branding, communications, partnerships, CSR strategy, and CSR reporting. She also serves as a judge for the PR News Corporate Social Responsibility communications awards competition.

Formerly, Nickbarg was a Director at Discovery Communications and held marketing management roles at Edmark, an IBM subsidiary, Grafica Group, Novartis, and Sara Lee, where her efforts built strong brands, new businesses, and successful teams and partnerships.

Nickbarg earned an M.B.A. at the University of North Texas, a B.A. at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and a Certificate in International Relations at New York University.

Govi Rao, M.A., Lighting Science Group Corp., Princeton, NJ, USA.

Govi Rao is Chairman and CEO of Lighting Science, a leader in energy-efficient LED lighting, offering digital lighting solutions for highly customized projects as well as ready-to-use, plug-and-play applications. Rao also serves as an Operating Advisor for Pegasus Capital Advisors, L.P., a private equity fund manager that provides capital to middle-market companies across a wide variety of industries.

Previously, Rao was Vice President and General Manager of the Philips Solid State Lighting business in North America. He also held several other leadership roles at Philips, including Vice President of Business Creation & Brand, in which he was responsible for product management, strategic marketing, branding, and sustainability.

Prior to joining Philips, he spent over a decade with specialty chemicals leader Rohm and Haas in various leadership roles across a range of businesses and geographies.

Born and raised in India, Rao is an advisor to the US-China Center for Sustainability and a founding member of the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise at Farleigh Dickinson University. He also serves on the board of the Alliance for Solid-State Illumination Systems and Technologies (ASSIST) and the board of educator programs at Villanova University. Rao earned his M.A. in Human Resource Development at Villanova University.

William G. Russell, President, SKN Worldwide-USA Inc., Leonia, NJ, USA.

Russell is a leader in advancing sustainable development–aligned strategies and management systems. He has worked with a broad range of worldwide clients including small and large corporations, government and intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, nonprofits, and universities. In 2003, he founded SKN Worldwide-USA (www.sknworldwide.com), a sustainability consulting and technology services company. In 2004, he founded the Sustainability Knowledge Network (SKN) (www.sknworldwide.net), a collaborative workspace portal to educate and integrate diverse communities of people and engage stakeholder organizations working to implement collaborative projects and programs that advance sustainability.

Russell is also affiliated with The Generation Consulting Group and the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise and Sustainable Business Incubator at Fairleigh Dickinson University where he works to support start-up companies with strategic advice and funding. Prior to founding SKN, he served as the U.S. leader for environmental services at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Russell is on the advisory boards of Innovest Strategic Advisors, an environmental and intangible-value risk ratings company and Four Corners International, a company specializing in developing new technologies that address climate change, sustainability, and globalization issues. He is also an external board member emeritus of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maryland and his M.B.A. from Rutgers University.

Anna Tavis, Ph.D., American International Group Inc., New York, NY, USA.

Tavis is Vice President of Organizational Development for American International Group, responsible for talent management, organization development, and learning.

Before joining AIG, Tavis was Director of Learning and Development at United Technologies, responsible for servicing over 215,000 employees in more than 70 countries. Prior to that, she led the organizational development function in Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions for Motorola, based in England and then was the Head of Talent Management for Nokia based in Finland. In academia, Tavis served on the faculty at Williams College, Fairfield University, and Columbia University.

Tavis serves on the board of the Princeton Alumni Association, published a book on Rainer Maria Rilke (1997, Northwestern University Press), and has authored over 30 articles in international journals. She is currently on the editorial board of HRPS and is a frequent presenter at international talent management and learning and development forums.

Tavis was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and graduated from Herzen Pedagogical University with a degree in Linguistics and Education. She also studied at Bradford University, UK, and Dartmouth College, USA. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and later received an advanced certificate in Business Administration from the University of South Carolina.

Daniel F. Twomey, D.B.A., Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, USA.

Twomey is Director, International Partnerships for the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU). He teaches leadership and sustainability at FDU. Dan previously was Professor of Management at West Virginia University. He has consulted for many large and small organizations and published more than 40 articles in national and international journals.

Twomey was a founder and director of four outreach organizations that link business with academia and teaching and research with practice, including co-establishing a two-day Academy of Management Workshop: The Practitioner Series. He has played a substantive role in forwarding Flu’s mission “global leader in education” by working with international universities and developing programs for both Executive M.B.A. and undergraduate students. Recently he has co-developed an innovative course that includes a stay in a small village in Costa Rica.

Prior to getting his doctorate, Twomey had a successful career in business, which he has continued as an academic, author, and consultant. Two of his recent publications include Designed Emergence as a Path to Enterprise Sustainability, Emergence: Complexity and Organization, (E+CO, 2006), and Democracy and Sustainable Enterprise (Global Forum, 2006).

Jeana Wirtenberg, Ph.D., Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, USA.

Wirtenberg is Co-founder and Director, External Relations & Services, Institute for Sustainable Enterprise (ISE; www.fdu.edu/ise) in the Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her work at the Institute focuses on bringing people together to learn how to develop and lead thriving, sustainable enterprises that are “in and for the world.” She was a lead author on the recent worldwide study Creating a Sustainable Future: A Global Study of Current Trends and Possibilities 2007–2017, sponsored by the American Management Association. With ISE colleagues, Wirtenberg is principal designer of the three-day manager workshop Green Leadership: Implementing Sustainability Strategies for the American Management Association.

Wirtenberg is President of Jeana Wirtenberg & Associates, a consulting firm that focuses on building sustainable enterprises through leadership, culture change, collaboration, and learning (www.whenitallcomestogether.com). Formerly, she was HR Director at Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), where she was responsible for a variety of initiatives designed to transform the firm and build organizational capacity. She held positions in AT&T Human Resources and Marketing, and led research programs at the National Institute of Education and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Wirtenberg co-edited Sex Role Research: Measuring Social Change (Praeger, 1983) and a special issue of Psychology of Women Journal—Women and the Future. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals including Human Resource Planning, Organization Development, and Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. She serves as the Organization Effectiveness Articles Editor for People & Strategy Journal and is on the leadership team of the Global Community for the Future of OD. Wirtenberg received her Ph.D. with honors in Psychology at The University of California at Los Angeles.

Shakira Abdul-Ali, MSOD, PHI, New York, NY, USA.

Abdul-Ali is an organization development specialist, trainer, and coach. As a Training and OD Specialist for PHI (http://www.phinational.org), Abdul-Ali functions to improve the lives of people receiving home or residential health care by improving the workplace of the individuals who provide that care.

Prior to joining PHI, Abdul-Ali provided consulting and training services through her company, Alchemy Consulting (www.alchemyconsultingllc.com). Her clients included New Jersey Transit; University of Minnesota; Head Start; Cornell University Management Development Program; Merck; Girl Scouts USA; Union, Middlesex, Essex, and Atlantic Cape county colleges; Right Management; and America Speaks. Before starting her own firm, Abdul-Ali held a number of public sector roles, including Chief, New Jersey Office of Minority Business Enterprise; Administrator, New Jersey Small Business Division Office of Technical Assistance; and Assistant Director, New Jersey Governor’s Study Commission on Discrimination in Public Sector Contracting.

Jenny Ambrozek, B.A. Dip.Ed., SageNet LLC, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, USA.

Ambrozek is Founder of SageNet (www.sageway.com/) a consulting practice helping businesses create value by applying collaboration and participatory media tools toco nnect with customers, partners, and employees. Ambrozek’s work in online interaction began in the mid-1980s with Edutel, an Australian Caption Center–supported educational content service delivered on Prestel standard Videotex and captured in The Edutel Book: A Guide to Videotex in Education.

Coming to the United States in the 80s, she joined the Prodigy Services. In eight years at Prodigy, Ambrozek brought together a wide range of member-engagement components across a range of content areas. As Director, Community Development, she learned firsthand the importance of day-to-day operating practices in minimizing the cost of supporting interaction.

Abdul-Ali received a B.A. in Economics and Urban Studies from Wellesley College, and an M.S. from the American University/NTL Organization Development program. She is an MBTI-qualified facilitator and a certified leader for the National Coalition Building Institute.

Since 1996 Ambrozek has helped clients implement successful online network and collaboration efforts to engage customers and promote internal knowledge sharing. With Joe Cothrel, she conducted the Online Communities in Business 2004 study and contributed to the communities of practice organizational network survey instrument for the Network Roundtable, University of Virginia. Ambrozek is a Co-founder and author of the 21st Century Organization blog and provides her participatory media expertise to the University of Warwick Knowledge Innovation Network. She earned her B.A. Dip.Ed. at Macquarie University.