Next Level Leadership Developers |

: Betsy Anderson

Meet our team of highly experienced Leadership Developers:

Lars Bolin

Lars Bolin describes himself as people- and service oriented, patient, empathetic, optimistic, enthusiastic; and a dependable team player with a holistic view on life. As a diversified business and sales professional he successfully reengineered and managed business units of various sizes, improved the service level and income while controlling the cost. Throughout my corporate career he staffed, trained, coached and managed teams of diversified professionals, gaining valuable experience and insight into WHAT an individual can do (based on education, experience and training), WHY they do things (based on the individual’s attitudes) and HOW a person behaves and performs (based on the individual’s behavioral style). Knowing what you can do, why you do it and how you prefer to do things are crucial to your success in any of the six branches of coaching – your career, finances, relationships, well being, personal development or overall quality of life.After a successful career in international banking Lars started reflecting on what had
brought him that success. He knew he had to be true to himself to continue being
successful, not only in his profession but in LIFE. Being true to oneself means knowing who you are so you can use that knowledge to Think Smart, Be Smart, and Work Smart. We walk through life with goals but often forget what makes the pursuit of those goals genuinely meaningful to us – the WHY behind the plan – your VALUES. As a coach Lars is helping YOU catch success based on defining YOUR values and by guiding and supporting you in your effort to reach your goals be it your career, finances, relationships, well being, personal development or overall quality of life.

One of the first questions that Lars asks his clients is: “If you could do anything now, with the life you have in front of you, what would it be?” His own answer was to serve others because when he does, he feels good about himself. He found that serving others is one of his passions in life. His advice: “Find your passion and you will find success and purpose. Look at the word carefully and you will see that in contains the essence of what purpose is about: Pass-I-on…to make a difference in the lives of others and leave something of yourself behind – pass i(yourself) on?”

Lars was a stay home dad for 10 years, putting his career on hold while gaining valuable insight into what it means to find purpose and meaning in the role you may have at the moment -being passionate about making a difference in the lives of his children. “You always have to ask yourself what’s really important to you. Only then can you find more time for things in your life that matters the most to you at the moment by letting me help you establish your goals and milestones based on your interests, attitudes and values.

Lars is a Professional Life Coach, Certified Professional Behaviors Analyst (CPBA), Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA), Licensed NY Life and Health Insurance Advisor, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson, and a member of IAC (International Association of Coaches) and Coachville.

Rosemary A. Bova

Rosemary Bova

Rosemary A. Bova, President and Founder of Bova Enterprises, Inc. is an organizational engagement expert with over two decades of experience in the areas of organizational design and human development. Rosemary’s philosophy is based on a partnership between the consultant and client – giving clients the tools to think and act within the BEI Total Management System. The System focuses on having the right structure for your particular company, the right people for the right jobs, and the best managerial practices to support them. This results in greater managerial accountability and teamwork throughout the organization. The BEI Total Management System is based on the work of Dr. Elliot Jaques. Rosemary is one of a handful of consultants in the world who has been trained and worked directly with Dr. Jaques.

In a recent audit of BEI, clients and colleagues stated that Rosemary has an uncanny ability to empathize with many situations, help teams work through them, and move to a new level of understanding. Rosemary remains sensitive to individual and work group needs while assisting companies to implement business-driven changes.

Rosemary earned a Master of Science degree from Columbia University, with NYS CSW and NASW ACSW designations. She attended Burklyn Business School for Entrepreneurs and is a graduate of the Organization and System Development program at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. A certified practitioner in Neurolinguistic Programming, Rosemary has taught professional development programs at the National Training Laboratory’s (NTL’s) Institute for Applied Behavioral Science and the Human Resource Planning Society’s seminar on “Managing Large Scale Change”. She has been on the faculty of professional development seminars in Requisite Organization with Dr. Jaques. Her papers appear in proceedings from various Organizational Development Network Conferences.

Rosemary is a frequent speaker at conferences and professional groups, both in the U.S. and abroad on leadership and organizational development principles. A sampling includes Women.Future, Prudential Securities, Inc., and New York University’s Stern School of Business’ Women in Business Conference titled “Managing Change: Keys to Success.” Rosemary also appeared in the PBS documentary, “Women Working: 2000 and Beyond.”

From 2000-2001, Rosemary was President of the National Association of Women Business Owners’ (NAWBO) New York City Chapter and served on NAWBO’s National Board of Directors. Rosemary was on the board of New York Women’s Agenda (NYWA), and Wyndham International’s Advisory Board for Women. She served on the Scholarship Committee of St. Aloysius School in Harlem, NY, and the Board of the Kips Bay Towers Condominium in New York City. Her special interests include the impact of corporate behavior on the community, ethics in the workplace, aligning personal values and motivation with career, the experience of youth in society, and the development of women leaders and entrepreneurs. She also loves a good novel and rock n roll.

Steve Calandro

Steve Calandro is an organizational analyst, executive coach, facilitator, writer, and speaker, and is singularly focused on performance. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Steve has studied and applied human, individual, and organizational performance technologies as a leader in high tech, retail, banking, and education, and as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies and U.S. government agencies.

He started his career selecting and training high-potential leaders at the sixth largest international bank, and then implemented new technologies at a multi-billion dollar New York retailer acquired by Donald Trump. He moved his family to Maryland in1991 to develop new ways to implement those technologies at a national home center retailer.

In 1996 Steve joined INTELSAT, a treaty-based consortium of 148 countries. Founded in 1964, the organization provided members with satellite telecommunication services. As Performance Manager he audited communication and culture, retooled performance management, leadership development, and training, and supported the organization’s successful transformation from intergovernmental body to a competitive, for –profit US corporation.

Steve founded New Day Personal Performance in 2001 where he developed a mentoring program for Bechtel Corporation and a management onboarding program for Freddie Mac. He provided sales training and coaching for AmerisourceBergen’s national sales force, and career management services for leaders at GE, Lockheed Martin, AOL, General Dynamics, and IBM, among others. One client, SRA International, a Virginia-based federal contractor, asked him to join their Human Capital practice, which he did in 2006.

At SRA Steve worked with federal civilian and military leaders to create and implement performance-based strategies and transformational change. He worked with the Government Accountability Office to analyze and rectify a performance rating gap between African American and Caucasian analysts. He helped facilitate major organizational changes at the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and made performance management recommendations based on multi-year appraisal data from the 17 agency Intelligence Community. Steve facilitated national conferences for the Department of Energy and the National Response Team, co-chaired by the National Guard and the EPA.

Steve researched why leaders struggled with employee conflict and poor individual and team performance and found that business schools and leadership development programs still do not teach well established and effective human performance technologies. He developed Absolutely Accountable, a program that quickly prepares new and experienced managers to manage performance at work, and launched a consulting firm of the same name in 2012. He partnered with Next Level USA soon afterward.

Steve has an undergraduate degree in business from the Stern School at New York University and a masters in Applied Organizational Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. He is certified to administer and interpret the Myers-Briggs Type indicator and all Center for Creative Leadership assessments, and is a Certified Neuro-linquistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner. He is a member of the International Society for Performance Improvement, the American Society for Training & Development, and the Society for Human Resource Management.

Morgan V. Cederblom

Morgan Cederblom

Morgan Cederblom’s career and life achievements have been built upon his values of personal integrity, authenticity, trust, courage, accountability and commitment to his own and other people’s success and growth. These values have shaped his leadership skills throughout his career.

As a former executive with The Coca-Cola Company, Morgan was trusted with the responsibility for the leadership of the company’s Swedish and Finnish subsidiaries as Executive Vice President of the Nordic and Northern Eurasia Division. He also served on the Boards of Coca-Cola Bottlers in Russia, Coca-Cola Cold Drink, Inc. in Sweden, and Coca-Cola Cold Drink, OY in Finland during this time period. Under Morgan’s direction, The Coca-Cola Company achieved a 63% increase in sales in the region while profits quadrupled. Most notably, Morgan’s successes with the Scandinavian business unit led to his selection by Coca-Cola’s former Chairman Roberto Goizueta to the lead global implementation of the organization’s Shareholder Value Management Initiative. This initiative revised Coca-Cola’s entire Strategic Planning Process worldwide using Value Based Management and EVA principles as the new foundation for all actions and resource allocation.

After more than a decade with The Coca-Cola Company, Morgan chose an entrepreneurial path where he has strengthened organizations by helping them to focus on Value Based Management (VBM) principles using EVA as the score card to accelerate company profits, growth and shareholder value. Morgan has advised global corporations spanning a wide range of sectors such as Siemens USA, Coca-Cola, and the Omnicom Group. In addition to VBM he conducted “Million Dollar Day” workshops for Senior Management teams which resulted in identification of significant new business opportunities and action plans for implementation.

Throughout his career, Morgan is most proud of having created the conditions for people to succeed and for consistently being true to his values as described above. Thinking big, inspiring and energizing others and always doing what he said he would do, have been and are still his guiding principles. Morgan earned his undergraduate degree in Economics followed by the equivalent of an MBA at the Stockholm School of Marketing’s Institute for Higher Marketing Education. He is also a graduate of New York’s Columbia Business School’s Executive Program in International Management, where he later served as an Adjunct faculty member. He has also guest lectured at Emory’s University’s Goizueta School of Business in Atlanta, where he lives with his wife, Caroline.

Susanne Edström

Susanne Edstrom is a global citizen having worked in and visited many countries. She is an energetic, forward, experienced and understanding person who loves to work for and together with people. Her mission is to help individuals be happy, find meaningful purposes in life, to perform better and to be strong and healthy. She loves providing people with tools that enable self empowerment using her excellent problem solving skills and ability to fearlessly navigating towards set goals.

Prior to joining Next Level Ms. Edstrom was innovation manager at the University of Borås for a growing business cluster called Smart Textiles. As such, she has built a successful facilitation- and acceleration platform for innovations in the next generation of high tech textiles. Ms. Edstrom also manages media relations and lobbying for Smart Textiles as well organizing open innovation arenas and training to stimulate innovation. Drawing on her experience with making SMEs grow organically and profitably, Ms. Edstrom’s work with Smart Textiles is now a proven and recognized model for stimulating regional economic growth.

Before Smart Textiles, Ms. Edstrom spent 15 years leading different educational and training businesses. Ms. Edstrom was principle for a national Swedish private school in where she was responsible for establishing and expanding the organization includinng recruiting teachers and students, developing pedagogical strategies as well as the school’s entrepreneurial program.

Ms. Edstrom also managed a regional division of a national company providing adult education to both the private and public sector where she built the organization from scratch in Boras and Gothenburg. Program and curricula development, public procurement, and short deadlines were everyday tasks as well as coaching and training groups and leaders to be more effective in their organizations.

Fresh from her studies at the University of Gothenburg, Ms. Edstrom was a project manager at the city’s local ‘contract education department.’ Her work there consisted of procurement, start-up support and training programs, where she was in charge of the personal training, personal marketing and group dynamics training. Together with the Local Rescue Dept., Ms. Edstrom developed a process trail in the forest, which entailed training groups outdoors in challenging and stressful situations.

Edström has a Masters Degree in International Business Admin from the School of Economics at the University of Gothenburg complemented with additional studies in Canada and France. She has also studied human behavior and psychology as well as Practitioner and Master Practitioner in NLP (Neuro Lingustic Programming). She masters two levels of the PILOT program, a leadership training program well as a supervisor/coach degree in UGL (an individual, group and leadership dynamics program) from the Swedish Defence Academy. Upon completing her university studies Ms. Edstrom had the opportunity to go to India for a Minor Field Study, made possible through the UN and the Bay of Bengal Program.

Ellene Felder

A diversity and multicultural marketing strategy management consultant, Ellene is a leader with experience in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. Ellene is delighted to join the global team at Next Level consulting with its focuses on achieving immediate and sustainable outcomes based on the participant’s individual needs and goals to succeed in their current corporate environment.

In 2011 she launched “It’s Time to Talk! – Global Inclusion and Diversity Catalyst Conversations™” a salon series designed to highlight dynamic speakers and facilitate creative, cross disciplinary dialogue, bringing together inclusion and diversity professionals to share insights, best practices, network and spark inter-generational discourse.

As a trusted member of the Next Level global team, Ellene looks forward expanding strategic, collaborative opportunities with companies and organizations to maximize their talent, retain and/or win market share attract new clients, or grow their businesses. Her value proposition combines experience in management consulting, human capital management, workforce inclusion and diversity initiatives, supplier diversity, economic and community development, and projects in sustainability and the green economy. Ellene is the former Regional Director,New York, for the International Society of Diversity and Inclusion Professionals, ISDIP, the first global comprehensive association for the diversity and inclusion field, spanning all industries and sectors.

Ellene speaks Spanish, is conversant in Portuguese and French, and basic German. She understands the inclusive needs of the dynamic global economy, strengthening work teams through diversity of thought and perspective, and the seismic demographic shifts occurring in the global market. She has a demonstrated track record of successfully influencing change, creating and implementing new strategies, attracting international and domestic clients, and driving business initiatives.

Ellene has developed and implemented workforce diversity strategy and has advised senior management on inclusion and diversity trends to align strategies and benchmark the competitive landscape. She developed a strategic recruitment plan to address significant gaps, increasing North American recruiting diversity by 80%, and provided leadership and strategic direction to the employee-led corporate diversity council. Ellene has been a trusted advisor to Fortune 1000 companies and also has advised leading German, British, and Japanese corporations in developing new market entry strategies, marketing, diversity, cross-cultural management, integrating multi-national work teams, and workforce development. Ellene has held business development and leadership roles at Deloitte & Touche, Right Management, and Greater Philadelphia First. While at McClure Management, she developed supplier diversity strategies for the first W/MBE firm to offer outplacement and career development consulting. She began her career inWashington,DC in a public diplomacy role with the US Department of State.

Ellene received her certification in Inclusion, Diversity and Cross Cultural Management from theUniversityofHouston, at theC.T.BauerCollegeof Business’ International Institute for Diversity and Cross Cultural Management. She also earned a certification in Spanish language from the Instituto Internacional inMadrid,Spainand a Certification in Solution Selling from Right Management. She is a cum laude graduate of theUniversityofPennsylvaniawhere she earned her BA, and a graduate of The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of JohnsHopkinsUniversity where she earned her MA.

Git Guldare

Git is a leadership advisor & developer and a dialogue & human interaction expert and facilitator. She strongly believes that communication skills are the foundation of all relations and every activity, whether in business or everyday life in the community – that these skills lead to efficiency and reaching your goals.

She works in different ways depending on clients’ needs and circumstances. Examples of what clients appreciate her for is her ability to make people do what they have said they should do and reach their goals, her concrete and inspirational lectures and great results as a mediator in conflicts. She also works skillfully with teambuilding and chairing meetings of difficult or complex subjects or decisions.

She has an extraordinary ability to achieve excellent results by creating conditions for better understanding, acceptance, respect, cooperation, opportunities, solving problems and reaching agreements. Her professional passion and mission is to contribute to a better world through peace and understanding across all borders. She works with all kinds of organizations and where she enjoys focusing on the sustainable development for both humans and the financial results but also how the organization contributes to a sustainable society as a whole.

Git enjoyes living in Sweden but she truly thrives when she has the opportunity to work with international clients and engaging in global projects in an international environment. One such example is the Tällberg Foundation where she participated at the Tällberg Forum 2011.

Git has a background from information & pr and as a journalist and has diplomas from Berghs School of Communication and Poppius Journalist School in Sweden. Her career in these fields is the root for her great interest in communication. However, after some years in that business she decided that she wanted to focus on the personal meeting – to help people be excellent in how they can use communication more effectively and to create good relationships and reach great results. She then studied several subjects such as psychology, sociology, leadership and group dynamics parallel with more communication science to expand her knowledge and understandings. Since about ten years she is working in the areas described above.

Git also has a license in IDI, Interpersonal Dynamics Inventory.

Her favorite quotation and also her motto is this by George Berhard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say “Why?”. I dream things that never were and say “Why not?”.

Nancy Miriam Hawley

Miriam Hawley has a contagious and inspiring commitment to living life fully. A bold, direct and graceful communicator, she brings compassion, insight and clarity to her work as a business coach and leadership consultant. Miriam is known to clients and colleagues as a rigorous listener for each person’s greatness. She combines an infectious vision of what is possible with confidence in every person’s potential for greater accomplishment and satisfaction. She challenges her clients to be focused and strategic in taking action with passion, purpose and integrity. Miriam’s clients span the fields of law, medicine, biotech, engineering, development, financial services, and the arts.

Miriam is CEO of Enlignment^®, Inc., a business coaching and consulting company specializing in leadership development, systems thinking and organizational change. She and her husband, Jeffrey McIntyre, work with executive management teams, entrepreneurs and copreneurial couples to cultivate strong relationships and clear communication while developing thriving businesses. They recently co-authored a book entitled Seven Conversations That Matter: Entrepreneurial Couples in Action, slated for publication in 2011. Miriam and Jeffrey were featured speakers at the International Coaches Federation of New England 2008 annual conference, where they presented their co-authored work The Seven Intelligences of Leadership^®, an integrative approach to visionary leadership.

Miriam is a founder of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Inc., the organization responsible for writing the best seller Our Bodies, Ourselves, a book that shifted the national and international dialogue about women’s health, sexuality and power. She also co-authored Ourselves and Our Children, a book about families and parenting. The BWHBC continues to thrive globally as an educational and activist organization forty years after its inception.

With her lifelong affinity and passion for women’s leadership, she conducts year-long coaching programs entitled Beyond Success: A Leader’s Learning Forum for Executive and Professional Women and co-facilitates an ongoing women’s leadership program entitled Vision Voice and Victory: The Changing Face of Women’s Leadership for executive and business women. Miriam has been quoted in The Boston Globe and in The Boston Women’s Business Journal.

Miriam is a highly regarded speaker and facilitator of dialogues that focus on unleashing visionary leadership at work, at home, in the community and in the world. She facilitates national weekly forums and coaching calls for leaders and leadership teams with a focus on sustainability practices. Her presentations include such titles as “The Power of Enough” and “Enough Already! A Sufficiency Dialogue for Creating a Sustainable World”.

Well versed in the Sufficiency conversation generated from the work of Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Moneyand co-founder of The Pachamama Alliance, Miriam has led and coordinated Sufficiency Call Teams since 2003. Committed to expanding the sufficiency dialogue, she co-produced the first Global Sufficiency Summit in 2007, organized and co-hosted the second in 2008, and is on the Executive Team for the 2010 Summit.

Miriam is a seasoned facilitator of the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium, an international effort dedicated to creating an environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling human presence on the planet. She also interfaces with the work of Peter Senge as a consultant member of The Society for Organizational Learning, where she presented the Symposium in 2009. As an active member of SoL’s Coaches Community of Practice, Miriam participated in an initiative to create a SoL coaches certification course in systems thinking in action. The pilot program was launched in 2010 and has been delivered in Boston; Budapest; Tokyo; in Seattle at Microsoft; and in Bangalore, India.

Miriam earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Michigan/Ann Arbor. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in History and Psychology and a Master’s degree in Social Work, with a specialty in groups and organizations. Miriam was a therapist in private practice for over 30 years before shifting her focus to leadership coaching and consulting. She is on the board of the Sufficiency Foundation. Miriam’s professional memberships presently include The Society for Organizational Learning and The Boston Club.

Helena Killander

Helena Killander has a background in social science and cognitive behavioral therapy. She has worked extensively within organisational development in Sweden where her company, Rocket Knowledge is located.

In August of 2010 , Helena relocated to Washington DC. She now has clients in the DC area as well as in Stockholm, Sweden. Her lines of business include, but are not limited to: retail, education, advertising, non-profit, health and development of new businesses.

Helena has a wide range of experience in ”personel development”. Her main interest has always been to figure out what is behind a personal motivation, what´s behind their driving force. Why do people do what they do and how do they do it? As a leader, that question i crucial. You need to know yourself to understand your co-workers.

Helena Killander is a curios and result oriented leadership developer. The leadership is a generator of beliefs. Good leadership is contagious, so is the opposite.

When your goals are communicated clearly and each individual understands how his/her task contributes to the overall success of the business and when You live the vision everyday, you get results!

Helenas educational background:

BS in Social Sience,University of Stockholm
Coach certificate, University of Stockholm
Cognitive behavioral Therapist, Swedish Institute for Cognitive Therapy
Market Communications, Berghs School of Communication
Project leadership, Berghs School of Communication

Dennis Kirk

Dennis Kirk is an experienced executive coach and strategy consultant with an extensive track record of helping clients make intelligent choices and reach their full potential.

His coaching is enriched by a diverse career that spans the public sector, private sector and higher education. He brings an in-depth understanding of change and its implications, gained from Toffler Associates’ founders, renowned futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler. He has experience as an entrepreneur, having started and run his own human resources consulting firm. His higher education experience includes an organization development background. His skills combine forward-looking methodologies, in-depth knowledge, and powerful insights gained through a network of global experts. He has broad experience with a wide-ranging set of clients, helping them understand what is important, clarify their vision and achieve it.

For the thirteen years before joining Next Level, Dennis played a leadership role with Toffler Associates, a boutique business strategy consulting firm that guides clients through transformative change. As one of Toffler Associates’ first employees, Dennis played a leadership role in growing the company into a globally-respected consulting firm. Throughout that time, he worked closely with senior executive clients in non-profit, for-profit, and government organizations, advising and coaching them as they faced strategic challenges. Clients included the president of South Korea and the Comptroller General of the United States.

Prior to joining Toffler Associates, he led his own human resource consulting company, helping corporate and association clients create work environments that encourage communication, collaboration and creativity.

As assistant provost for human resource development at American University, Dennis led the human resource management team for the training and development, employment, compensation, benefits, employee relations, and employee relations for university faculty and staff. Throughout his thirteen years there, he coached numerous university executives to help them maximize their effectiveness.

Clients find that Dennis brings a structured approach to his coaching, listening carefully and asking thoughtful questions. To ensure tangible results, he begins with a 360-degree assessment, collaborates with the client to set goals, and repeats the assessment periodically, so the client gains a clear view of progress toward his or her goal.

Dennis holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nutrition, and a Masters in Public Administration from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He completed an executive development program at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and completed Toffler Associates’ executive coaching training program. He is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) by the Society for Human Resource Management.

David Kushner

David Kushner is the founder and president of The Kushner Companies, LLC, where he serves as a strategic consultant and advisor to CEOs, senior executives and governing boards. He holds two recognized industry certifications: the Certified Association Executive (CAE) and Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) designations.

David has served as the CEO or as executive staff of membership and trade associations and foundations for more than 25 years and has been leading a national consulting practice for more than 12 years. A respected strategic advisor for senior management and governing boards, he is regarded as a highly successful facilitator, including extensive experience with physicians and healthcare organizations. David founded and leads the Nonprofit Executive Forum, a senior-management-level monthly discussion group for association and foundation leaders.

David specializes in assisting leaders and organizations with strategic assessments and planning, governance matters, operational reviews and restructuring, and board and committee orientation programs. In addition, he serves as a leadership and strategy coach for CEOs and senior managers, advising them on successfully dealing with the “politics of management.” He has presented to a wide range of audiences of up to several thousand attendees, receiving excellent session evaluations.

The author of a number of articles on governance and board nominations, David has a chapter in The Legislative Labyrinth titled “The Significant Role That the Legislative Process Can Play in Fulfilling the Mission of a Not-For-Profit.” He also is featured in the book The Not-For- Profit CEO.

For more than 35 years, David has served in a variety of roles as a nonprofit board member or officer. He currently serves as the immediate past chair of the American Society of Association Executives Consultants Section Council, treasurer of the Association Foundation Group board, executive director for the Elizabeth Ely Education Foundation, and chairman of the Chevy Chase Village, Maryland Personnel Commission.

David also has served as the national president of both the Binghamton University Foundation, with an endowment in excess of 150 million dollars, and the University Alumni Association, with more than 100,000 members, and as the vice president of the Binghamton University Student Housing Corporation.

David earned his BA at Binghamton University and his MA at The George Washington University. He completed graduate studies leading to permanent teaching certification in New York State. He also is a Certified Association Executive and Certified Meeting Professional. David has completed specialized training in: organizational development, group facilitation, negotiations, dispute resolution and project management.

Antonella Lo Re

With a passion for developing people and businesses Antonella Lo Re is a multilingual business professional and entrepreneur and a certified professional behavioral and value analyst (CPBA- CPVA).

She speaks 4 languages fluently and 2 conversationally (English, Italian, Spanish and French, Portuguese and Japanese).  Antonella is always in the mood to perfect her language skills and learn new ones. Her curiosity and interest for languages and psychology brought her to study, live and work in many different countries gaining invaluable international experience and expertise in cross cultural communications.

Antonella is a skilled international negotiator, recognized for building trusting client relationships, with experience directing business development activities in Europe, North America, Middle East and Japan.   She has promoted and represented several different companies on international scale. Before joining Next Level she led a management consulting company providing leadership assessments for talent acquisition and team building.

Her clients speaks about her as a professional with a high level of empathy, able to recognize and understand other’s state of mind and emotions. This together with many of her other skills and abilities makes her a very successful business development consultant, behavioral analyst and executive coach.

Sherry Marts

Sherry A. Marts, Ph.D. has a wide-ranging background in biomedical research, research administration, nonprofit management, public education and advocacy, and media relations. She is a skilled facilitator, writer, and communicator with a passion for advancing biomedical research and its applications to health care.

She was Executive Director (CEO) of the Genetics Society of America (GSA) from 2009-2011, where she developed the organization’s programs in education and public policy, increased opportunities for member participation in the organization’s leadership, and launched the organization’s first strategic planning process.

Sherry was previously with the Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR), where she was vice president for scientific affairs from 1998-2008. Her responsibilities included directing SWHR’s scientific programs to promote and develop the new interdisciplinary field of sex differences research. At SWHR she led six annual conferences on Sex and Gene Expression and established three interdisciplinary research networks to foster sex differences research in neuroscience, musculoskeletal biology, and metabolism. Sherry was an author on the highly cited review article, “Strategies and Methods for Research on Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior” published in the journal Endocrinology in 2005. The success of these efforts led to the 2006 launch of the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences (OSSD), a scientific membership society for which Sherry served as the first executive director.

While at SWHR she was in demand as a speaker on sex differences research and science policy for lay and professional audiences. Her media appearances include CBS This Morning, To The Contrary with Bonne Erbe on PBS, NPR Talk of the Nation with Neil Conan, and NPR Science Friday with Ira Flatow. She presented at numerous policy briefings on Capitol Hill and was co-author of the landmark report,”10Q: Ten Unanswered Questions About Women and Heart Disease,” which served as the basis for proposed legislation to increase funding for research on heart disease in women.

Prior to joining SHWR, Sherry was a senior analyst at the consulting firm of Abt Associates, where she served as scientific research administrator for the HIV Network for Prevention Trials, under a contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. From 1991-1996, she was director of research grants at the American Health Assistance Foundation, managing grant programs for research on Alzheimer’s disease in the US, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Previously, she worked in the office of the vice president for research and development at the American Red Cross biomedical research laboratories in Rockville, Md., where she wrote and oversaw production of the annual research and development report, managed the Red Cross intramural research grants program and administered the Red Cross human and animal research ethics review and training programs. She later returned to the Red Cross as a consultant in research ethics and regulatory affairs.

Sherry received her B.Sc. (Hons.) in Applied Biology from the University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom and her Ph.D. in Physiology from Duke University, Durham, NC, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Shelton Earp at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Jeffrey McIntyre

“What supports leaders to be effective? What keeps people engaged in their work? How do you differentiate leadership initiatives from management activity? How do you include multi-cultural considerations in your team building? How do you measure sufficiency and success?” These questions inspire Jeffrey R. McIntyre’s work with his clients.

Jeffrey R. McIntyre specializes in leadership development, systems thinking and organizational change. He and his wife, Nancy Miriam Hawley, work individually and in partnership with executive management teams and entrepreneurial individuals, couples and families to cultivate strong relationships and clear communication while developing thriving businesses. They recently co-authored a book entitled Seven Conversations That Matter: Entrepreneurial Couples in Action, slated for publication in 2011. They were featured speakers at the International Coaches Federation of New England 2008 annual conference, where they presented The Seven Intelligences of Leadership^®.

Jeffrey is an executive coach and leadership consultant with particular interest and expertise in working with health and medical professionals. He is the creator of The Seven Intelligences of Leadership^®, a comprehensive, integrative and systemic approach to becoming an effective leader. Drawing on 30 years of training and practice in systems thinking and a solid understanding of how human attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors develop, Jeffrey has a talent for generating conversations that inspire leaders to move their organizations forward by aligning relationships with results. He empowers his clients to take the lead in designing and organizing their leadership teams, strategic plans, communications and accountability processes for success, satisfaction and sustainability.

Jeffrey’s professional memberships include the International Coaches Federation, Inc., the Society for Organizational Learning, and the Buddhist Recovery Network.

As an active member of The Society for Organizational Learning’s Coaches Community of Practice, in 2009 Jeffrey led an initiative to create an SoL coaches certification course in systems thinking in action. The pilot program was launched in 2010.

In 2007 he worked closely with a team from the New England Chapter of the Family Firm Institute and the Northeastern University Center for Family Business to create the first annual Massachusetts Family Business awards, honoring the accomplishments of family businesses.

He has served on the Board of the Massachusetts Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. As an officer, he led MAMFT’s five-year political campaign and spearheaded a strategic process to restructure the organization’s focus and operations. In his role as President, he was active in the President’s Council of the AAMFT, Inc., the national parent organization. He received MAMFT’s highest award for his contributions.

Jeffrey holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from The College of Wooster and a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from Antioch University Graduate School of Professional Psychology. He completed extensive post-graduate study in family systems therapy, a comprehensive platform for understanding all social and business systems. He was an instructor and supervisor in the Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance’s Family and Couples Therapy Training Program from 1992 to 2006. Jeffrey is currently enrolled in the Newfield Coach Training Program led by Julio Olalla, author of From Knowledge to Wisdom and one of the founders of ontological coaching.

A graduate of the Authentic Leadership certificate program at the Marpa School of Business, Naropa University, he has been both a participant and a dialogue leader for an international gathering of thought-leaders at The Shambhala Institute’s Authentic Leadership Program in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Jeffrey has practiced meditation in a variety of Buddhist traditions for almost 40 years. He is a meditation instructor in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition and has taught meditation in a variety of business and professional settings. He created a program entitled The Heart of Recovery which integrates Buddhist meditation with western Twelve Step traditions and serves people in the Shambhala Buddhist community. He currently serves as President on the Board of the Buddhist Recovery Network.

Sean McColl

Sean McColl has insight and perspective garnered through both a corporate and entrepreneurial background. As co-owner of a marketing and promotions company, he led the sales and marketing efforts for the company which grew fourfold in 8 years and ultimately resulted in the successful sale of the company. Prior to that, Sean held several sales and marketing roles with AT&T, including assignments at AT&T’s global headquarters.

Sean has a wide range of experience in training and the development of people. From recruiting through hiring, managing and coaching stages, he has been involved in the development of people and leading them as they progressed through their careers. Because a successful organization is built through inspiring, empowering and leading the people who will ultimately shape it, it is first necessary to be personally successful so that people want to follow you. Having successfully built and run a business as an owner, Sean understands the importance of leadership and knows the skills that a leader must possess and demonstrate.

Sean’s approach to professional and personal development has been influenced by a diversity of experiences both within and outside of the corporate world. Creating and delivering corporate training and managing the professional development of people, as well as many years of volunteering with underprivileged children, have allowed him to study the ways people develop at different stages of their lives. Tutoring grade school youths and helping high school students apply to college and prepare for the life style change that accompanies it, honed his appreciation for the importance of helping people establish the right habits as building blocks for self improvement. It also firmly ingrained in him the value of working one-on-one with a mentor and what can be accomplished through such a relationship.

A firm believer in a work/life balance, Sean has applied the lessons of Next Level’s holistic approach to his own career and to his roles as husband and father. Drawing from his personal experiences, he works with Next Level clients to help them grow both as leaders and people as they work towards achieving their individual goals.

Sean holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies: Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics and Government from American University in Washington, DC, and a Master of Science Degree in Management from the University of Maryland, Graduate School of Management and Technology. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the Washington Networking Group, and is former member of the Board of Directors and past Vice-President of an association for the promotional products industry.

Arlene H. Meritz

Arlene Meritz

Arlene H. Meritz is the Principal of THE MERITZ GROUP LLC, a Human Capital consulting practice helping organizations grow by aligning their people with business strategy. Arlene is a highly qualified Human Capital leader with expertise in organizational consulting, business services, consumer packaged goods marketing and clinical and group psychology. Her practice provides strategic change management, organization effectiveness, talent management, leadership coaching and development.

Before establishing her own consultancy, Arlene spent 25 years at Cadbury Schweppes leading Centers of Excellence in global change management, talent management, organizational effectiveness and learning and development. She spent her first 10 years at Cadbury Schweppes in product and marketing management across various beverage and food brands including P&L responsibility, promotion and advertising, pricing, packaging and placement. Arlene started her career as a psychologist and director of behavioral change programs. This combination of experience enables valuable insight and thought leadership resulting in effective strategic and tactical planning and delivery.

Arlene is known for her ability to facilitate strategic and cultural change to drive sustained business growth and build high performance, innovative cultures. Her experience with coaching and providing thought leadership to senior managers enables cross-functional business alignment, implementation of global people practices and development of talented leaders.

In senior leadership roles at Cadbury, as well as external consulting assignments with leading organizations across various industries, Arlene has guided, advised and coached executives and teams around significant growth and change initiatives impacting commercial, supply chain and corporate functions. In partnership with her own team or a client’s team, she has employed a comprehensive business change model, including conducting needs assessments, creating meaningful business cases for change, performing stakeholder analysis and engagement planning, developing communications strategies and plans, leveraging strategic capability and talent assessments and shaping new cultures and ‘ways of working’ to build sustainable growth and profitability.

Arlene provides leadership coaching to executives of leading organizations on a variety of personal and professional, strategic and operational business issues and opportunities. In so doing, she has leveraged her cross-functional experience, including:

Leading a global Human Resources transformation for a multi-national consumer packaged goods company
Shaping an integrated culture to assimilate four distinct businesses in alignment with a global food manufacturing parent company
Developing a strategic human capital plan for a global multi-media and publishing organization
Facilitating an organization planning initiative to increase effectiveness at an international banking and financial services company
Leading a company-wide organization restructuring to enable a new business model and strategic plan for a consumer packaged goods company
Designing and implementing a comprehensive change plan to enable the strategic acquisition of a major beverage bottling group
Creating an innovative culture at a traditional heritage based and process oriented snack and juice company

Arlene’s education includes an MBA in Marketing from NYU’s Stern School of Business, a MA in Psychology from The New School For Social Research, and a BS in Psychology from Georgetown University.

Kojenwa Moitt

Ms. Kojenwa Moitt began work as an actor in the film and television industry while living in Toronto after having completed a BA from the University of Toronto in History and French literature. Her repertoire in the world of interdisciplinary arts which also includes broadcast media at the National Institute of Broadcasting and visual arts at the Art Gallery of Ontario as well as dance, precipitated a demand for her involvement in helping to direct large scale productions in Toronto and New York such as Toronto Fashion Week, the ReelHeART International Film Festival for which she now sits on the Board of Directors and IDA or Interdisciplinary Arts, a New York based film production company for which she is part owner.

Her subsequent completion of a one-year MBA at Hult in Boston and Shanghai coupled with real experience in leadership development created a fortuitous opening for travel to international markets as well as an opportunity to provide consulting services to both to private and Fortune 500 companies seeking to raise profile and to re-brand to maximize performance.

With an innate understanding of interpersonal relations and with intense focus on politics and media, Ms Moitt has established proficiency in helping clients to reach their professional and personal goals, not only by developing and launching new products but also by changing consumer perceptions using strategic development and innovative solutions as a means to achieve that end.

Specific areas of focus include:

Image management and PR management
Leadership development for business executives
Business development for business executives using innovation methodology
Social media and branding

Kojenwa is currently the CEO and co-founder of Zebra, a PR and business development firm based out of Toronto, Stockholm and New York.

Karen Moscrop

Karen Moscrop is a successful business professional and seasoned consultant with over twenty years experience in the fields of internal auditing, enterprise risk management, and corporate governance. She also has a wealth of experience with the entire learning process, from strategic development and course design to facilitation and coaching.

Prior to establishing her own training and consulting company, Karen held the position as Managing Director of PricewaterhouseCoopers Internal Audit Advisory Services practice, and has worked with a wide variety of clients – nationally and globally, across several industry sectors including financial services, healthcare, education, and consumer & industrial products – and with all levels of an organization, from operations personnel and management, to C-level executives and Audit Committees. It was during her years at PwC that Karen realized her passion was the development of other business professionals.

Today, Karen brings immeasurable energy and a fresh approach to training, coaching, and instructional design – whereby Clients find her unique style thoughtful, strength-based and person-centered. She is adept in designing and delivering highly interactive training programs and workshops and her professional business experience allows her to incorporate creative concepts and real-life experiences into each and every training program and workshop that she facilitates. She brings insight to the learning experience and motivates her clients to connect with the learning materials and work towards developing skills that will guarantee success.

Additionally, Karen has authored several high impact whitepapers including “How to rebalance internal audit priorities in the Sarbanes-Oxley era”, and worked with The IIA Research Foundation to update the, ‘Silver Audit Committee Effectiveness – what works best’ publication’.

Karen is excited to bring her passion and enthusiasm to NEXT LEVEL and embraces the opportunity to positively effect behavioral change so clients can reach new levels of personal and professional growth.

Karen was awarded a Degree in Business Studies from Kingston College in Surrey, England with a concentration on accounting and law. She has since attained a Reiki Master Teacher Degree, and is a professionally Certified Fitness Instructor, and a Small Animal and Equine Massage Therapist.

When not engaged with human clients, Karen is engaged with animal clients – providing hands-on therapies for small animal and equine though her business Animals In-Tune.

She maintains a fitness lifestyle – including running, weight training and horse-back riding – enjoys cooking and entertaining, is an avid reader, and has recently completed writing her first children’s storybook which she hopes will be published in the near future.

Programs she has designed and/or delivered for The Institute of Internal Auditors to clients internationally and in the public and private sectors include enterprise risk management; internal auditing practices, tools, and techniques; organizational ethics; enhancing communication and reporting effectiveness; leadership and development; creative problem solving; operational auditing; interviewing, presentation, and negotiation skills; and consulting activities skills and attitudes.

As a dynamic public speaker, Karen has presented at numerous public and client seminars both nationally and globally on topics such as Corporate Governance, Establishing a Strategically Focused Internal Audit Function, COSO ERM – The Changing Landscape, and Enhancing Internal Auditing Effectiveness. She has the ability to engage various personality styles, and will inspire and challenge participants to think beyond the current situation and use their new skills to enhance performance and achieve their professional goals.

Penny Parker McAlpine

Penny is the founder of ‘Your Chief Accountability Officer’, Your CAO. Her organization helps leaders create their plans, work their plans and most importantly stick to their plans. What makes her organization unique is that Your CAO stays by its client’s side, in the trenches with them, for the 90 intense days after an individualized accountability plan has been created. Her customers marvel about her services because it allows them to work ON their businesses rather than being involved IN the tactical part of their businesses.

Penny’s passion to help successful leaders stay accountable to their goals began during the seven years she acted as Global VP of Membership at The Entrepreneurs’ Organization. In this roll she worked with key member leaders on the Global Board to execute on their vision and assigned roles and responsibilities. She had the privilege to entrepreneurially create and execute on programs that are relevant to members regionally and globally (GLC content, Strategy Summit content and train the trainer programs, and Presidents’ Meeting content) for each of EO’s nine global regions and to supervise six skilled Director level employees in their efforts to enhance chapter health and growth.

Prior to working at EO, Penny spent 14 years working for CARGILL, INC, headquartered out of Minneapolis, MN. She had national headquarter responsibility for $24mm of sales annually into The Home Depot and Lowes. During her career at Cargill she was awarded one of the top nine sales people in the organization in 1998, 1999 and 2,000, was selected as Cargill’s first “Blue Chip” sales person when the Business Unit implemented tiered sales structure, and created key result areas for Cargill’s Inside Sales Manager and Manufacturer Representative Agencies.

Penny graduated Summa Cum Laude from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a BS in Marketing. She served on the Board of Directors of a non Non-profit rehabilitation center to help the homeless, Angels Camp, and was a member of the JUNIOR LEAGUE of Washington, DC. Penny is happily married and has two beautiful children, ages 4 and 3.

Dawn Peters

Dawn Peters is a global coach and personal development veteran, turned entrepreneur, mentor and speaker.

Based on an extensive and successful background in sales, consulting, training, and personal development, she set up an entire global sales training department across 22 offices worldwide. She developed and delivered training to executives and management worldwide. In 2000 she moved her life to America from England re-establish the Washington DC regional office.

Her desire to be the best she can be led her into many Personal Development Courses. These led her to pursue her passion of presenting on-camera in TV; gaining experience in the world of radio and TV, serving as a radio host, on-camera & voice-over talent, producer, and production management consultant.

In addition, Dawn’s love and fascination with people and cultures of the world has taken her backpacking around the world. She has lived in Australia, Greece and France.

Drawing on a background of a Degree in Psychology, Diploma in Life Mastery, Certificates in Therapeutic Massage and Cordon Blue cooking, coupled with her real-life global and personal experiences, Dawn discovered a deep interest and passion for health through food. So much so, that she founded a company called Naked Health. Her approach focuses on the mind-body-food connection – empowering people with the ‘food mindset’ for their best life!

Her partnership with Next Level is the perfect culmination of the multi-facets of her life, and she is constantly driven forward to help enable others live their lives, not by default, but by design.

Sandra Salander

Sandra Chasan was born in Sweden and raised in Sweden and Spain by a strong, independent mother. Inheriting her mother’s independence and survival skills, her goals were predetermined: to work hard, do well, and build financial stability for “a rainy day”.

Sandra’s burning curiosity and resolute determination resulted in a variety of successful careers. These include TV production, Interior Design, Sales, Marketing and Property Development.

One of Sandra’s distinguished strengths is identifying ineffective business structures and untapped opportunities within an organization. By initiating progressive sales and marketing strategies, starting up new departments, and expanding services, Sandra stimulated the growth of many businesses.

The success of Sandra’s work inspired her to start her own companies. Soon she became a “successful workaholic”. She had a tenacious resilience and an exceptional ability to process information, what she did not know, was how to say NO.

“The success, the stress, and seeing how far, and how much I could take on, became a way of life. The realization of how I continuously pushed limits beyond my own health and happiness forced me ultimately to make some important life and work changes. From my experience, I found a new passion in guiding other professionals to achieve their highest potential, their goals and desires.

My goal is to help you and your company succeed with a new approach. We focus on your goals and those of your company. We evaluate priorities, we identify your needs, and implement strategic changes that will help improve your leadership effectiveness. Throughout our work, I will guide you on a path that emphasizes a balanced and healthy personal life; as your coach, I will be your thought partner.

I believe what makes me an effective leadership developer, is my varied experience in business, working with different cultures, my passion for performance, and my ability to hone in on the specific needs of each individual client.”

Sandra is currently enhancing her educational background with a degree in psychology at Blekinge Tekniska University, in Blekinge, Sweden.

Shelby Scarbrough

A popular speaker on building relationships whether across the room or across cultures, entrepreneurship and leadership, Shelby Scarbrough blends protocol with practicality for business and government executives. She has worked with such notable figures as: His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, Presidents Reagan, Bush, Ford, Carter and Nixon, President Walesa of Poland, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and members of the Royal Family, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela. She planned events and meetings from the Vatican to Buckingham Palace to The Kremlin and The White House.

A political appointee in the Reagan and Bush Administrations, she served as a White House Presidential Advance Trip Coordinator, and a Protocol Visits Officer at the State Department. Upon the death of President Reagan, she served as the Washington, DC Deputy Lead for his State Funeral and advisor to the funeral of President Ford.

She recently concluded her service as the elected global board president of the international association of 7300 plus highly motivated entrepreneurs worldwide from 40 countries. As an “EO Ambassador,” she raised the standard of global events and presided over the increased globalization and world stature of the organization. Membership doubled during her three year tenure on the board.

Shelby is a serial entrepreneur. She founded her consulting business Practical Protocol to specialize in international special events management, business protocol training and custom-designed plans addressing the unique needs of very special clients. Recently, she co-founded Conexus Global Services with fellow entrepreneur Cindy Boyd to provide relationship leveraging services, business development and marketing service.

To follow her passion connecting enterprising entrepreneurs, Shelby co-founded nCourage entrepreneurs, angel investing fund to fuel the dreams of the innovative. The group recently awarded seed funding for two promising concepts at the Rice Business Alliance Business Plan Competition.

Pam Sheppard, ACC, FCIPD

Pam is President of Sage West Associates Ltd and an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation. She has over 25 years senior leadership experience in human resources and coaching, spanning the public and private sector. All her roles have included successfully developing, mentoring, and coaching people in both large and small organisations. Pam’s unique background and global experience is combined with a special talent for supporting people in creating personal and professional success. Pam is committed to excellence, providing exceptional service, and creating mutually rewarding client relationships.

Pam possesses a wealth of experience in strategic management, innovative leadership, and international business expertise. In theUnited Kingdom, Pam worked as a Human Resources (HR) Director for Birmingham City Council. At the time,Birminghamwas the largest local government employer inWestern Europe. In her position, she worked with C-level executives and elected public officials. Her role covered the full spectrum of HR topics, including strategy, operations, technology, talent management, large scale change management and organisational development. Pam is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the world’s largest chartered HR and development professional body.

In 2004, Pam established her own successful coaching and consulting company in theUKand shortly thereafter moved to theUSA. Today, she works internationally, coaching clients throughout the world. Executives and business owners seek her out for her authentic understanding of the challenges they face. Her portfolio of clients includes entrepreneurs, small businesses, public sector organisations, Fortune 500 companies, and non-profit organisations. Her private sector clients have included companies in the financial services, manufacturing, design, and information technology fields.

Pam’s coaching is dedicated to supporting professionals and executives in improving their careers and enhancing the quality of their personal lives. Clients enjoy her quick wit and ability to stand strong in the presence of difficulty and uncertainty. Pam is always reliable, authentic, challenging, creative, pragmatic, and makes a lasting difference with her clients. Recent themes in her coaching have included leadership, emotional intelligence, career transition, organisational change, creation of high performance teams, and strategic thinking.

Pam’s consulting services focus on change management, strategy, and people management to maximise the skills, knowledge and talents of an organisation. Pam skillfully combines elements of solid business-based practices to enable individuals and teams to discover sustainable solutions for workplace challenges. Her special talent is supporting clients to live their values while creating an environment of success as leaders, managers, employees, and business owners.

Pam uses personal assessment tools in her coaching and consulting when appropriate. She is certified to use many different types of tools, including DiSC® Profile,Gallup’s Strengths Finder, and the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies’ Big Five™ assessment.

Pam volunteers her services at several organisations. The McColl School of Business at Queens University Charlotte chose Pam as a graduate MBA coach, and ProNet Charlotte relies upon her for career transition coaching. She serves as a Board Member for the Metropolitan Business Professional Women, and is a member of the National Society for Human Resource Management, which has selected her as a National HR Mentor.

Pam is frequently invited to speak on topics involving coaching and human resources. She has presented at a variety of university, professional, and non-profit organisations. Her more recent speaking topics have included:

Global Leadership
Talent Management
HR Issues for Information Technology
Big Five™ Assessment
Work Life Balance
New Possibilities

Pam travels extensively for business and pleasure – she believes that challenge and new adventures are an integral part of her own personal growth and development. She is passionate about fitness, holistic health practices, experiencing nature, and developing her creative talents.

Pam’s education includes a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences fromBirminghamUniversity, graduate level business studies atSolihullCollege, post graduate studies in HR atWolverhamptonBusinessSchool, and the Advanced Coaching Program atCoachUniversity.

Heidi Sparkes Guber

Heidi Sparkes Guber has designed and delivered groundbreaking programs for thousands of people in over 25 years as a management and leadership consultant. Specializing in the application of vision and purpose to achieve strategic focus and breakthrough results, she has worked with a variety of organizations including J&L Steel, NMB (ING Bank), Engelhard, AT&T, UCB Pharma, Merck, Wells Fargo, Cisco Systems, Ford Motor Company and Ford Credit, Nissan Motor Company, ExxonMobil, the National Security Agency, IFC/World Bank and ABC Home.

Ms. Guber directs, designs and delivers the Leadership in Change program for executive leaders and senior managers at UCB Pharma in Brussels, Belgium. This program is now in its ninth iteration as one of the top three leadership development programs at UCB. As part of the talent development team at UCB, Ms. Guber also designed and helped implement the Global Leadership Team annual meetings for the top 160 leaders of UCB. These interventions have supported UCB’s growth through two major mergers and a five-year transformation from being a 100-year old Belgian chemical, film and pharmaceutical company into a global biopharma company specializing in the treatment of life-threatening diseases.

Since 2005, she has also been a senior program leader for the Nissan GET (Global Executive Training) program, the elite leadership development curriculum at the Nissan Management Institute in Hakone, Japan, where she also coaches advanced participants in action learning applications of numerous business perspectives and tools they learn. Her executive coaching clients have come from all department and region of Nissan Motor, Ltd.

From 1992 – 2002, Ms. Guber developed the Breakthrough Leadership Process™ at Citibank, Bank One, Finance One, Ford Credit and Ford Motor Company. In cross divisional programs delivered for Ford Financial, Ford of South America, Ford of Europe, Volvo Car Corporation and Volvo Car Finance, Breakthrough Leadership program initiatives resulted in over $300 million in incremental corporate profits. As an integral part of these programs, Ms. Guber implemented a comprehensive leadership development and coaching process for senior executives and managers to help them achieve personal excellence while building high performance in their global teams.

Throughout the past two decades, Ms. Guber has engaged in and supervised over 500 coaching interventions, including ongoing relationships with clients for up to seven years of leadership development. In addition to numerous corporate clients in the financial services and auto industries, she has coached executives and senior managers in government agencies such as the National Security Agency, Center for Advanced Study of Language, U.S. State Department and IFC/World Bank. In her private coaching practice, her clients include several CEOs of mid-size family-owned businesses.

Ms. Guber has served as a certified trainer for Insight Education Systems in The Power of Small: MicroInequities, a new approach to diversity and leadership development based on the research of Mary Rowe at MIT. She regularly leads sessions for 20-250 participants in rganizations such as Merck, Wells Fargo, Cisco Systems and Lockheed Martin in the US. She has delivered sessions worldwide for Cisco, in Europe and Asia, including Spain, Italy, France, Great Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, India, Singapore, Korea and Australia. She also has designed and delivered the internal facilitator training programs for these companies. Ms. Guber has served on the Council of Trustees for the Society for Organizational Learning, a global community of educators, researchers and business leaders dedicated to the study and practice of systems thinking, organizational learning and learning-based leadership. As a consultant to SoL, she has facilitated the ongoing action learning and research collaboration of organizational members such as AT&T, DTE, Ford Motor Company, Harley-Davidson, IFC, Intel, NSA, Royal Dutch/Shell and Unilever. She also plays an active role in developing SoL communities of practice in consulting and executive coaching, where she serves on the design and delivery team for the new course Coaching from a Systems Perspective.

While working with the Chairman and CEO of Ford Credit, Ms. Guber served as curriculum design director and guest lecturer for Driving Fundamental Change in Business: A CEO’s Perspective, an MBA course at the University of Michigan. She has guest lectured at the Institute for Women’s Leadership, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. She is now a contributing author to the recently published 2nd edition of The Change Handbook, a definitive resource on today’s best methods for engaging whole systems.

Since 1977, Ms. Guber has been an investor and activist for The Hunger Project, which funds Strategic Planning in Action and leadership development programs for women elected to village leadership in South Asia and grass roots activists in Sub-Saharan Africa and South America. She has also consulted to non-profit and social service organizations such as the International Dyslexia Association, National Center for Learning Disabilities and Omega Institute.

Ms. Guber received her BA from Duke University and a Master of Professional Studies in Creativity Development and Expressive Therapy from Pratt Institute, where she co-wrote the first program textbook, Symbolic Dialogues in the Therapeutic Encounter. She is married to filmmaker Zev Guber, with whom she produced Lost Ships, a 3-part special series on maritime archeology for TLC/Discovery Channel. She is the proud mother of Marisa, Elizabeth and Sarah Guber, whose emerging global citizenship are among her most rewarding personal endeavors.

Monica Thakrar

Ms. Thakrar’s expertise builds on over 12 years of experience focused on strategy, change management, leadership development, training and coaching. Monica brings to all of her work a deep understanding of human and organizational development based on years of working with large-scale organizations, executives, mid-managers, and individuals on creating and managing change.

She has worked with individuals and organizations to develop strategic plans, align leaders and individuals around it, create tactical plans to implement the change, and enhance leaders and individual’s skill sets in order to implement that change. Monica has worked with clients in the private sector (Lucent, Cable and Wireless, Cannon), the public sector (US Department of Homeland Security, US Department of Education, US Agency of International Development, US Department of Agriculture) and abroad (Central Bank of Jordan and Greater Amman Municipality).

Consulting and Coaching Approach: Clients describe Ms. Thakrar’s approach to consulting and coaching as intuitive, yet practical, which has allowed them to make lasting and positive changes. She ties coaching to practical, real changes going on in the organization and often uses 360 feedback tools to ground her coaching approach in desired outcomes for the individual, the team, and the organization as a whole. Monica works closely with clients to jointly develop goals, provide unbiased support, ask powerful questions to test client assumptions, and create accountability that will result in sustainable transformation and change. Through consulting and coaching she delivers tangible results in the areas of leadership presence, communications, strategic visioning, organizational change, and management/leadership.

Credentials and Awards: Ms. Thakrar’s credentials is an ACC certified coach through the International Coaching Federation. She also is currently the owner of her own consulting and coaching business and has experience with 360- degree feedback assessments. She serves on the board of the DC Chapter of the International Coaching Federation.

Foundation

Pernilla Alex vonMettenheim

Pernilla Alex von Mettenheim is an entrepreneur, educator and consultant. She has over 18 years of journalism/PR involved experience in Sweden and USA. Extensive sales and networking in the media field and sustainable business development, and trained leadership developer for Next Level.

An entrepreneur, she has started several successful businesses. Currently the owner of Mrs Lavender Inc and Vice President of Sage Master Build LLC. Mrs Lavender Inc ECOCREW is a residential and commercial cleaning company that is green, sustainable, pays living wages and teaches ergonomically correct practices.

Ms Alex von Mettenheim has been consulting residential and commercial clients since 2002 in green, holistic and sustainable practices. Her company is a long term member of Green America, USGBC and BBB of Greater Washington Area.

Her passion is in helping facilitate change and development in people and organizations. She has developed marketing strategies, materials, web sites and other business development. Another passion is public speaking and leading workshops in green and sustainable business practices. To mention a few recent engagements, she was the opening speaker for the Green Living EXPO, April 2010 for Arlingtonians for a clean environment, for the last four years held workshops, been a panelist and spoke publicly at the Green Festival in Washington DC and at Arlington Economic Development for Sustainable business.

Ms Alex von Mettenheim served SACC -USA as a senior advisor for Clean Technology 2009-2010 and worked as Director for Marketing and PR for Neo Niche Strategies. She was also teaching for four years at the Swedish School. Pernilla has also been involved in non profit personal development mentoring for 15 years.

In Sweden she worked in media at different printed daily media, like Dala Demokraten, Aftonbladet and Ystad Allehanda. She was also in the production teams for several television productions for TV 4, TV 3, TV 5. One of the founders of the media freelance group Tusen Tecken and Medialex Ab.

Pernilla is happily married to her soul mate David, with two young children and are involved in soccer, swimming, Boy and Girl Scout activities and. Her love of literature, music and the arts has also been instilled into her children’s life. The whole family is involved in the Vermont based Aloha foundation. She enjoys photography, walking, nature time, playing board games and relaxing with her family and two dogs and cats.

Our Leadership Developers