José Acevedo

José Acevedo is a Conversant consultant with expertise in facilitating the development of leadership skills and the creation of high-performing organizations. He has over 25 years of experience designing and leading programs on team learning skills, valuable communication, and cultural change. Fluent in English and Spanish, he works with companies throughout the Western Hemisphere and in Europe. He has worked with thousands of individuals in workshops, consulting engagements, and one-on-one coaching sessions. José's clients include JPMorgan Chase, IBM, Coca-Cola, Cargill, American Airlines, Revlon, HOK Sport Architects, Saks Fifth Avenue and The Rockwood Leadership Program. José has a J.D. from New York University.

Susan Burgess

Susan Burgess is a Conversant senior consultant with over 25 years of experience in consulting, training, curriculum development, business development, coaching, and teaching. Susan's career includes being an educator and curriculum developer leading specialized learning centers in Southern California, 10 years as an advertising and marketing executive managing such accounts as Eddie Bauer and Sheraton Hotels, and a practice as a licensed psychotherapist. Susan holds a master's degree in education as well as a master's degree in psychology specializing in clinical psychology and organizational behavior.

Today Susan operates as an organizational development trainer and consultant who helps organizations improve cross-functional collaboration as well as team and individual performance. She works with clients such as Hewlett-Packard, the Boeing Airplane Company, Capital One, Coca-Cola, and the State of New York's Department of Labor Management developing and delivering programs in leadership development, communication, and performance improvement.

Additionally, Susan developed a workshop for women leaders, The Woman's Edge, and co-founded Syncresse Partners, Inc. This company is dedicated to the professional development of women focusing on leadership, communication, collaboration and innovation, organizational life, and life integration. The company sponsors programs throughout the US and Canada in addition to working with businesses and associations to develop customized programs for women employees and members.

Mickey Connolly

Mickey Connolly is founder and CEO, which provides communication consulting and leadership development solutions that allow organizations to align deeply, act decisively and adjust brilliantly. Conversant tools and techniques improve organizational alignment, decision-making, mission-critical execution, employee trust and leadership effectiveness. The work of Conversant rests on two assertions:

Any group is potentially smarter than its individual members. There are communication principles and methods that unlock the intelligence and cause coordinated, accelerated success.

Mickey has worked with over 100,000 managers, educators, and negotiators to resolve conflict, improve relationships, and accelerate achievement. Conversant associates have worked in 400 organizations in 90 countries to achieve mission-critical goals ahead of time and under budget. Mickey has worked with people from Hewlett-Packard, Apple, BP, IBM, Capital One, Coca-Cola, Ernst and Young, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, McDonald's, Microsoft, Sony, U.S. Air Force, USDA, NSA, FBI, NATO and many other organizations.

He has also consulted with educators from the National Science Foundation, the National Association of Science Educators, University of Texas, University of Colorado, University of Alabama, St. Mary's University and The Harvard School of Public Affairs. Connolly and Richard Rianoshek are co-authors of The Communication Catalyst: the fast (but not stupid) track to value.

Michael Garramone

Michael Garramone is a Conversant consultant with over 15 years of experience training and coaching business teams to upgrade their work habits and communication practices. Michael specializes in providing imbedded project coaching that guides new behavior and builds practical leadership skills and work team capacity.

Michael holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Kettering University in Michigan and his background includes 10 years as an application engineer and manager in manufacturing environments. He has successfully adapted and implemented a broad variety of traditional and non-traditional human resource assessment tools, work management strategies, and organizational transformation approaches. Michael has performed work within General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, Ford, Coca-Cola, Coors, Chrysler, Reliant Energy, Boise Cascade, Medco, Hartford Insurance, Lockheed Martin, Hunter Douglas, U.S. Dept. of Labor, Fiserv, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, ISI, and Core Power.

Edward M. Gurowitz, Ph.D.

Ed Gurowitz is a senior consultant. He has over 25 years of experience working on the leading edge of organizational transformation specializing in mergers and acquisitions and cross-boundary collaboration. Ed designed and led the internationally respected Executive Excellence Program and has worked with the CEOs and executive leadership of Fortune 500 companies worldwide as well as working with non-profit organizations and government officials and agencies. His clients have included IBM, Oral-B Products, Charles Schwab & Co., Engelhard Corporation, Dale Carnegie & Associates, Eli Lilly, and many others. Ed has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Rochester.

Tal Ben Haim

Tal Ben Haim is a Conversant consultant and an experiential learning master who designs and leads organizational learning games and programs for Israeli and international corporations. His company, Tracks, and his team, are renowned for their innovation and excellence. Tal has worked with most of the leading consultants and facilitators in Israel, adding his unique perspective on the way people, and especially teams, are best at learning. His clients include Coca-Cola, Elbit, Orbothech, Checkpoint, Teva, IBM, Infinion, Comverse, Tnuva, and Bank Leumi. Tal is a passionate mountain climber and climbing instructor. He has an MBA from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Tal was one of the designers and leaders of Etgarim, a country-wide experiential outdoor program for children with special needs that has caused outstanding impact on their lives.

Carolyn Hendrickson

Carolyn Hendrickson, Ph.D. is a member of Conversant's team of organizational and leadership consultants and brings over 20 years of experience in working with executives to achieve and sustain breakthrough results in their businesses through large-scale organization change and transformation. Her primary areas of expertise are in organization effectiveness, leadership team alignment, large-scale culture and operational change, and employee engagement. She brings an integrated view of organizations to her clients and addresses change through a broad array of interventions at multiple levels.

Dr. Hendrickson's clients have spanned a variety of industries including pharmaceuticals (e.g., Abbott Laboratories, Johnson and Johnson, and Eisai Clinical Development), manufacturing (e.g., Johnson Controls, Borg-Warner Automotive, MeadWestvaco Corporation, Inland Paperboard and Packaging), financial services (e.g., Allstate Insurance, Scottsdale Insurance Company, Franklin Life, St. Paul Companies, AXA Financial, The World Bank,) energy (e.g., Department of Energy, Illinois Power, Westinghouse/Hanford), and other consumer related companies (McDonald's Corporation, United Airlines, Hyatt Hotels).

Chuck Isen

Chuck Isen is a Conversant consultant with over 25 years of experience. His expertise is in training and development, for which he facilitates workshops in interpersonal communications and productivity enhancement. Chuck utilizes the concepts he has mastered from business, communication theory, learning organization models, and neuro-linguistics in his training methods. His clients include Sun Microsystems, Bechtel Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Placer Dome Mining of Canada, Rohm & Haas Chemical, Wells Fargo, Seagate Technologies, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Chuck has a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of Business as well as an M.S. in organizational development.

Bob Johnson

Bob's diverse set of clients have included Miller Brewing Company, Maersk, Humana, Wynn Las Vegas, GAP, Kimberly-Clark and Coca-Cola. He also has over 25 years of experience as an HR leader and executive at Hewlett-Packard in various business organizations, including analytical instrumentation, desktop computing, integrated circuits, and Inkjet systems.

Bob has an M.B.A. and a M.A. in higher education administration from Michigan State University and a B.S. in political science from Drake University Jim Motroni is Senior Partner. He has been an executive and consultant to management for 30 years. As a consultant, coach and trainer, his focus is on developing managers and companies of all sizes in leadership, performance improvement, team dynamics, strategic planning, and interpersonal relationships. He has coached over 60 CEOs and worked with thousands of senior executives of businesses such as Coca-Cola, Hewlett-Packard, BP, Johnson & Johnson, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Mercedes Benz, AT&T, Maersk, and Cisco to improve their ability to develop and execute on their strategic plans, improve their leadership and the performance of their people, and accomplish their aggressive goals.

Richard McDonald

Richard McDonald is a Conversant consultant and leader of our cross-boundary solutions programs. He has over 25 years of experience working with large and small companies in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa, developing their competencies in fundamental management skills, teambuilding, and leadership development. His unique approach assists organizations in the design and implementation of human systems integration and processes that support individuals in achieving their highest potential, enhancing their creativity, and increasing their performance and productivity. Richard's clients include AT&T, Capital One, Cargill, Children's Hospital, City of Hope, General Electric, Microsoft, Northern Telecom, Nike, Revlon, Shell Oil, US Airways, and Westin Hotels.

Shmuel Merhav

Shmuel Merhav is a Conversant consultant with over 20 years of experience working on strategic dilemmas and concerns with leading Israeli companies and multinational corporations operating in Israel. He has designed several management coaching methods and programs based on his background in photography and art, including "The Basics of Self-management," "Diversity as a Resource," "Experiential Leadership Clinic." His clients include Unilever, Orange, DHL, HP, Coca-Cola, McCann Erickson, ICL, Delta Galil, Elbit, and the Israeli Air Force. Shmuel is dedicated to bringing peace to the Middle East by working voluntarily with leaders in the region (Arab and Jews) on collaboration and conflict resolution projects.

Anne Miller

Anne Miller is a Conversant consultant with over 35 years of experience in executive development, coaching, and consulting. She is distinguished by her action-oriented approach based on the key premise that it is far easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. Her specialty areas include action learning, rapid cycle time approaches for strategy implementation during times of change, and executive alignment. She has developed the Action Lab^TM to address the integration of accelerated results and learning.

Anne has led successful organizational transformation efforts for Fortune 500 companies. She has coached senior executives and their teams committed to going beyond their past successes most recently in companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Miller Brewing, Coca-Cola, Citi, Humana, Hewlett-Packard, Dow Chemical Venture Capital, BP, Novartis, and XL Capital. Additionally, she has worked with leading business schools—Vanderbilt Owen School of Management and London Business School—in the design and delivery of new programs to address entrepreneurship and leadership challenges.

Anne is co-author, with Richard Pascale of "Acting Your Way Into a New Way of Thinking," Leader to Leader, and "Action Lab: Greenhouse for Change," Strategy and Business. She is qualified to deliver the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Hogan Leadership Assessments and is an invited member of the Drucker Thought Leaders Forum. Her pro bono work includes the design and delivery of entrepreneurship training for vulnerable women in Eastern Europe.

Anne received a BA in mathematics from Colorado College, and graduated with merit as a Sloan Fellow from London Business School. She has completed further education and certifications in coaching in the UK and US. Anne has lived and worked in the UK, Europe, Malaysia, South Africa, Brazil, and Mexico. She has "recoverable" fluency in Spanish and some understanding of Portuguese and holds citizenship in both the UK and the US.

Juan Mobili

Juan Mobili is a Conversant consultant with over 20 years of experience teaching programs in leadership development and cross-boundary solutions. His work focuses on interpersonal skills, team building issues, leadership development, and the formulation and execution of corporate strategies. Juan designs and delivers programs for groups, ranging from top management to assembly-line workers in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Juan's efforts in organization renewal and the facilitation of management-union relations have boosted results for clients like Warner-Lambert, Abitibi Consolidated, and Mack Trucks.

Jim Motroni

Jim's corporate experience includes 12 years in the banking industry with his last position as Vice President of Seafirst Bank (now Bank of America) responsible for the performance of 72 Seattle area branches. He served as President of SportsMind, a 55-person training company; was a Designer and Master Trainer for TEC, The Executive Committee (an international organization of CEOs, now Vistage); and has worked with over 40 companies to develop their Vision and Strategic Plans. Jim is currently President of Conversant Solutions, LLC, and he serves on boards of directors of four corporations, affording him the opportunity to develop strategy and make decisions at the highest levels.

Jim holds an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, with an emphasis in marketing and finance and a degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Charles A. Pfeffer

Charles A. Pfeffer is president and founder of Contextus-LLC. He has over 20 years of experience as a coach to top executives on leadership and strategy. He is an expert process consultant who has led change efforts at major corporations, including Eastman Kodak, Xerox, Dupont, ExxonMobil, Frontier, Lockheed Martin, USA Datanet and others. Charles has been a visiting lecturer on organizational issues at Syracuse and Cornell Universities and has been a frequent speaker at conferences and before industry groups.

Prior to starting Contextus, he spent ten years as a Senior Consultant with Vitalwork. He began his career as a Securities Analyst for Chase, specializing in the telecommunications industry during the period of deregulation surrounding the break-up of AT&T. Charles has a B.A. in Economics from the University of Rochester. He is Vice Chairperson of the Board for the Bivona Child Advocacy Center. He also writes the weblog, ThoughtPartner.net.

Courtney Pullen

Courtney Pullen is a Conversant consultant whose expertise is in cross-boundary solutions and leadership development. He has over 25 years of experience in management consulting and executive coaching. Courtney has lectured and published in the areas of individual and organizational change and is a contributing editor to the Journal of Financial Planning. Courtney's clients have included Coors, Hunter Douglas, Hewlett-Packard, Maersk, Coca-Cola, and the Denver Art Museum among others. Courtney has an M.A. in psychology.

Greg Ranstrom

Greg Ranstrom is a Conversant consultant with over 20 years of experience inspiring and cultivating profitable collaboration and leadership effectiveness across organizational boundaries. Greg has expertise in and passion for experiential learning, especially in outdoor settings. Clients include ExxonMobil Corporate Strategic Research, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel Networks, and Nestlé. Greg is also a certified mediator.

Elvira Rodrigo

Elvira Rodrigo is a Conversant consultant with over 15 years of global corporate and consulting experience in change management, talent management, facilitation, strategic planning, culture and structural change, leadership coaching, and strategic partnership building. She has worked for Dell Inc.'s Global Talent Management group where she was responsible for leading the two senior executive leadership development programs. Her clients have included P&G, Chiquita Brands, PepsiCo, Cincinnati Bell, and Key Bank. Elvira has an M.S. in organizational development and strategic change from Pepperdine University and is a certified life coach. She has a Global Professional Human Resources Certification (GP HR—SHRM).

Ralf Schneitz

Based in Germany, Ralf Schneitz leads workshops and trainings, coaching and facilitating executive teams in throughout Europe in the area of personal and organizational change and interdisciplinary teamwork. Previously, he worked at the management level of mid-size organizations and led organizational growth, innovative change, and development projects with breakthrough teams resulting in significant future business impact. Ralf holds a degree as an academically qualified engineer of telecommunications and computer technology from the University College in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Audrey Schroeder

Audrey Schroeder is a Conversant-certified leadership development expert. She has worked as a leadership consultant, executive coach, and facilitator with multinational companies such as Cisco Systems, Microsoft, the British Council, and Nike throughout the Greater China region and around Asia. As an American who has been in Asia for 20 years, Audrey is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese, and delivers her client work in these languages and in English.

Originally from the US, Audrey lived in Hong Kong throughout the 1990s and has lived and worked in Shanghai since early 2002. Her past work experience includes six years in the banking industry with HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong; she was also a change management consultant with Accenture in Seattle. She has been an independent consultant since 2003, working with companies from a range of different countries and industries.

Jennifer Simpson

Jennifer Simpson is Vice President of Consulting Services and has dedicated her life and career to improving lives, strengthening communities, and adding value to organizations.

A dynamic leader, Jennifer has an impressive track record of engaging multiple stakeholders to produce results and accelerate business success. She specializes in translating organizational vision into practice, and mindfully managing change dynamics to build on and strengthen organizational capacity in times of transition. Committed to achieving and exceeding objectives in fast-paced, high-visibility situations, she spearheads strategic analysis and planning, and ensures accountability at every step of a project.

Jennifer's lifework is to create a world where individuals thrive in healthy, rewarding, and successful organizations and communities. Jennifer is author or editor of two books and multiple journal articles and book chapters. Her varied background includes more than fifteen years of experience working in and with organizations across the private, public, corporate, and not-for-profit sectors to create more meaningful and effective ways of living and working together; more than a decade of teaching university courses in communication and leadership disciplines; and a lifetime of bridging worlds in a way that capitalizes on the best in organizations to enhance creativity and stimulate whole system learning.

Recent clients include Expressworks International; CARE, USA; The University of Colorado; Chevron; The U.S. Coast Guard; The Colorado Renewable Energy Society; Protect our Winters; Humana; and Coca-Cola.

Jennifer holds a B.S. in communication and psychology from Syracuse University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Organizational Communication from the University of Colorado at Boulder where she retains an adjunct faculty appointment.

Harry Sloofman

Harry Sloofman is a Conversant consultant with over 25 years of coaching experience. His expertise lies in the ability to develop and organize people, processes, and systems that build business capacity and execute organizational change. Focusing on leadership, sales, and management issues in organizations, Harry works with the people and interpersonal dimensions that ultimately affect how strategy is executed. Harry has an M.S. in organizational development from Pepperdine University. He is a member of the Organization Development Network and the American Society for Training and Development.