About Me
I’m an executive coach, advisor, and group facilitator for leaders navigating social change and complex group dynamics. With a commitment to enabling transformative growth, I help my clients steer their organizations in the right direction, aiming not just to adapt but to make a lasting, positive impact on society.
Central to my approach is my Social Lens Framework. Designed to accelerate social innovation, this framework gives clients a multifaceted view of their organizational problems by pulling from historical, cultural, and societal contexts. My methodology is grounded in my vast experience of guiding leaders to make a meaningful impact in their respective domains. Since 2010, I have advised executives at dozens of organizations, including Harvard Medical School, NASA, The US State Department, Starbucks, and TED. Additionally, I have served as an Innovator-in-Residence at the University of Southern California, where I helped develop a doctoral program in social work with an emphasis in social innovation.
My versatility extends beyond one-on-one coaching and advising for executives. As a facilitator, I empower leadership teams to craft and implement forward-thinking strategic plans, as I have recently done with organizations like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and AARP. I can also guide board meetings and executive retreats to create an environment conducive to reflection, growth, and synergy.
A graduate of The Johns Hopkins University and Northwestern University, I am is also a writer whose book reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and other outlets. I am currently working on a book to help people think more critically about social innovation, previews of which can be read in my weekly Substack newsletter.
I am a little jaded about social media right now, but you can still find me on LinkedIn andMastodon.
Ten Projects To Get To Know Me
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - The leaders of the nursing profession were preparing for a national focus on health equity, structural racism, and the social determinants of health. At the same time, nurses on the frontlines were struggling with burnout and a staffing crisis. Many justifiably felt that the profession could not tackle health disparities before first addressing its own problems, including racism among nurses. For five years, I helped RWJF navigate these conflicts with the goal of ultimately building a more just health care system for all. Some of the projects I advised included SHIFT Nursing and a national survey on racism in nursing that was featured in STAT.
Insight Labs - As a principal of this “philanthropic think tank,” I helped design strategy sessions in collaboration with dozens of prominent organizations, including NASA, the U.S. State Department, TED, Harvard Medical School, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Starbucks, and Ashoka. Taking the lead on content creation and research, I produced hundreds of interviews, articles, and other materials to help leaders see new possibilities for their organizations. Insight Labs was disbanded in 2014, but a historical record of its projects can be found here.
AARP/Center to Champion Nursing in America - Nurses have been champions for health equity for as long as the profession has existed, yet nurses’ ubiquity can also makes it difficult to articulate and build upon their specific contributions. I outlined a path to do so as an adviser to the Population Health in Nursing research group as they investigated several models with the potential to move the needle on health disparities in America. The same week the group’s findings were published, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic, so I then took on an additional role helping the team connect their findings to the emerging crisis.
Nurse Staffing Task Force - The COVID-19 pandemic forced a long-simmering nursing staffing crisis into full view, leading to labor conflicts across the country that have not yet ceased. To address the crisis, a national initiative was launched by the Partners for Nurse Staffing (American Nurses Association, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, American Organization for Nursing Leadership, Healthcare Financial Management Association, Institute for Healthcare Improvement). As a strategic adviser embedded with AACN, I helped the group reach workable conclusions, share them with the public, and translate them into an actionable agenda.
Jayhawk Global - Building upon prior work with the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare, I advised the inaugural Vice Provost for Jayhawk Global as she grew the university’s online presence. In particular, we explored new ways to articulate the value of KU’s offerings in a world where public trust in higher education and its degree programs are on the decline.
USC School of Social Work - As an Innovator-in-Residence and faculty member, I helped incubate several new programs at the school, including a doctor in social innovation, a nursing program focused on the social determinants of health, and a conference on social work and the arts. In my courses, I helped graduate students translate their theoretical knowledge into concrete proposals for change, working with about a hundred students on capstone projects in many different areas of social change. I also collaborated with faculty to refine instruction using the Social Lens Framework I currently use with coaching clients.
Exelon - Leaders at the largest regulated utility in the United States wanted to see if they could adapt some of the innovation principles used in Insight Labs. I collaborated with executives to create a custom curriculum, then tested it with teams in three cities working on how to redesign the electric grid for a sustainable future. This work also served an early field trial for the Social Lens Framework I currently use with clients, demonstrating its applicability to a range of roles and problems within an organization.
The Ovarian Cancer Project - Over the course of a year, I facilitated listening sessions with ovarian cancer patients in five cities, then blended them with expert interviews to identify eight social conflicts in the ovarian cancer experience. This analysis then informed strategy sessions with the Susan Poorman Blackie Ovarian Cancer Foundation and the Clarity Foundation, two leading organizations addressing the disease. Some of the conclusions from the project can be found at this site.
UX for Good - This organization’s annual challenges pitted some of the world’s greatest user experience designers against entrenched social challenges, such as fair compensation for musicians in New Orleans, the emotional well-being of children, and the long-term social impact of monuments to genocide. In each case, I helped frame the problem for the designers, advised them how to aim high in their ambitions, and communicated key concepts from the event. Click here to read about a key concept that emerged from our work at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda.
The Davis Experience - I designed a year-long conversation on the nature of place with a Phoenix architect that ultimately informed the transformation of an empty lot into this building. More than mere thought leadership, our published interviews touched on topics such as sustainability, materials science, power in urban spaces, and the fundamental character of architecture.